a dad explains: why a d.i.y. playset is 100x better than one you buy
Here’s a guest post from our resident dad, Chad. He’s earned some major “Dad of the Year” points with this latest project. Take a look!
We’ve been staring at an empty back yard for a couple of years now as our little toddler has grown into a full-fledged climbing monkey. Obviously we need some kind of playground of our own, but they all seem too gianormous and expensive. After spending months researching the many options, I still found myself waffling on what to get: Do I bite the bullet and buy one of the top of the line play sets, from Rainbow, Gorilla or Superior. They all offer installation and various add-ons, like a tire swing here or a climbing wall there. Would she care if it had only one swing or a trapeze bar? Yellow or blue slide? One thing was for sure, with an average price tag of about $3,000, this playset decision wasn’t to be taken lightly.
I think the reason I was obsessed with building a set for our daughter is because of my own childhood memories. I didn’t have a swing set as a child but I did know kids who had them: They were rusty, creaky and prone to tipping over. Instead of getting one of those, my father made me a club house when I was five years old. It was on eight foot stilts and sat in our backyard. I can remember watching him cut the wood as his sweat dripped onto the planks under the hot sun. It wasn’t perfect and it didn’t have a tire swing or a rope ladder, but it had a trapdoor and he built it for ME. I helped by holding the nails and standing on the 2x4s as he cut them. I watched the saw rip through the wood as he told me to measure twice and cut once. I drank a gallon of Orange Crush as he built what would become my very own Millennium Falcon, my Alamo… my hideout from the world.
Watching my father build that playhouse taught me some pretty basic life lessons — like the value of hard work and the satisfaction of doing something on your own. It also taught me the value of having friends who are willing to help out for a six pack and the joy of just hanging out for the afternoon working on something simply because they were good friends.
So back to my decision on whether or not to build or buy our playset. I asked myself: What do I want to teach my daughter? What do I want her to think of as she is swinging on this thing? That ten workers in an afternoon can come over and bang out a swing set if you have enough money for the premium deluxe package with the periscope? No, I want her to remember what it was like to help me measure and cut the wood. The excitement she feels as I drill each ladder step into place.
When the raw wood was delivered and sitting in my driveway I started to doubt my choice. When the box of bolts and plans arrived I started to worry. “What have I done?” I thought to myself. Then Isadora came out and walked across the wood pile using it as her own personal balance beam. Grinning, she asks, “Are we building my swing set today?” Yes. WE are.
Click through to the next page for details on how I pieced this thing together.
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the door series: a craftsman teal dream
My file of amazing front doors is growing. I stumbled upon this beauty in the Apartment Therapy archives. It’s just one shot in an amazing house tour of Steve and Dana’s beautifully renovated craftsman house outside of Atlanta. (You must click through to see the rest!) What a wonderful idea — put a modern door on a classic house and give it a vivid hue. This one came from Crestview doors, which specializes in mod doors that belong on mid-century ranches. The color is the aptly named Tantalizing Teal by Sherwin Williams. What do you think: Would you put a modern door on your old house?
More in The Door Series:
Pop of Southwest Pink
the door series: a pop of southwest pink
After last week’s decidedly handsome door, I decided to go a little girly today. This door, spotted on the Inside the Loop tumblr via Fabulous K, has completely filled my dreams. Sure, the exterior walls are stone gray, but vibrant fuchsia door topped with a chartreuse panel and a warm clay frame immediately tell us something creative is happening within. The cactus next door makes me think it might be in Santa Fe, or perhaps somewhere further afield like Mexico City or Old San Juan. I would love to see this color combo on a little suburban house like mine. I’m thinking gray siding, warm clay trim, with fuchsia shutters and door. Would I get kicked out of the neighborhood for being too wacky? I don’t care, I’m adding this one to file.
the door series: handsome in hudson
I am obsessed with front doors. It is the place where a home’s personality is most projected outwards. My favorites are ones that are painted a bright color so they POP and let you know that something fun and quirky is within. This dandy door is in Hudson, New York, where we are lucky enough to hang out a weekend or two a month. Isn’t it perfection? The bright teal complements the gunmetal gray building color just right. The well tailored checked curtains are masculine and slightly retro. It’s also geniusly unsymmetrical: with a large potted plant to one side and a classic doormat on the left.
Have you seen a front door you love? Please let me know! We’ll do a series and show them off here.
Is it okay to switch the living room with the dining room?
I’ve been absent from these pages for a while, and here’s why: we just moved 2,000 miles from Seattle to Chicago! What a change – the biggest part of which, at the moment, is our living space. We went from 880 square feet in a 1940s cottage to 2,000+ in a giant 1800s-era two-story house. (Lest you think we suddenly came into some money, we’re renting.) When I first saw the house, the previous tenants were using the dining room as a living room.
I just chalked that up to their age – guys in their 20s don’t tend to value décor, in my experience. But now that we’re in the house, I confess we’re considering doing the exact same thing. Despite all the space, we’re having trouble setting up the living room to comfortably watch TV (and I can admit: we like TV). There’s a huge open archway, an awkward room off the entry through another archway, and a three-window nook. The only wall big enough for the TV is also the only wall big enough for the couch. Putting the couch against the windows looks weird. I am adamantly against putting a TV in front of a window. And floating the couch in the middle of the room messes up traffic flow. The dining room, on the other hand, has two good-sized walls for both TV and couch, as well as a lot more electrical outlets. So, what do you think: have you ever switched up the layout of the house like that? Will we be risking the wrath of the feng shui gods if we do?
