Our New To Us Outdoor Play Set

Where do I begin with this one? 

I guess I'll start by writing how this blog began. LoveOlympiaJune was born 4 years ago as my way of sharing online the process of flipping furniture pieces.
While my blog has changed over the years as I began to write about more than just refinishing furniture, I've started to return to my original focus.  However, today's post will not be about that.

Recently, a neighbor and I were chatting about whether to buy new or used items for our kids. This particular friend mentioned she uses Facebook Marketplace.
My husband and I had been talking about the possibility of building some kind of outdoor play space for our family and ran the numbers on what it would cost to do so. We concluded that it would cost somewhere between $500-$700 for all the tools, materials, and lumber to build. I really didn't want to spend anywhere near that amount, so I thought this was a good chance to check the FB Marketplace out.

When I started to look I found a Rainbow Play Set that was listed well below our build cost just hours before. I wasn't sold on the price and this play set was located in Richmond. Not really what we had in mind. However, something in me said to just write the lady who was listing the swing set.  I contacted her and we negotiated on the price.  Afterwards, I told my husband about our FB exchange and he wasn't too happy about it, ha! I understood though...I mean, I didn't want to have to rent a trailer AND drive to Richmond just to get a swing set. Long story short, this lady and I agreed on a price that we thought was fair. We rented a trailer and hauled to Richmond one Saturday with our kids.

Once we got to Richmond, we were pleasantly surprised when we saw a Publix down the road from where we would be, so we decided to hit that up later in the evening. That alone should make this all worth it, right? (we really love Publix!)


Now before actually meeting this family, I got the impression they were believers. Something about the way the lady wrote, how quick and responsive she was, and how kind she was just gave me that impression.

Once we got to the house, we all got out and got to work. We thought it would only take a couple hours to take this beast apart...but boy were we wrong!! It took 6 hours!!! 6 hours!?! 
My husband was pretty patient with everything and even said to me that normally he would get really frustrated given the circumstances, but something about being at this family's house put him at peace. That was comforting!

I don't know if you are wondering what our kids did during ALL that time, but I'll tell you anyways. ;) The family who was selling this play set has 2 girls, ages 12 and 14. They took to our kids right away and played tag with them, raced around the yard, ate snacks and watched a movie together. Our kids were sooo happy playing and running around that day that they didn't even seem to mind that mommy and daddy were busy trying to figure out how we were going to take this thing apart and get it home safely. 

Another blessing was that this lady's husband did end up helping us, and one of their neighbors even came over to let us borrow some extra tools which helped speed things up a bit. Once we thought we were home free, we got what we thought we needed apart and got ready to put it in the trailer. Well, come to find out we had to take even more of this thing apart because it was too big to fit. Womp, womp!! 

Thankfully, our kids weren't ready to leave yet so we kept at it and finally got the last piece apart around 7:30pm. We noticed that there was a little bit of wood rot along the bottom of the boards on the tower and some of the bolts were rusted enough we would have to buy a couple more. Upon seeing and hearing this, the family insisted we take some of our money back. They generously refunded us half of the price.

Once all the pieces were inside the truck and we were ready to leave, the man began to share how he reads the Bible with his girls and how he went through it cover to cover with his daughter in 4 months. That was so encouraging! It felt like we had known them before and couldn't help to think how much God's hand was a part of this.

Even though it ended up being a long day, we had a lot of laughs with this family and seeing our kids run around happily with their girls made it all worth it. We exchanged numbers and some pictures of our kids playing (I won't share those here, but we do have one of them printed and hanging on our wall at home). The lady even gave away some toys to our kids including a toy airplane, skateboard, and other little goodies.

That day left such an impression on me, it's weird. I don't know, but the whole experience had both my husband and I pleasantly surprised because this was something we normally do not do. It's not like me to message someone I don't even know and head to their house to pick up something. I've almost never done that with furniture. I always meet in a public place. In saying all of this I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone do this on a regular basis by the way.

I sent some pictures to this family of the play set during and after setup and am now ready to share them on the blog. Get ready for lots of pics!

Before we (or shall I say my husband) could begin setup, we wanted to lay out all the pieces to see how they would fit between our 2 crepe myrtles. 

To keep our kiddos entertained, we busted out another thrifted $10 find- our Melissa and Doug easel. Tessa loves any Mo Willems book, so she got to work writing and drawing.

Lydia and Gavin found a few ladybugs and also played with the chalk wall that came with the swing set.

We did a little bit of reading. ;)

We wanted to stain all the wood, so I taped up any areas we didn't want to be sprayed.

  Staining in progress!

Putting up the roof!

I even got in on the job while little Miss Lydia snapped some pictures for us. :)

Almost finished!!!

Have to say, it looks like a brand new play set! 
Our kiddos have been using it whenever they can and we've already had a few families over to play on it with them.

Here's to many more days like this in the summer!