Second Birthday Gift

We shopped for months for a playset for Lily's birthday. A few weeks later, lots of trial sliding, and a mild heart attack over the pricing we decided to build our own. 

We had an existing swing beam from the previous owners and just wanted to add on. 

What we started with....

Kevin...aka Grizzly Adams, was a poor indentured servant during the debacle. He did enlist a carpenter handy friend, Aaron to help. He was awesome....Kevin....was.... well he was there. 

This is Kevin after leveling out the ground. The hardest part. And the guys got attacked by chiggers. Imagine this...Aaron was smart and wore pants. 

Michael and Aaron hard at work! 

End of day one...not too impressive huh? Well apparently it took way longer to level than planned. 

The frame is up! 

Floors and everything! 

End of Day Two. Much better! 

We got the slides up and finished about a week later, after they arrived via freight. 

The finished product! 

In a few months we are going to stain the set to match. The wood has to dry out first. Then it will look even more awesome. 

Total cost to build ourselves: $1100 (The twisty slide itself was 450!)

Price if we would have bought commercial: $3000-$6000

Big difference huh? And I have to say this is way sturdier than a lot of the sets we looked at. Some were only rated for 150 pounds....seriously? I better not get up there on a skinny day. 

Lily's face was priceless. As soon as she saw the slide go up she started screaming "ssssllliiidddeee mmmmyyy sllliiiddde" from inside the house. The guys could here her she was so loud. 

Totally an awesome gift huh. All the guys worked so hard. At one point we had five or six of our guy friends the day before Eadsfest putting up the twisty slide. Thanks to all those that helped. Lily has played on it constantly since it was finished! 

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