TTMA play structures

[janegold]

We just moved from our city condo into a house with a big backyard.  We have a 3 yo and another on the way.  Since spring is (hopefully) around the corner, I would like to start thinking about installing a play structure in the backyard in the next month or two.

Anyone have any words of wisdom? Brands you particularly like or don't like? I only know of Creative Playthings, I think they're reputable? 

Types of wood I should be cautious of?

Best places to buy?

Anyone order one off of Amazon rather than through a dealer?

Anyone ever buy a used one off Craigslist and have it transported and reinstalled at their house? My friend got a beautiful, practically new one for her boys this way last year.

And also, did you just have it installed on grass, or did you have the surrounding area landscaped and mulched?

[calico]

We bought ours from Costco, it has 2 slides and 3 swings and playhouse. It’s installed on pea gravel next to grass. We bought it about 4 years ago. It’s been a good purchase and gets used quite a bit in nice weather.

[carolinagirl831]

I bought my from the back yard guys.
It is a gorilla playset. Our neighbors had one and it is very sturdy and big enough to grow into.
We got the gorilla chateau with Malibu roof
style. The top looks like a playhouse and the roof stands tall enough I am able to full stand inside. The girls love it and won’t outgrow it anytime soon.
It was $2100 and we paid a local guy to set up and install- $450 he did it in about 7 hours and it would have taken us... days..
Worth every penny!

[Mrs.flang]

I also know someone that bought a used set for super cheap. They had to rent a truck to transport it. It seemed a little more involved than I would want to be, but they saved money.

Ours is gorilla brand and its from home depot. It was just under $1k. I also used the home depot service to find a contractor to put it together because I didn't want to have DH spend a whole weekend(+) on it. It was worth the extra money IMO.

The area we installed was not very level. The contractor that put it together leveled as best as he could and we had to prop one side up temporarily. Then months later we had a landscaper in for other work and had them level it out, put a border in, and added mulch. Probably overkill, but with an uneven yard we needed more work than normal.

This is from before we added the leveling/border.



I took a picture this weekend of the update with the border.

[pooh8402]

We got ours from Costco, a little less than a year ago. E1 likes it, especially swinging. He plays on it when the weather is nice, and when he has friends over. I expect it will get even more use once E2 is old enough to play on it.

[Susie]

I've been really debating one.  We have a fenced backyard, and it would be nice to turn the kids out to play for brief periods (well, just DD is old enough for now, but eventually plural).  DD enjoys the playground, but it's a whole thing to load up in the bike trailer and go, so it doesn't happen many days a week.

OTOH, the playground is a free resource, and when they outgrow it I haven't invested anything in it (well, besides my town taxes!).  We have several in town, including 2 different ones that are 2 miles from home (opposite directions).  Plus winter here is long and bitterly cold, so a play structure wouldn't get year round use.  And our backyard is limited in size and has a big tree right smack in the middle.

And so the debate continues.

[icedcoffee]

Feb 21, 2020 14:42:59 GMT -5 Susie said:

I've been really debating one.  We have a fenced backyard, and it would be nice to turn the kids out to play for brief periods (well, just DD is old enough for now, but eventually plural).  DD enjoys the playground, but it's a whole thing to load up in the bike trailer and go, so it doesn't happen many days a week.

OTOH, the playground is a free resource, and when they outgrow it I haven't invested anything in it (well, besides my town taxes!).  We have several in town, including 2 different ones that are 2 miles from home (opposite directions).  Plus winter here is long and bitterly cold, so a play structure wouldn't get year round use.  And our backyard is limited in size and has a big tree right smack in the middle.

And so the debate continues.

This is basically us word for word.  I think ultimately we'll skip it.  We have an elementary school across the street where we go, although it would be so nice to just send the kids out back.  I'm thinking maybe we'll just invest in other less "permanent" things to play with outside.  The tree in the middle really would make placement of a playground a little awkward.

The days of DS1 being entertained by trying to catch the dog's tail are probably limited.  LOL

[janegold]

Ahh, these new ones you guys are posting pictures of all look much prettier than the used ones I've been looking at online. I like the idea of reusing one and being a bit more sustainable, but on the other hand, I do worry a bit about safety (especially of the plastic parts, which I might have to replace anyway) and, let's be honest, looks.

And oh yes, no matter which route we go, we will DEFINITELY be having it professionally installed. My H can barely change a light bulb, lol.

