It’s a good thing that I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. With such knowledge and education, I was able to take this simple two-day project and stretch it over a week and a half. And I’m still not done. There is a section of monkey bars that needs to go up, but we decided that it was probably best to wait. Our excuse is that Ladybug enjoys crawling around in the top of the house and we don’t want a wide open gap for her to fall through. The reality is that this thing beat me. It sits in our backyard taunting me. The monkey bars are just too much.

It is finished

When I put this up, I used sand to level the ground. The down side is that the sand came from the sandbox that I had made a year ago (on the left side of the picture)….so now I have to go get more sand. And we need some cedar chips around the base. See what I mean? This playset is a monster. And now it sits in my backyard laughing at me. Just look at it sitting there all smug…

At the beginning of the project, the choice was between building my own design and constructing a prefabricated unit. One of the biggest factors was all the time that the prefabbed unit would save. I’m pretty sure I could have whittled a playset out of granite in the time that it took me to finish this. And with the granite, I probably wouldn’t have had as many leftover parts, either. Really, I can’t figure out why I have this many bolts that I didn’t use. There’s only one way to test it out…Butterfly, get up in there and jump around and let’s see if it collapses.  But don’t jump with that stick in your hand…safety first!