Thread: My son's birthday present

Company Name: "Booba's Custom Furniture"
Motto: We build it all

2 posts are in and buried. It's pretty solid. It moves a bit, but it seems that it moves the same amount from me to my wife which is an 80 pound difference. Chalk board will be adding 3 more braces (2 parallel and one diagonal), so it might get better but I'm happy with how it is now. Here's a quick video:

Thats just bad ass. Nice work, great plan! The whole thing looks huge to us adults, so just imagine how impressive it must be for the kiddos. What a nice family and home for a young man to have. You may not think you're rich but you are, Matt. Continue enjoying it every chance you get.

Great video! I'm guessing the wife "loves it" cuz it will keep the kiddos occupied. LOL

Lol, today was the first day since the initial install that adults were allowed to go down the slide so she went down a lot. I was the first to go belly first though lol. Trust me IDJ, I know. They may annoy us a lot of the time, but I'm a lucky man for sure. All this stuff AND I get to keep my nasty habit going (working on the car).

I showed the video to my 4yo, she now wants me to build her a tree house.. thanks boobie thanks alot!

grease the slide boobs if you want to maximize exit velocity ...

yea! lol thats a dream land for a kid. wish i had a slide like that. mine was metal and sucked next to yours.

Thanks guys, once all the dust settles from all of this I'm going to try and seal off the bottom side of the slide and make it into a water slide. Even was joking with the wife about leaving some fish and Pleco in the pool, since the pump would also provide air and filtration, lol.

Originally Posted by ItHurtz

I showed the video to my 4yo, she now wants me to build her a tree house.. thanks boobie thanks alot!

Let me know if you are gonna do it, I can help as much as I can over to internet lol.

Built the adult picnic table, came out great! I didn't use treated lumber since I guess you aren't supposed to, due to the chemicals they use to treat the wood. Now that I know that, I went ahead and replaced the top of the kids table as well. No biggie on that one though since I wanted to add some more 2x6s on the playground so we can mount more rock wall holds for the rock wall. I just replaced the kids' table top and used those 2x6s for the play ground. May have actually been a hair cheaper. Here's some pics of those, before we get into my OCD...
Flibby has been chasing that ball for about a week and a half now, you can see her on the left and she's realizing she's not a pup anymore, lol.


Before the new top on the kids' table


(not so) secret compartment!


Now onto my OCD. The slide still moves. I'm sure it's fine, but if my 220 pound ass can get the tower to move (don't get me wrong, I have to try) from the ground, I'm not happy. The way I look at it is this. Either I can beef the structure up enough to take the tug of the slide (when someone is going down it), or I can take the tug out of the slide. I'm trying one last thing to beef up the structure, a giant X from corner to corner behind the chalk board(s). Honestly, my hopes aren't high on that, but I'm going to try it. If (when) that doesn't work I'm going to drive another 4x4 into the ground, and concrete it in in. This one will be under the farther point of the slide, and if I can play my cards right, will have a 2x4 strapping it to the main structure. I also have to find a way to devise a way to connect this 4x4 post to the slide itself. That post might also get in the way of the kids and the pool\water slide idea I have too. Decisions decisions. I need to find someone who is into wood working to bounce ideas off of, lol.

Wow, so this slide company strikes again. I't been years since I've had service like this, seriously made my day. Started out by calling in and asking if they wanted the spare piece I had back, they said thanks, but no so I'll trash it (like they suggested). The lady I talked to was very nice as usual, but seemed more like the receptionist type, so I didn't want to get into the problem with her, so I jumped on the website and started chatting with a guy named David. Told him all the about the issue and what not, so he asked me to e-mail in some pictures, so I did. This happened:


About a minute later he responded to my e-mail with is picture, and told me I should have the bracket in a few days (also coming from WI).


I think this will fix it, but damn. Talk about customer service. Damn near every company can learn something from these guys, and they're a swing set company of all things. For the record, I bought the slide through Home Depot, but these guys built the slide: http://www.swing-n-slide.com/

Home Depot can suck a dick.

thats awesome, hard to find service like that.

and thats where i was thinking the saddle support would go, right where the weight hits in the first turn. good deal all around.


you watch that show shameless? the one kid whos a gang banger had a slide put in the house from up stairs to the living room....funny stuff.

Well Fedex dropped it off at the wrong house so they sent another, and sent the wrong bracket. I made it work though. We dug the whole and got all that done today. I wasn't satisfied with the angled 4x4 on the building side of the swings, so I pulled it out and used it for the new brace. We almost have the new 4x4 in place for the swing set, but I need to get an 11 inch carriage bolt tomorrow, along with a bracket of some kind. Here's some pics:

New bracket, I made 2 cuts, pressed it flat, drilled a hole, and bolted it in with 3 lag bolts:


Same story on this, 36 inches deep, 30 deck screws screwed in a foot from the bottom, concrete, yada, yada, yada.