[carolinagirl831]

We held off for two years since we moved into our new house. Our girls have begged us to buy one for ...years! About a month ago they drew elaborate plans for one and asked my husband to build it. He broke down and said ok fine we’ll get one! Ha! We have always thought it was way too much $$ we can just go to the playground ect.. which we have for years but now that our girls are 4 and 6 they can do independent play. They love this thing! They play on it every morning and after school. Prior to this they constantly begged to play on our neighbors. It’s definitely nice to have it in our own yard yes and I wish we had just gotten it sooner.

[bcv513]

We have a Gorilla also, the nantucket set. It was expensive, but it looks brand new two years later. I leave it uncovered all winter and it's totally fine. It's big enough that my 200lb husband can stand up inside it. I think the weight limit is 650 pounds or something. A friend has a Kidkraft set, which was much cheaper. It's small though and the wood is already splitting. I love our set.

[sapphireblue]

We just got one in October. My cousin's kids had outgrown it and they wanted the space in their small yard for a new dog.

We had the company that made it dismantle it at his house, drive it the 2 1/2 hours to our house, and set it up (company was Backyard Adventures). We didn't do any leveling, just put it on grass. It's a pretty small one as these things go. It was probably in his yard at least 5 years and could stand to be refinished but it looks pretty good.

My kids love it!!!

[sapphireblue]

You can't really see it in the photo but underneath the playhouse, behind the slide, is a small picnic table.

Just kid-sized--we couldn't sit at it comfortably.

[lacey]

We have the same gorilla set as @carolinagirl837 except we have the vinyl roof over the club house instead of the fancy roof. It seems to be great quality. We put it in almost 2 years ago and it looks great. I stained it the first year, did nothing to it last year, and will probably do another coat of stain this year. We put it in when my daughter was a young 2 year old so it was important to me to have something other than grass under it. We ended up having someone level an area (also important to me that I could easily see it from the kitchen window and that was not the level area), put in a plastic playground boarder from Lowe's, and then filled with pea stone. It was a lot of work, but the results are nice. Ours is next to the tree line and we have a lot of deer and ticks in the area so I was uncomfortable with wood mulch and too cheap for the rubber mulch.

I love having one in the backyard - we spend far more time on it than we would at a public playground. My kids are still young (just turned 4 and 20 months) so they don't spend time on it when we are not also outside yet, but they will eventually.

[janegold]

Feb 21, 2020 15:54:27 GMT -5 lacey said:

We have the same gorilla set as @carolinagirl837 except we have the vinyl roof over the club house instead of the fancy roof. It seems to be great quality. We put it in almost 2 years ago and it looks great. I stained it the first year, did nothing to it last year, and will probably do another coat of stain this year. We put it in when my daughter was a young 2 year old so it was important to me to have something other than grass under it. We ended up having someone level an area (also important to me that I could easily see it from the kitchen window and that was not the level area), put in a plastic playground boarder from Lowe's, and then filled with pea stone. It was a lot of work, but the results are nice. Ours is next to the tree line and we have a lot of deer and ticks in the area so I was uncomfortable with wood mulch and too cheap for the rubber mulch.

I love having one in the backyard - we spend far more time on it than we would at a public playground. My kids are still young (just turned 4 and 20 months) so they don't spend time on it when we are not also outside yet, but they will eventually.

What was the order of operations?

1. Level ground (and rip up grass?)
2. Install swing set
3. Install perimeter and ground cover?

[janegold]

Feb 21, 2020 15:23:22 GMT -5 bcv513 said:

We have a Gorilla also, the nantucket set. It was expensive, but it looks brand new two years later. I leave it uncovered all winter and it's totally fine. It's big enough that my 200lb husband can stand up inside it. I think the weight limit is 650 pounds or something. A friend has a Kidkraft set, which was much cheaper. It's small though and the wood is already splitting. I love our set.

This is great to know, thanks!

[gt7301b]

Feb 21, 2020 15:03:44 GMT -5 janegold said:

Ahh, these new ones you guys are posting pictures of all look much prettier than the used ones I've been looking at online. I like the idea of reusing one and being a bit more sustainable, but on the other hand, I do worry a bit about safety (especially of the plastic parts, which I might have to replace anyway) and, let's be honest, looks.

And oh yes, no matter which route we go, we will DEFINITELY be having it professionally installed. My H can barely change a light bulb, lol.

We have one in our backyard that came with the house and is need of some repair.  I found a local swing set installer and his first response was, well there is a lot of rot.  I'd still rather repair it and reuse rather than getting a completely new one so I asked for a repair quote. The price was $300 - $400 vs. ~ $2,000 for a new set/ installation / removal of the old one, plus there is no reason to get a new one when this one can be repaired.

[mrshandy]

We bought one about 4 1/2 years ago from Costco. It's nice to have, but now that the kids are 9 and 6. It mostly gets used when we have friends over or a party. It's great for that. I would say the kids play on it solo maybe 1-2/month, 0 times in the winter really.

