Well...I went ultra simple. I bought this kit:



Going to have three swings right of the slide and the rings to the left of it. Kits was $50 at Menards, but on sale for $20. Includes everything except the slide and the wood. I am going to router all the edges of the wood for a nice feel and stain it. Should I stain before I put it together or after?

If you stain before, you'll get all those surfaces that would be covered by assembly. Certainly couldn't hurt.

True. Will probably go that route.

I built the kids one without using plans and it turned out pretty good. Since they're older, its been dismantled and I have no digital pictures of it. The thing I liked most about the one I build was the height of the beam the swings connected to. I had to add 4' of chain to the typical swings you buy like in pictures above. This gave the swings a much larger arch and they could go a lot higher. Also, as all kids do, they would twist the chains and let them unspin. With the longer chains there was enough spin to almost make them throw up

Basically, I had a 4 post raised "treehouse" with a smaller stepped down platform for the plastic slide I bought. The ladder to the slide platform was also to get into the treehouse area. The top rail of the treehouse became beam (2 2X6 bolted together) for swings. It was long enough for 3 swings. On the end of the beam was 2 long 4X4 posts for an A frame with 2X6 cross brace. It also had another short beam cantilevered out back of the treehouse for a set of rings.

PS - best part was I "justified" a framing nailer for to build this even though most of it was lag bolts or carriage bolts.

Should explained the need for a Backhoe with a PTO for an auger based on the need to secure the legs very well.

I forgot that I rounded over all the corners as well and IMO it's more than worth the trouble. Beyond the obvious desire to protect tender hands, rounded corners will most likely stand up to the elements far longer than sharp splintery ones.

My wife stained it after I had everything else done. This is an outdoor play set with full exposure to the elements and kids doing everything they can imagine to destroy it - not fine woodworking. I don't think it makes any difference at all when you stain it, just do whatever you prefer. Lots of people don't do anything to them.

The other thing I did was used screws everywhere nails were specified (mostly in the steel gussets). This way I haven't had to worry about them backing out.



...and an outbuilding to store said backhoe, and if the outbuilding was just big enough to store the boat as well, that would just be a happy coincidence.

thats the exact one that we got for the first mate this last spring. I bought it off craigslist for about $100.
I had to take it all apart and load it, bring it home and install.
In order to get it all in my pickup I had to cut the 2x8 "header" in half then sister in another 2x8 during the install.
for a hondo, it was the best deal around. lumber and the hardware alone are pretty spendy. AND I found out that the $$$ went to a church group to help them raise funds to go on a mission trip.

thought that was pretty cool