Swing Set Sunday

It was swing set Sunday here at the Kramer house. What a crazy day…but a very happy, happy day for me!

You might remember a bit ago I bought a swing set that was in a pile. The swing set had been damaged in a storm when winds took it and flipped it. You can read about that HERE if you missed it.

Buck and Karl brought it home with a pick-up and trailer.

Sunday was the day for it to get put together.

This is what the set is supposed to look like.

I am missing the long slide on the left but other than that, mine is very similar to this…I paid $300 for the wind-damaged pieces. It lists at just below $4600 now.

One might think that it would be easy because part of it was assembled…Nope. It took 3-4 men a day’s work to get the job accomplished.

One of my childcare dad’s who is a friend of Buck’s too along with Craig, Buck, and Karl, put it together.

The set is HUGE. Keeping the kids away from the men took some doing!!

All of the kids were anxious to try it out.

In the weeks leading up to this day, I had put some work in trying to find the missing pieces we thought we needed, measuring and sorting out the lumber that was there, and figuring out what was needed.

In the picture above you can see the tic tac toe panel. That was broken and I had a hard time finding one. I did find one though. I was so frustrated. I looked and looked and looked through Amazon. I could not find one. I then started looking at images via a Google search. I found what I was looking for, followed the link and it ended up taking me HERE to Amazon. I had already looked there and didn’t find one. So frustrating. I took up two naptimes trying to find it! AH!!

If you look in the picture below…You can see Gannon looking through a periscope and Georgie looking through a box.

I bought a pack of accessories HERE on Amazon. Here is what was included.

The kids were loving these…

Carver kept asking, “How long Joey?”. I kept pointing him to a picture of the items by the garage and asked him if the roofs were on…he’d say no. I’d ask him if the slide was on. He’d say no…Then I told him that before he could ask again, he had to look to see what pieces were still by the garage.

They guys really did put a lot of time into this. None of them could imagine how long it would have taken had many of the pieces not been partially assembled.

Carver was so excited when the tube slide got put up. He gave it a test…

Here it is mostly together…

Karl was so happy to have it done…except for the clean-up.

Aren’t the little dormer windows on it so cute??

There is a little half picnic table at the bottom. As you can see some boards did need to be replaced. We opted to put in a new beam for the swingset. It only allowed for three swings.

My kids adored my old pumper swing…it’s the one on the right in the picture.

He ended up putting up a longer beam so four places are available for hookups.

I do need to, and will, stain and seal it. Buck says I should wait to do that until the end of summer or so to let the boards cure…so that’s the plan. Oh my, that will be a big job!

As we were cleaning up Buck said to me, Mom, put your old swing set on the for sale group. Just list it as “free”.

I told him no one would want it. He said, I bet it would be gone in 24 hours. Um..no. I thought that would be embarrassing to even give it away. It was in rough shape.

You can see it was rusting out…but I didn’t have a place to get rid of it to so I listed it and forgot about it. I was sure no one would want this!!

After the dust cleared and everyone went home, it was late…likely 9:00 or so. I sat down at the computer. I had completely forgotten that I even listed it. That’s how sure I was that no one would want it.

There were messages for me…and yes someone did want it. The person asked if it was still available. I said yes and they asked if they could come and get it now. They lived 20 minutes away but wanted to come now in the dark. I said sure…and they came.

I changed the wash, loaded the dishwasher, and went back to the computer.

I started looking at more of my mail. UGH. One of my childcare families had wanted it for their grandpa’s house. Darn. I would have given it to them but I had listed it, put my phone in the house, and forgot about it. AHH! I feel terrible but the guy was already here.

It turns out there were 5 other people who asked for it too. Oh, my word. I wish I had more sets to give!!

So this was my view at 10pm on Sunday night…New swing set up. Old swing set gone.

Just for fun…this is the old swing set when we first got it and put the sandbox tire in…

I guess you could say, I really got an upgrade!!

So the cost of the swing set for me is…
$300 for the pieces I originally bought
$39 for tic tac toe
$70 for accessories
$50 for glider brackets
$300 for wood/screw/Buck bought

Not bad…I’m really happy with it all. I do have to buy some stain/sealant and I need to fix up my glider with a new mesh and a longer chain. I’m just thrilled. I never imagined I would ever be able to afford something so nice for the kids.

As of now, I’m not buying the big long slide that was missing. We closed that hole up. A could find a slide but it was $800. I’m just going to watch sale groups. The one I need is 14′ long and will work on a 10′ deck. I might never find one and that’s okay too but I can’t imagine spending $800 for one.

I might do a monkey bar upgrade at some point though. The kids really want monkey bars.

One last look…

Oh, I’m loving it!!
I’m so excited for the childcare kids to come. I’m so excited for the grandkids to be able to enjoy it too.