Rohan's Birthday is this Friday (2/19), and we're celebrating on Saturday. My dad wants to buy him a swing set, and I can't help my urge to tinker. Even though he's just turning 2, Rohan is a daredevil. He loves the 3-story slides at public parks and a local indoor playground... I'm usually chasing him around to make sure he only tries the slides. He isn't quite ready to jump down the rock walls, cargo nets, and other climbing / falling equipment, but he thinks he is. So he'd get bored of a "standard" playset rather quickly.
There are only a couple manufacturers of wooden play equipment, and the retail markup for what's mostly a bunch of wood is amazing. It looks like Swing-N-Slide is my manufacturer of choice.
The most common configuration is one 4' by 4' tower at 4' deck height, with a horizontal beam and A-frame for the swings.
The local Lowe's has separate kits for the tower, the swing set, slides, ladders, climbing walls, etc. So you pick your modules and you combine them however you want. For $500, you get a tower, which you can build at either 4' or 5' off the ground. For another $260, you can add A-frame, beam, and swings. If you build the tower at 4', you can get an 8-foot-long slide for $80, but if it's at 5', you have to pay $169 for the 10-foot-long slide. So the better part of $1000 for a set at 5', and then I have to worry about how he's going to climb up without falling. Or I can build it at 4' to save money on the slide, but I expect he'd get bored in a year or two.
Home Depot sells kits under Swing-N-Slide's "Timber-Bilt" line, and most of them are Disney branded. Of course that inflates the price dramatically.
Toys R Us favors Big Backyard, and has better prices than either hardware store. I would've bought the Greenbrook set on sale for $699, but they're out of stock. That has the advantage of a split deck, with a ladder and slide on the 4' deck, and an opening on the 5' deck. But they stuck a rock wall there. I'd have to replace that or close it in.
Dissatisfied with the options, or at least the prices for what I'd like to build, I stumbled on Swing-N-Slide's custom kits. You have to buy the slide and the wood, but they give you all the brackets, chains, handles, bolts, etc. For $185.79, I get the parts for a 2-tower playset, and I intend to follow Project 513. Current lumber prices run about $428, mostly because the walls are fully closed in. Most other sets leave a few inches between vertical slats, serving as guard rails rather than closing in a room. I'm going to close in the gap in the wall where the 10' slide goes, and put up an 8' slide instead of a climbing wall. Since I get 4' and 5' decks, I don't mind getting the cheaper slide for now. Rohan gets a 16 sq ft covered playroom, and I can always knock out a wall and add another slide or whatever on the 5' deck. Maybe for Christmas.
For now, a little under $700 before tax, and we get 2 swings, 32 sqft of deck, a ladder, a slide, and lots of room for expansion. We'll probably spend another $40 or so to get a bucket-seat swing so we don't have to worry about Rohan jumping off at apogee. It should even accommodate the covered picnic table add-on they sell at Lowes (another $200).
So now the planning is done. I just have to build the thing. Let's see if I keep all my fingers.