Parenting Club - Parenting Advice, Parenting Message Boards, Baby Message Boards, Pregnancy Message Boards, TTC Messge Boards
Shop for Baby Items | Parenting & Family Blogs

Wooden vs Plastic Swings Sets/ Play Gyms


MommyToAshley wrote: We are going to get Ashley a swing set/play gym as an early birthday present. We have a park really close that we walk to, but it would be nice to have one in the yard too.

We've been looking, and I have only found a handful of places locally that have the wooden ones and plastic ones. The selection is limited, so my first question is: Is there any place online that is reasonable? Most of the online places want $1500- $3000+ for the wooden sets and we are not paying that much. (Or do you know of a place that might be located near Dayton OH that I may have missed? We already checked out ToysRUS)

Also, what are your experiences with the wooden play gyms and the plastic ones? What did you like about them and what didn't you like?


Thanks in advance for any information and recommedations!

aspenblue1 replied: Everyone I know has the rainbow play system which is the wooden one. They have places you can see around here also Home Depot sells something similiar. Costco has a rainbow playstem but I think its around 1200.00 sams also has a cedar on that is around 1000.00.

coasterqueen replied: Well we went with a liitle tikes one and this was dh's reasons for the plastic one over a wooden one:

1. you don't have to seal it every year like you should with a wooden one (or at least w/ones you would build yourself).

2. can resell it after they grow out of it and they hold their value so you should get at least 1/2 back.

3. the expense is cheaper than the wooden ones


kylie loves hers, although the plastic can get a bit hot if not in any shade. we are trying to remedy tha problem w/ours.

gr33n3y3z replied: the only ones I see are made of plastic
But they are very high in price
Good luck

Maybe K-Mart or Walmart have some

do a search here

http://www.google.com/frghp?hl=en&tab=wf&q=

Boys r us replied: We don't have either! I don't like swing sets, they scare me! I remember all of the INSANE things my brothers and I used to do on them where we could have gotten seriously hurt! So the only ones we use are at the park. But I agree with Karen..go for the plastic ones!! In addition to the reasons she gave...splinters also come to mind when thinking of the wood ones!

mammag replied: We just bought the plans at Detailed Play Systems and bought the materials ourselves. We were able to get the slide and swings, etc cheaper than what they offer. It was much cheaper than buying it all from them and you can add to it as you go. You can print out a lumber list without buying the plans and take it to the hardware store to get a quote to see how much it would be. All in all, I think it was around $1000 but we got one with a rather large fort..... Here is a pic of ours...

user posted image

Side View (we made the rock climbing wall with wood scraps instead of spending so much on rock climbing rocks.

user posted image


Just for fun..... a couple of in progress pics.....

Me working on it...



user posted image

First time standing on top....

user posted image

ETA.... We've also added some rings on the end since this pic and you can add a monkey bar at anytime..... we liked the flexiblity of it.

MommyToAshley replied:
We were thinking of plastic for the reasons you listed. I wouldn't want to have to weather proof the set every year, adn DH was concerned about splinters (as Nicole mentioned).

Have you had any problems with the durablility? The displays we looked at, the plastic was bending or breaking around the sandbox area. Of course, we were looking at sets under $1000. The plastic ones only had a 1 year warranty,which made us a little nervous. (The wooden ones had a 10 year warranty).


MommyToAshley replied:
WOW! I am impressed! You did an amazing job!!!!

thumb.gif I love the picture of you working on it! thumb.gif

Kaitlin'smom replied: I have often thougth about this also and if grandpa gets his way he will build her a massive one, well satrt small and add on, but I am not sure about what I want for her I also like the ides of plastic so I dont have to weather proof it every year and worry about splinters but I also worry that plastic will not be duriable enough. So it might be anothe ryear for us unitll we can agree and make up our minds, or we might by the end of the season once we decide.

thumb.gif thanks for the post

DVFlyer replied: I would recommend getting the one from Costco (which is what we did). It is very high quality Redwood/ Cedar. The company who makes it is a respectable company which means (hopefully) they will stand by any problems. And you can not beat the price. Just bring a truck (or have them deliver it), 'cuz it's 7 (or was it 8?) boxes. Keep in mind, the online price is DIFFERENT than the instore price.

It took about one full day to put together with me, my dad and uncle working on it. It wasn't hard, just a lot of bolts and pieces and such.

