Just curious if anyone has done this themselves. I am handy, have tools, can follow instructions, have access to a truck to haul lumber, am off for 2 1/2 weeks in December, and have a big yard. My only limitation is that it needs to be fairly easy to dissassemble as I move around a bit (every 3 years or so).
Jeremy, back in the day, I put one of those together and I have no skills. They are beautiful but the wood does require some maintenance. One thing I did notice with swings set is the placement in the yard is important and somewhat determines how much you kids will use it. The first swingset I did was close to the back door of the house and more part of the hub of activity in the yard. The kids used that a lot. The second one i got finicky about the look and theme of my backyard and I tucked the set over to the side out of the way. The kids never used it.
They are pretty easy to build… You will need some help though holding things etc. Grab a couple of beers and invite your buddy over for a couple afternoons.
You mean you are going to get the plans instead of the kit and buy and cut your own lumber? Have you priced that out compared to the kits, given the need to overbuy and cut and so on? It would be a great deal more work I’d imagine. If you want it to last a while you’ll need to buy some kind of treated lumber, and that can be difficult to cut and may produce a great quantity of toxic sawdust near the playground.
Anyway, if you move a lot, find a way to mark the parts so you’ll know how to put it back together. Those things weigh many hundreds of pounds and have a lot of big and awkward parts even disassembled, and might be difficult / expensive to move.
The kit comes with everything but the lumber. Cutting wood really isn’t that big a deal if you have this new thing called a saw. I have one that runs on electricity, so it is even easier.
Marking the pieces is a good idea though. Fortunately, I am in the military, and have the deluxe package when it comes to moving. I just point and grunt and they have to take it apart and put everything back together.
My dad built us a fort too… and we were practically little monkeys all summer in the backyard. He and my grandfather did all the plans and the construction themselves. Had a climbing rope, trapeze, swings, and a monkeybars with a walkway above them that went to a zipline that went across the yard.
