Hellobee Boards

Ours is very simple. It came with the house when we purchased it so I have no idea where it came from. I've seen some more elaborate ones in the neighborhood but we're pretty close to a playground so we go there a lot as well.

@autumnlove: omg! That's crazy

We had one in our backayard when we bought our house, but it was the first demo project we had. It was horrible. The previous owners made it themselves, and it was horribly constructed. It was leaning really bad and rotting.

WalMart had a few that were on sale a while ago (saw it on dealnews.com). They looked similar to the ones Costco has but were around $800-$1200.

@autumnlove: @Bao: Installation included as well! What a deal! Lol

We just put ours up this weekend, it's the gorilla playset that is usually $1299 but I stalked it forever and finally saw it go on sale for $999. My son loves it and it looks really nice!

@littlek: Thanks!

@autumnlove: I forgot to mention that it was from Costco... I was overwhelmed when I started researching too, and from what I found alot of places that had cheaper sets charged per item - so you had to pay separately for the slide, swings, etc. So it ended up being about the same as the whole set from Costco, which included EVERYTHING. Plus I was adamant that I wanted one with a wood roof b.c all the ones with the fabric roofs around here look really worn just even a year later. So my requirement was that I wanted a slide, something to climb, swings, and a wood roof. But this one has so many little fun things it's amazing!

My husband, his stepdad and my dad set it up. They started around 10:30 and finished around 5:30. One guy was consulting the manual and getting things queued up while the other two assembled. It was definitely a full day. My husband rented a dingo earth mover to level the spot the weekend before, that took a few hours. And then one thing I'd highly recommend - he went through and counted the screws and put each type in a different ziploc bag - labelling each bag as he did so and also opened the packages and sorted all the wood pieces prior... that prob took him a few hours total but we bought it in February so he just did that whenever he had time puttering around the garage.

My FIL bought the swing set from Costco and was able to get in on the $200 instant rebate (originally $1000, down to $800 plus no tax because we live in DE). It took my FIL and DH three days to build it (maybe 12-15 hours total). It's a great swing set, and it was a huge hit at LO's birthday party this past weekend.

We have a Costco one. LO loves it.

@AprilK: I love this! I like your list of requirements too. I think I may add a wooden roof to my list. Also, something to climb on. Swings are fun, but kids like to climb! It doesn't look like this set is at costco anymore. I love the rope ladder though.