We assembled it ourselves and it was a lot of work! It took 2-3 full days + 4-5 weekday evenings.

I restained it last year and it looks much nicer now. Restaining it took maybe like 18-20 hours.

I'm happy we got one, but I wish my kids would play on it more.

[patches31709]

Feb 21, 2020 14:20:40 GMT -5 Mrs.flang said:

I also know someone that bought a used set for super cheap. They had to rent a truck to transport it. It seemed a little more involved than I would want to be, but they saved money.

Ours is gorilla brand and its from home depot. It was just under $1k. I also used the home depot service to find a contractor to put it together because I didn't want to have DH spend a whole weekend(+) on it. It was worth the extra money IMO.

The area we installed was not very level. The contractor that put it together leveled as best as he could and we had to prop one side up temporarily. Then months later we had a landscaper in for other work and had them level it out, put a border in, and added mulch. Probably overkill, but with an uneven yard we needed more work than normal.

This is from before we added the leveling/border.

Ours is just like this, except the trapeze bar is off the back by the climbing wall. It's also from Home Depot, although we put it together ourselves. It really wasn't too bad - I sealed everything, then DH put it together. Maybe 7 or 8 hours?

[freshsqueezed]

We bought a used Rainbow set for around $1,000 and paid $500 to have it moved. After stain it looks brand new. Highly recommend

[lacey]

Feb 21, 2020 16:02:31 GMT -5 janegold said:

Feb 21, 2020 15:54:27 GMT -5 lacey said:

We have the same gorilla set as @carolinagirl837 except we have the vinyl roof over the club house instead of the fancy roof. It seems to be great quality. We put it in almost 2 years ago and it looks great. I stained it the first year, did nothing to it last year, and will probably do another coat of stain this year. We put it in when my daughter was a young 2 year old so it was important to me to have something other than grass under it. We ended up having someone level an area (also important to me that I could easily see it from the kitchen window and that was not the level area), put in a plastic playground boarder from Lowe's, and then filled with pea stone. It was a lot of work, but the results are nice. Ours is next to the tree line and we have a lot of deer and ticks in the area so I was uncomfortable with wood mulch and too cheap for the rubber mulch.

I love having one in the backyard - we spend far more time on it than we would at a public playground. My kids are still young (just turned 4 and 20 months) so they don't spend time on it when we are not also outside yet, but they will eventually.

What was the order of operations?

1. Level ground (and rip up grass?)
2. Install swing set
3. Install perimeter and ground cover?

Yes, exactly that. Make sure to use a good weed blocker under the ground cover. When they leveled ours the grass was all removed.

[nicolewi]

We have one. We bought a used one b/c we knew of a company that would dissassemble, move it, and re-assemble for us. It was totally worth the fee they charged and we saved thousands of dollars vs buying a new set. We looked for Rainbow or another local brand--got the local one. We re-stained it and added a few more accessories (pirate wheel, got new swings, new trapeze bar, new Air Pogo).

We just found a close-to-level spot in our yard and installed it there. Did not tear up grass or put in any kind of sub-surface. My kids used it a ton last summer at 10, 8, 6 and 4 and I expect it will get a lot of use again. They play on it even now, in winter, when they are outside. In fact, my now 7 and 5 year olds are on it right now.

I wanted one with a clubhouse b/c I figured that would continue to get use from the older kids hanging out with friends even when they weren't so into playing on it.

We have a lower floor with clubhouse area above (with roof). There are monkey bars, 2 swings, a trapeze bar, a tire swing, and an "air pogo". There's also a small climbing wall thingy and a slide.

We do not have any parks that we can walk to--always requires a car. For me, it's awesome to have the set. Gives the kids a big home base in the backyard for when I send them out to play. They go out and play in the yard all year long and the playset adds a lot of interest.

[birdy]

Lurker here, but I wanted to throw lifetime play sets into the mix. We didn’t want to deal the maintenance of wood and the lifetime sets were comparable in price. We got the Playset with Clubhouse and It’s been super sturdy and has held up well.

[simpsongal]

We got the sun climber extreme gorilla play set from overstock. Also paid like $450 to have it assembled. It’s awesome! On mulch, dirt and near plants in a shady corner of our yard.

[humpforfree]

We have the Costco Cedar Summit one. It was just under $1000 I think. Our yard wasn’t super level in that area, so we dug up the grass, leveled out the dirt, built a little retaining wall, and had mulch brought in. Then H built the playground on top of that. We did it all ourselves and it was like 2-3 weekends of work? With playing breaks, etc. TBH the prep of the yard was more expensive and time consuming than the actual building.

