Some wood, a swing, a slide, help us with our playground dream!
May 13, 2011 11:54 AM Subscribe
Help us build a playground in our backyard!
We want to have a playground for my son (currently 2) in our backyard. The cost of commercially available ones has us thinking of building our own. We are both fairly handy and very good at following plans and steps, without having specific playground building experience. Ideally we'd like a book or something that laid out some plans so we can decide what we want and then know how to actually build it, though online plans only are ok if they are actually good and allow us to build what we want. Exact details are better than vague plans so we can buy exactly what we need. We don't want anything overly fancy, just a little fort area with a slide and some swings, maybe some monkey bars. But we want my son to be able to safely play on it (right now with supervision, of course).
Anyone have suggestions on where to look or what books to buy?
We want to have a playground for my son (currently 2) in our backyard. The cost of commercially available ones has us thinking of building our own. We are both fairly handy and very good at following plans and steps, without having specific playground building experience. Ideally we'd like a book or something that laid out some plans so we can decide what we want and then know how to actually build it, though online plans only are ok if they are actually good and allow us to build what we want. Exact details are better than vague plans so we can buy exactly what we need. We don't want anything overly fancy, just a little fort area with a slide and some swings, maybe some monkey bars. But we want my son to be able to safely play on it (right now with supervision, of course).
Anyone have suggestions on where to look or what books to buy?
The Father's Almanac is a great resource for this type of thing and an excellent book in general. For an example of what you might find do a search inside for "climbing" and choose page 158 from the search results.
posted by true at 1:43 PM on May 13, 2011
posted by true at 1:43 PM on May 13, 2011
Also we bought this, and it's been months of fun as a climbing structure, fort, general play space, etc. It's semi-diy: someone has gone to the trouble of cutting and drilling all the PVC pipe, but you put it together. At $159 for the 4' one I think it's entirely worth it, and there are larger ones should you want to go in that direction. Our two year old is starting to climb the 4' one now, and our 4 year old still enjoys hanging / climbing / doing flips.
posted by true at 1:48 PM on May 13, 2011
posted by true at 1:48 PM on May 13, 2011
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I'd look at the DIY sites, and then go to one of the many places that sell the high-cost playgrounds (Creative Solutions is one around me), get an idea of their design and construction and then come up with something.
But remember - if you build it well, it will last a while. Don't limit yourself to '2-4 year old' sizes.
posted by rich at 12:13 PM on May 13, 2011