Looks can be deceiving

Well, we've had it with the bugs, the heat, and the lack of friends and family.



So we've calling it a wash and going back home.









Did you buy into it?

Alas, we have had it with those things, but we're sticking it out. And by sticking it out, I mean buying crazy large things that require a Uhaul to get and dragging them around in 110 degree heat. We all have our different ways of coping. Apparently mine would include, as Steve puts it, spousal abuse.

Long story short, we have a huge backyard, but nothing in it beyond fire ant hills and quack grass that we can't seem to get cut every week. No trees to climb and enjoy shade from, and not a lot for the kids to do unless I get the sprinkler out. There's no playground in our subdivision even and I really wanted to get something out there for the kids to do, so I started scouring craigslist for a playset, a pool, or a trampoline. In the interest of getting something that the kids could do unsupervised and year round, it got narrowed down to a playset.

Have you ever looked at how much playsets cost? I was shocked to be honest. You can't get much under $1000 and that's for a pretty basic set. I looked for used and even then was getting numbers around $500. Then one day while I was obsessively looking (curse or talent, it gets the job done), I found a playset listed on craigslist for free. I immediately replied to the post and then in hindsight replied again offering $100 for it, hoping that the money would lure the offerer my way. It worked. I'm really glad I did it because the lady told me she got over 100 people responding in 2 days and one even tracked her down from the pictures she posted and knocked on her door begging for it. It was an older set, but a Rainbow system brand which is like the Cadillac of playsets. It's made from redwood and built to last. I wouldn't be surprised if this set cost $2000 new.

I have to say, I didn't realize how much work would be involved with getting the playset from A to B. I honestly thought we could dismantle it enough to be able to transport it in our car. Thank you Steven for telling me I was wrong and for my mom and sister who told me to just rent a Uhaul. It took 6 hours in blazing heat (103 degrees that day) just to dismantle it and get it home. The kids were AMAZINGLY well behaved even though they endured the heat with us and stayed up way past their bedtime. I then decided to pressure wash it (borrowed from a ward member) and stain the wood since it had seen better days and I wanted to maintain it and the resale value. That took a full week. It was so hot that I really could only work on it in the morning or late evening. Steve and I were out there until midnight 2 of those nights just trying to get it put together. It was an unbelievable amount of work and I publicly apologize to Steve for putting him through it all. I have to say, I think we both enjoyed the aspect of working together on it though. It was satisfying in a certain way to be doing manual labor in the middle of the night alongside each other. Yes, I'm crazy.



I'm really sorry sweetie.

So here's the before:




And the after:



There's still some decorative wood sunburst things that we need to put on that go on the clubhouse, but it's 90% there. It's a little muddy in places because when we were putting it together, we encountered this:


The previous owners had the playset installed on an incline, so the posts are about 2 feet longer than we needed them to be. So we dug some big holes and filled them with gravel afterward to help prevent the posts from rotting. Steve and I looked at each other at one point and said "We should have just dug a big hole in the backyard, filled it with water and called it good." It probably would've entertained the kids just as much as the playset will. But we're cleaner this way.

Would I do it all over again? Probably. But I'm a sucker for punishment it seems.