Our son turned 3 this past weekend and it was time to build a playset. I left the brand decision to my wife and she chose Cedarworks, so it was time to order, build it and landscape!
It arrived the Friday before last in the form of 20 large boxes taking up one of our garage stalls.
That weekend, the plan was to put the set together, and then fine tune the placement and work on the landscaping around it. This set is very well made, which means there were probably a hundred large bolts to drive. I started with hand tools until a good friend showed up with a few cordless impact drivers
After uncrating and moving to the spot.
Wrenching
And its up. I put some landscape fabric down initially to mark the spot and make sure we liked it.
Next up was figuring out how I wanted the surrounding area to look. I started on this partway through the following week and used a hose to make the form that I wanted, and changed it around a few times. Once that was done and I was happy, I threw on some Mechanix gloves, put my headphones on and grabbed a shovel to began edging all around it. This consisted of digging down about 3-4 inches, and removing a foot in from the edge. I also applied RoundUp to the grass prior to putting the additional fabric on.
In Process
The fabric is fully installed here. It was a PAIN because the fabric pins were thin metal and every time they hit a rock our root in the ground they would bend or just hurt my hand. Suffice it to say there were alot of rocks and roots. My palm has been black and blue ever since.
I decided to have these special woodchips put down called Kid Kushion that are soft and made for this. I had a company bring it in and do our mulch at the same time. They estimated incorrectly and had to go back and get more chips for the play area, totaling about 6 yards. That came on Saturday morning and then we received a cool birthday present for our son from his grandparents, which was a Pirate Ship sand box. We spent a few hours Saturday night putting that together in the garage and then I dragged it down there. I also went and picked up a few Adirondack Chairs I ordered from a small woodshop near here to give us a place to sit.
It was labor intensive but I am extremely happy with the results. I'm going to do a raised edging around the area as well, using a newer product called Ecoborder. We had our son's b-day party here and everything was perfect, and held up well to the toddler abuse!
I'm very happy with the outcome. It's a little oasis for the kids and they are loving it.
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