recycled playground

If you’ve been hanging around a bit, you know we are bootstrap builders, putting together our country estate (cough), on very little cash, by building with junk recycled materials. (And if that’s news to you, but sounds fun, look over there in the tag list and you’ll find recycled building has its very own tag. Aren’t I organized?) But houses, tool sheds, and goat barns aren’t all you can build with recycled materials. Today I bring you: a Huge Wooden Playset, assembled from the broken pieces of Other People’s Trash!

Our playset has evolved over the years. At the moment it has a tower, a swing section, a platform with another slide, a sandbox, monkey bars, and a tree climbing section off the back. Do you know how much a set like would cost new? I didn’t, not until just now when I went and googled it. Well, I mean, you CAN’T buy a set like this, but it turns out that the sets that were sort of similar (a tower, a bunch of swings, some monkey bars) were $1000-3000!

!!!!!

In contrast, almost all of our set was FREE. Most of what you see here either came from the dump or from craigslist ads that said “Free if you come and get it!” I think the grand total is somewhere around $50 bucks. And that includes the sand.

It pays to scrounge.

Here’s our set:

Wait, why are we so far away in this picture! Oh yeah, it’s because I’m plunked down on my bum with my twisted ankle propped up, all the way across the yard. Where is that zoom button? Here we go….closer…

There, that’s better. Our set started with the pink slide section and the little platform behind it. Paul actually bought the beam that goes across the top new and installed a selection of cast-off swings from various thrown-out sets on it. The things hanging from the bar have changed as the kids have gotten bigger. For example, we started out with a baby swing for Luc that has since been discarded, and we’ve added a trapeze bar for Sophie, who likes to do tricks.

He also made the sandbox at the foot of the pink slide, fashioned from a thrown away frog sandbox and some sandbags.

Next came the tower section, for which I think we paid $30. Craigslist. You can see it on the right of this photo. And hey, I actually had to get up off my butt to get this shot—ah, how I suffer for my art!

Look at that, a third slide on the back! You can also see the faded remains of a once spiffy play kitchen. Another freebie that has seen a LOT of use. The kids like to cook up sand cakes in the kitchen. They also like to play Hulk and knock the kitchen over with a big crash and climb on it. An advantage to getting stuff for free is that it’s no big deal if the kids delight in destroying it.

Let’s keep going on around it. Here we are, further along the back…

See the monkey bars shooting off the side? Here’s a better pic:

And look! There is a monkey swinging across them!

But my favorite part of the set is the balance bridge tree thingy that Paul rigged up….

That U shape at the end is one tree, grown in a strange shape because of storm damage. You can’t really see it but there is a rope hanging across the top of the U and a bit dangling down, good for Tarzan games.

The log off to the left makes a bridge….

…that leads into the woods, partially cleared out by Paul. A few improvement, like this small plank and platform make a good pirate boat, rocket ship, whatever.

The board is scrap, the platform thingy was made from scrap and used to hold up the barrel that held up the air conditioner, but Paul invented some other solution, and the platform got moved out here…. But the real attraction here is the forest. Shadowy cool, lots of downed trees, criss-crossing the ground in a maze of balance beams, great for playing, say, Jungle Adventure, as the kids call it, as in, “Mom, we’re playing Jungle Adventure—we need backpacks full of snacks!”

Because a playground is better if it leads into the woods, don’t you think?

Bottom line: you don’t have to pay $3000 for an awesome playset!

Trash can be just as fun.