Thread: My son's birthday present

Happy #5, big Danny!

Thanks man! We had a great day. My dad came down, Mother-In-Law came over, and we hung out all day. Danny had a great day, and had no problem understanding he got our present over a month ago lol. Finished up the window, along with a few other things in between chasing him around, lol. I thought we'd be done, but naturally we have more plans now, haha. I LOVE the way the windows turned out. Pretty awesome, IMO..






And the birthday boy himself! Hard to believe he's 5. Looks like he is 7 or 8 lol.

That just looks freaking awesome! man I have heard of project creep but this is just cool. It's like a car. Never done.

Jeff

No kidding, Right when we think we're done something else get's thought up. Janelle thought up the windows, described what she wanted, and I designed them from there. She came along to pick out wood and whatnot so it came out like she wanted. According to her, it's better than she imagined, lol. The next main project is the noise wall (back side of the chalk board). Last night we decided to make a 2'x4' "ball maze" basically a bunch of ramps so a golf ball can roll down from one to the other 5 or 6 times, then land into a little box at the bottom. Seems simple enough to do, it's just raining today, naturally.

That wall, trimming the chalkboard, and then sanding the bridge and tower...that last one will suck. Especially because my belt sander died Saturday night. I haven't tore into it to try and fix it yet, but it's dead right now. I have a palm sander, but that's still a lot of sanding\vibrating.

Sander is probably going to be brushes so should be an easy fix. The windows look really good, it's like you made the whole thing from a kit.

So golf balls huh? I know a thing or 2 about them Lol. I had a bag of about 600 and gave them to my Father in law since he golfs he still hasn't been through them yet.

Holy crap! I almost want to see the mess that could make, lolol. Golf balls might be too heavy\bouncy though. We'll have to see how it pans out.

Made more progress on everything, and the preschool class is coming over this week. Found out that parents signed a waiver at the beginning of the year, and on top of that we've had all of the kids over with their parent(s) separately (9 other kids) so it's nothing new, except for the teachers coming with. Ball maze is done, other half of the wall is still a work in progress, trim is started on the chalk board (need 1x8 or 1x6 for the one side), and a few other odds and ends have changed.






Oh and I finished up the bunk beds.

Here we are, months later, and it's time to paint! We painted the bunk beds a while back, I'll have to track down pics. The picnic table will be getting a new top next season, the wood we bought was ****. Sap is seeping out, it's warping, etc. Damn it. Anyways, onto the swing set. Most of it has it's 2 (or 3, or 4) coats of green, but there is still some bare wood...most of which is down on the ground. It'll get done at the very end, since the dirt and grass will destroy the brush. All the colors are done (Yellow, red, and blue) depending on how they cure tonight, they might go on tomorrow. Then comes painting the floors...which will shut the playground down for 1-2 weeks. Thankfully, Danny is in Kindergarten now so he's occupied most of the day. Anyways, enough chat. Pics!
This was from 2 days ago, we've since done a lot of green painting. The extra 4x4, the tops of the A frame, etc. All green. 5x5 has some sanding to be done on the other 3 sides you don't see in this pic, so they haven't been painted yet. The 5x5 and the floors are basically the major stuff that needs painted green at this point.




You can see the talking tube laying on the ground in the background. Still figuring out what color to paint it, and I have a bit of sanding to do on the elbows to make it look slightly less like PVC.


Here's the bridge, a few things have been replaced here, but nothing crazy:


Now keep in mind, there's 10 coats on the yellow, 6 coats on the red, and 4 coats on the blue. On top of that, we kept 1 set of colors on the playground at all times, just to make sure everything stayed "square" Yellow came off first, then red, then blue. It's been quite the ordeal to time everything right, wake up at 3AM for the next coat, etc. Red, blue, and green has all been done this weekend; Yellow was last weekend. Our kitchen and\or living room has looked like this for too long:


As always, more pics to come!

that looks great.

Well we ended up getting a decent amount of rain the last 2 days so the floor won't get painted this weekend. Probably next, depending on rain...again. We were able to put all the sides on today, and it looks great! I'm hoping the sun will come out for a bit and dry the wood out so I can do some sanding on the 5x5, we'll see. Off to other PC to upload pics...

Looks crazy good and darn near finished! WTG Boobs. Have you thought about putting a wacky name on it? A McD's "play place" sign comes to mind. Maybe you could make plywood "House of Boobs" lettering? Ha. GLW watching paint dry. Hope the weather cooperates.

Thanks man, We already have stencils cut out for "The Walker Playground" Just waiting til the entire 5x5 has been painted before we paint the letters.

I'm waiting for the second bridge across the top of the swings that then leads to something on the far side.

Not that you are out of control in the most awesome way possible.... keep going!

needs a giant seesaw

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

I'm waiting for the second bridge across the top of the swings that then leads to something on the far side.

Not that you are out of control in the most awesome way possible.... keep going!

Funny you bring that up, that was the original plan this year (before the bridge coming out of the back), but we couldn't find a very easy way to get down from the bridge to the existing platform. This ended up being easier, and I think we're happier with the outcome since it doesn't have such a wide foot print.

Next year's plans are in the works. Everything from monkey bars to a tube bridge leading to another tower with a bubble wall is on the table at this point. I've got plenty of time to figure it out though, at this point last year I was still wanting it to end up looking similar to this:


Thanks for the input guys, the kids LOVE it!

Fill the yard..

I'd be that person that with a good tree...I'd be building myself a tree house

Same here, the kids even call this their tree house, lol. The yard is on it's way to being filled, it'll be a lot of fun when we move, haha.