Concrete is setting up til tomorrow, but here's the idea:


We also put new rockwall holds on, you can see them in the above picture with Zoey, and in the background here:


Here's where I sit on the new brace on the swings, this is roughly 2 feet deep. No concrete here, just burying it a bit.




Someday we'll get this chalk board started!

your using children as dead men posts? lmao.

They loved it, lol. Danny got in too but he blinked during the picture, of course.

Thats durn near spelunking.

Made some good progress today. Buried both posts, mounted the angled 4x4, bought a longer carriage bolt, etc. We also began finishing work on the picnic table, I filled the screw holes and my wife will be sanding it while I'm at work. Might even start painting it tomorrow. Slide is much more stable, so is the swing set. I'm happy with the movement in the slide, but I think the tower could be a bit more stable. I'm pretty sure the X brace inbetween the chalk boards will take care of that. Here's some pics!
Slides post, all buried and what not. I soaked it a bit to help the grass regrow (same top piece of dirt):

Finished bracket, rounded edges and what not:


New swing brace, hard to tell this goes about 20 inches into the ground.


Swing's braces as it sits now. I'll me getting a L bracket a little later:



Picked the wife up some Tulips (Better than roses on a piano), and Zoey loves them:


I have to sure up the brace on the slide a bit more on the structure side. At some point something I did bent it, so I'm going to move it and put a brace to the ground. After that, I'll do the L bracket, then it's time for the chalk board(s). It'll get done someday.

Next up Booba builds his own house..

looking good man!

Jeff

May as well keep my projects updated in here, lol. Today I rebuilt the steps on the playground to 2x6s, put 2 braces 4 feet into thr ground ont he far part of the swings, added more rock wall holds (that I painted), and built the kids a bunk bed. Along the way we've painted the adult's picnic table, and I picked up the beginnings of the chalk board today with the bunk bed supplies. Pics!
Picnic table, needs a few touch ups, but it's 95% done.


Dog runs everyday for a month, eats 2 cups of food a day and still looks fat. Oh and you can see the 2 2x4s that go into the ground, 4 feet long each.


Horseshoe coat rack a friend made for me:


Red bucket!


More rock wall holds, 2 of them are painted and have baked in the sun for days, so I'm hoping the Krylon won't chip. The 2 painted holds are at the top too so hopfully they won't get stepped on that much, we'll see.


New steps, old ones were 2x4 and my friend botched the install a bit. These are much stronger and a cleaner install.


Bunk bed! Just finished this up, well I ran out of wood so I'll finish up in the morning. I need 6 more 40 inch long 1x4 supports for the bottom mattress...which is currently the old box spring for my son's bed for mocking purposes...


Still have to build some steps for the bunk beds, but it'll work the way it sets now, once I have the rest of the lower mattress supports of course.

May as well keep the thread up to date so I know the order that stuff happened, lol. Added all kinds of bracing to the new tower (as planned) and it is solid now. Like more solid than I could have ever wanted. I'm a happy camper. Today we installed the chalk board, which was fun. It's that concrete wonder board stuff for under tile and counters...trimmed to size and 3 coats of primer and 4 coats of flat black after that. Tomorrow I hope to get the trim bought and painted\installed. That reminds me, we painted the steps and some of the kid's picnic table. Some of that table wasn't treated lumber so it got painted, the rest will get painted in a few months after the wood dries out a bit. Here's some pics!

Easy stuff first. You can see the picnic tables and steps here. I also spent a good portion of the last few days clearing all the chain link fence off over by the green table. Neighbors had some vine type weed that had completely covered it. I swear the yard is 2 feet wider now, lol.


Bracing, the X 2x4's are solid, no cuts. 2 carriage bolts in the middle, and the outer most 2x4 has carriage bolts into the frame's 2x6s (I also made sure this 2x4 was going to be the angle it gets tugged on the most from the slide). The horizontal 2x4s are cut to the angles of the longer X 2x4s and glued\screwed to them and the outer 4x4s (concreted 4x4 on the lower support). It's more framing for the chalk board as you'll see.




Then the chalk board. We're tossing around the idea of making it look like an old school TV with rabbit ears up top, and some sort of clicky type knobs on the right.



Now for the back side. This will need to be removable, since when we move the play set that green 4x4 needs to be "removed" at some point. This chalk board stuff is kinda flaky, so removal might mean it's doom (replacement). It's about $20 in materials so it's not that bad, but we're also considering a bubble mirror, various toys, etc.