Woodworking Project - Jungle Gym
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During the winter of 2002-2003 my friend, Lee, and his wife, Leah, decided that they wanted to put up a jungle gym in their backyard for their son. When Lee starting shopping around, he soon discovered that factory made jungle gyms are either VERY expensive or VERY cheap. Besides, nobody offered exactly what he was looking for. So, Lee and I sat down one night at my computer and starting drawing up plans. Once we had included all of the features that Lee wanted, our design was just as expensive as the factory built options. I suggested we stop treating this project like a toy and start treating it like a structure. Applying that strategy, suddenly the price began to drop. Factory made jungle gyms generally have redwood (or cedar) frames with heavy metal brackets. We cut the price to less than half by replacing the expensive redwood with inexpensive common framing lumber in non-toxic pressure treated pine. And, by utilizing tried and true deck building techniques, we eliminated the need for expensive metal connecting brackets. The trade off is that our design would be anchored in the ground, like a deck on a house, so it wouldn't be movable, like most factory made jungle gyms. And, pressure treated pine isn't very aesthetically pleasing; so, it would have to be painted or stained. Lee isn't planning on moving any time soon and he liked the idea of staining the jungle gym to match the house. So, after getting Leah's approval, we picked up the lumber and started construction...
Because Lee lives a couple hours from the ranch, this projects was done in a series of weekend trips. For the first trip, I hauled a truck load of lumber and tools to Lee's house. We started the construction by digging holes and setting posts, just as you would for a deck. Once all of the posts were set, we framed up the floors of each of the two 5'x5' towers and the 3'x8' bridge that connects them together. Then, came the 5/4 PT pine decking. Once we had a place to stand, we started on the railings. The railings are made of 2x2 pine rails and spindles with 1x3 pine top rails. We had about half of the railing complete when the sun went down on weekend #1.
The second trip was just one day, a short late fall day at that. I hauled over the lumber necessary to add a set of stairs to the north tower and begin framing the roof over the South tower. We completed the stairs and had just enough time to install the rim joists for the south tower roof before we lost day light. Before throwing in the towel for this winter, Lee stained all of the non-pressure lumber. We'll pick it up again next spring.
