Just what I wanted.

Ever since we moved in to our house I have been bothered by the backyard.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the backyard.  There are about 100 different kinds of plants and trees that bloom in such a way that once something dies, something else comes up, leaving us with some kind of color all summer.  The yard is really private thanks to a greenbelt behind us and rows of trees that have been growing for some time.  We have a patio table with a wonderful garage sale umbrella (best find EVER).  It is a beautiful backyard. 

The problem you ask? Well, there are two.  1. It is the most uninviting yard for the kids. They will NEVER stay in the backyard and 2. There is a huge wasted space area.  Let me explain.  The yard slopes down to the greenbelt in the back and the people before us dropped the yard down to create sort of a separate area.  There are rock stairs that lead down to the unused space.  It has flat rocks on the bottom and wonderful shrubs and plants around the edges.  But what do you do with a space like that? I suppose we could put a hot tub there.  NO.  I will announce now that I will never own a hot tub.  We could put the world’s biggest picnic table down there and host a lovely dinner party.  Nah, we won’t ever do that.  We could put some grass down there, of course it would be ten feet high cause to mow would be hard.  Nope, nothing seemed practical to put down there EXCEPT a swing set.  You see, a swing set will solve both of my problems.  It may make the backyard more kid friendly rather than only plant lover friendly and it will use this big wasted space. 

So, to the Internet I went.  I had an idea in my head as to what I wanted.  I found all kinds of big swing sets on Craigslist but they were the kind where you come and take it apart and then put it back together.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it would be possible, but the idea of Greg and Ben and Steve marching down to someone’s house with their tools and then dragging a bunch of screws, misc. wood pieces, swings and tools back to my house to assemble something that my children would climb on was just too much for me. And they just weren’t what I had in my head.  It was then the image in my head materialized and I found a guy who customizes a set to your needs and space requirements and comes out and builds it for you in your backyard. 

So, last Tuesday we started with this:

Which soon became this:

And now we have THIS!

I love the way he set it up, I love the suggestions he gave, I love that it didn’t take up any amount of space in the yard other than the space that was never used.  I love that he came out and 4 hours later it was done.   

And now, I keep finding kids in the backyard.  Just as I always dreamed. 

(Thanks Sam.  www.samscustomsets.com)