It’s been almost 3 years now and the kids are 6 & 4.5 and still love it. They and their friends use it frequently. (We also are relatively rural and do not have any local playgrounds, so it’s amazing to be able to just shoo them outside.) The playground is cedar and I think this year we will be due for resealing it.

[lolalolalola]

We had a wooden one from TRU- probably around $500, but I don't remember. We did not want to spend the money on more expensive ones nor did we see any reason to! It held up great, my kids used it almost daily until they decided they were too old and would rather have a trampoline. It got heavy use from ages 3-10. We would tighten the bolts every spring but that was about it. I think DH stained it once.

[sandandsea]

We designed and built our own after looking at a ton of ideas online. It was a ton more effort and about $500-600 all in (wood, screws, stain, ladder, swing, toy storage, etc). We wanted more of a fort and a smaller footprint than most pre fab option allowed. We built it about 3 years ago and the parts that get played with the most are the pulley and bucket on the right, the hammock swing inside the fort, and the dirt/sand/gravel area underneath with their trucks. The boys (8&3 now) love it but idk if it’s really worth the effort. Pic poof.

[janegold]

Feb 23, 2020 14:14:45 GMT -5 humpforfree said:

We have the Costco Cedar Summit one. It was just under $1000 I think. Our yard wasn’t super level in that area, so we dug up the grass, leveled out the dirt, built a little retaining wall, and had mulch brought in. Then H built the playground on top of that. We did it all ourselves and it was like 2-3 weekends of work? With playing breaks, etc. TBH the prep of the yard was more expensive and time consuming than the actual building.

It’s been almost 3 years now and the kids are 6 & 4.5 and still love it. They and their friends use it frequently. (We also are relatively rural and do not have any local playgrounds, so it’s amazing to be able to just shoo them outside.) The playground is cedar and I think this year we will be due for resealing it.

This one looks super fun, and I like that it seems a bit more compact. How do you find the quality? Does the wood seem really heavy duty? Some of the reviews online were a bit mixed. Can adults go on it without worry?

[humpforfree]

Feb 23, 2020 17:26:42 GMT -5 janegold said:

Feb 23, 2020 14:14:45 GMT -5 humpforfree said:

We have the Costco Cedar Summit one. It was just under $1000 I think. Our yard wasn’t super level in that area, so we dug up the grass, leveled out the dirt, built a little retaining wall, and had mulch brought in. Then H built the playground on top of that. We did it all ourselves and it was like 2-3 weekends of work? With playing breaks, etc. TBH the prep of the yard was more expensive and time consuming than the actual building.

It’s been almost 3 years now and the kids are 6 & 4.5 and still love it. They and their friends use it frequently. (We also are relatively rural and do not have any local playgrounds, so it’s amazing to be able to just shoo them outside.) The playground is cedar and I think this year we will be due for resealing it.

This one looks super fun, and I like that it seems a bit more compact. How do you find the quality? Does the wood seem really heavy duty? Some of the reviews online were a bit mixed. Can adults go on it without worry?

It’s been great! I’ve definitely gone up in the fort and on the swing. You can feel a little bit of a rock when I swing, but I’m also a lot more efficient at pumping than the kids 🤣 The wood does need to be refinished/sealed every few years, but all cedar will (and ours gets the afternoon sun).

[sparty04]

We have one from Costco and it gets a lot of use. I would recommend that you look at treating or staining the wood within the first year. Ours looked like crap after the winter but with stain looked good again. The slide did fade as well (green to blueish). Annoying but not really a big deal and kind of expected as it’s in full sun. We’ve had it for about 4 years now.

I’d probably only buy one used if you have someone handy that can fix things (replace boards, etc)

[lilac05]

We found a guy who builds decks and custom play places. We got to design it exactly like we wanted (with his guidance), he gave us the list of the parts to order, and then he came and built it. It’s exactly what we wanted, significantly less expensive than a Rainbow, and much better quality than similarly priced sets at stores. He built it like a deck, so it can basically hold as many adults as can fit in the space. He was meticulous about it being level. We’ve had it a few years now. At 6 and 9, they still love it. (In the summer, they like to pack a lunch and eat it on their top covered deck.)  I think we’re going to lose the nearby tree this summer. If so, we may call him back to add an addition.

The one thing I recall him talking about was the base of the structure. Many have the raw edge of the wood sitting on the ground. He said that’s not a good plan long term, as it allows the moisture of the ground to leach up into the wood grain, which eventually weakens the structure via wood rot.

sandandsea , I love the pulley and bucket! My kids would, too! We have a 4x4 “flag pole” that we never finished. I think we will repurpose it for that!