I would not worry about splinters. The Cedar has very fine grain (if that's the right way to describe it). It does not come apart like other wood... would wink.gif

I don't believe you have to seal it every year.... or ever for that matter. That is one of the benefits of these two woods. That's not to say it would be bad to seal it, just not necessary. This one also has a great warranty.

Plastic is nice, but I think the wood has a better image. Not sure why, just personal preference.

One thing I hadn't thought of until I started looking into playsets, was that not all of them can support adults. I wanted to swing too baby.gif , so I made sure to get one that could handle me and the kids.

DVFlyer replied: The only pictures I have are from the night after we (almost) finished it. Here is one. We hadn't put the hand/ foot holds on the "rock" wall yet, but this should give you and idea of what it looks like.

DVFlyer replied: What the heck, here's one of me and my dad. Don't mind the jeans, I was in my "grubbies".

ammommy replied: Another plus for the wooden sets is that they have staying power. The plastic ones that I've seen are pretty small and by the time she is 4 or 5, she may have outgrown it. We got one from toys r us on sale for about $700 and the kids love it!

ediep replied: we have a plastic step2 swing set. It was about $400 and it is very durable. No bending, fading, warping

the only down side is that jason will outgrow it by the time he's about 8 or so. I figured thats not a big deal since by 8, I'm sure he'll be into other things

here is ours

coasterqueen replied:
Same here, ours is very durable, no cracks, bending, etc. It's Little Tikes so they are made to be durable and to weather. They may fade a bit, but they are still durable. Ours hasn't faded yet. We gots our early last Spring.

Dh and I weighed all the possibles for if she outgrows it, etc. We both thought back to how long we used ours as kids and we both agreed by the time she outgrows this one she'll want to be doing something else, like Edie said. Most kids, not many I've known grow attached to a swing set in the double digit years...unless they are given nothing else to do.

We really wanted one of the cedar ones, but for us we weighed our options and decided that the money that would be spent on the cedar ones would be best spent on other items for Kylie (college fund) so we got the cheaper one. Image wasn't a part of the equation being that we don't look at things like that and Kylie isn't going to care about that when she wonders if she has money for college.

Hindsight being 20/20 I honestly think we would have just gotten one of those cheapy metal swings for a couple hundred bucks instead of $800 for the little tikes one we bought. Her sitter just has one of those cheapy ones and Kylie loves it just the same. I had one of the cheapy ones too as a kid and loved it just as well and it lasted til I grew out of it. I think I played more in my sandbox and playhouse as I got older over my swing set.

coasterqueen replied: Adding to say that one of our reasons too (I think I explained above) is that we'll be able to turn around and sell this later and get at least 1/2 our money back if not more. We can turn around and spend that money on her again or put in her savings. Either way Dh was big on knowing that he wouldn't have this big swingset in the back yard til we die (unless he tore it down, which would be a waist over getting some money back for the one we bought). tongue.gif

But he plans to put a garage up where her playground is someday...for the girls cars of course. tongue.gif

Here's a pic of our playground (not completely furnished justyet, lol) Oh and this was last year (the pic) tongue.gif

mammag replied: Karen, I LOVE the way you have their play area set up! Is that that squishy stuff as the ground cover? Sorry, I don't know what it is called.... If so, how much did that cost to put in? I would love to have something like that in the back so we don't have to mow around the playground.

I think that playset is perfect for their age. I know I worry more with younger kids on the wood sets because they are so hard and the splinters and such. If I didn't have older kids already at the time, I probably would have just done plastic myself....

I agree also that unless you want something that is going to stay with the house and don't want to sell it, plastics the way to go. I could sell ours but it would be a major pain in the butt to take apart and wouldn't be worth it, imo.

coasterqueen replied:
We used treated lumber to go around the playground and it's pea (sp?) rock inside the playground area. We felt it was the safest material to put in there. We didn't want sand (hot and a mess) and we didn't want mulch because you'd have to replace it every year. We thought about concrete....but decided against it.

MommyToAshley replied: Thanks everyone for the info. thumb.gif We are still debating, but I really really appreciate that you took the time to share your experiences.


P.S. Karen, I really like the girls play area too, HOW CUTE!


CommunityNewsResources | Entertainment | Link To Us |Terms of Use | Privacy PolicyAdvertising
©2024 Parenting Club.com All Rights Reserved