Amanamongmommies

With my major project finally coming around to an end I thought I would finally take the time and post the building of the kids swing set and fort.  The project went way over on time for many reasons including weather.  Having the weather be an issue made it difficult for me to get the most out of the availability of family and friends.  We went over the first budget, but not by much.  I made a few changes to the plains which required me to purchase additional lumber.  I did save a bunch to start by reusing many of the plastic parts from the first set including the slide, rocket rider, steering wheel and telescope.  I purchased special plastic paint for those items and refinished them.  The slide came out great, but the rocket rider is chipping.  The paint is supposed to work on most plastic items, but I guess this is not one.

The Changes I made turned out to be really nice.

• Originally the monkey bars were set DIRECTLY over the stairs into the fort.  The first two rungs were over the rungs of the ladder which would be really hazardous if one of the kids were to fall.  In order to make it safer I moved the monkey bars over and attached it to the side of the fort.  Using the fort and adding an additional 4×4x8 to the bars made them almost a stand alone attraction.
• The walls to the fort did not seem complete so I decided to top all the walls with a piece of decking giving the kids places to set things down.
• The Ladder into the fort was a little weak.  I added some support blocks to the stairs making them secure enough for adults to feel safe climbing into the fort.
• The Rocket Rider chains were shot and I needed to find some new ones.  I priced the chains for the four corners and was not happy.  I then decided to check the swings out for the set and had a great idea.  I purchase two more swings and used the chains from them for the RR.  Overall I paid maybe $5.00 more for the swings, but now I have all matching chains as well as additional swings I can use if I take the RR down.

So here is the project in pictures…

First: The OLD FORT: Worn out, falling apart and not the best construction or purchase.  At the time however I did not have the skills to take on a bigger project.  this was Ready To Assemble and pre-cut/pre-drilled.

The Demolition: What the OLD FORT looked like after being taken down.

Save The Sand: I took all the sand out to be used in the new sandbox.

The Lumber: What the pile of lumber looked like sitting in my garage while mother nature worked against me on this project.

The First Steps: The first weekend brought out some construction

Two More Weekends and I forgot to take pictures between.  So here are all the final BUILD pictures.

The Whole Fort. Notice the monkeys bars just off the side of the fort.

The Roof

The Swings… All four Spots

The Sandbox… Old sand and new.  Plus one more bag to be added.

Inside The Fort

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The Monkey Bars

So now I have one little finishing thing to do on the tops of the walls to make it perfect.  Plus I need to take a day and stain the fort.  It will be a light translucent red to go with the fence in the background.  I want the grain to show though and be a little more subtle then the fence.  So until then the kids get a great fort to play on and it is so strong I might be able to use it as a Tornado Shelter…