This is one for the kids! When we first moved into the house, we wanted to create a space for the kids to have fun but that can be tough living in the city on a small lot. We originally entertained the idea of getting a Rainbow playground because of the quality and assembly. I also liked the freestanding and lightweight form factor of the Rainbow. In our normal fashion, we compared this idea to building it ourselves which was being fueled by several Pinterest posts. Ultimately we decided that the flexibility of building our own without having to pay huge money for design changes was what we chose.
I wanted to minimize the earth moving tasks for this project so I made the playhouse freestanding so no posts are cemented in the ground. This also makes it easier in the future if we ever needed to remove the structure. I leveled the project area ground using a shovel, metal rake and 4 ft level. I knew that to keep the structure freestanding and stable, it needed to have some serious weight to it.
There are 7 main support beams built with 6x6x8 & 2 secondary support beams for the ramp built with 4x4x8. The sandbox frame is built with 2x8x10, 2x4x10, deck boards and filled with 26 bags of play sand! The 2nd floor, rock wall and ramp are built with 2x6x8, 2x4x8 and deck boards.
The monkey bar frame is built with 4x6x12 and the bars are galvanized steel pipes cut from 10ft pieces. I had to drill a hole through each side of each bar and insert a small lag bolt to prevent the bar from rotating. The fall pit below the monkey bars and swings is filled with 5 cubic yards of playground mulch.
All 3 of the kids like the play set but our 2 year old, Hannah, absolutely loves it. She loves playing in the sandbox and swinging for long periods of time. They all like mixing sand and water on the 2nd floor and pretending to be a bakery. The swings, slides and monkey bars all support adults so they can have fun too!
Thanks for checking out my blog on how to build a playhouse!
How To Build A Playhouse | DIY Playhouse
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