Extreme Makeover Backyard Edition Part 2 - The Playground

So once we got the fence up our ideas started flowing. We had a rather large section of our backyard where the sprinklers had never worked. (Trevor tried everything short of digging up the grass and starting over to get them fixed with no luck.) This area was looking pretty bad. We had thought about getting a swingset for Cole and Cagney's birthday, and had recently been given a new trampoline from my very generous brother Richard. We had the idea to turn this area into a playground. Thanks to Trevor's dad and brother Darren and my mom we were able to almost finish this project in one day.

First a HUGE dump truck dumped 16 cubic yards of wood chips on our driveway. The kids loved this. At first I worried that it wasn't enough. It was PLENTY.


Then Trevor and his dad and brother tilled up the whole area raked it all out. They also removed an old rusty swingset that was by the shed that was cemented into the ground.

Then we put down weed guard and fastened it to the ground with bit metal fabric staples. The rolls were four feet wide and we used one 200 foot long roll and three 50 foot long rolls.

Then we made about 50 kagillion trips with the wheelbarrow and a wagon to get all of the wood chips from the driveway to the backyard. This is the part that my mom helped with and I didn't get a picture of this step, darn. A few days later Trevor and I moved the trampoline and put up the swingset. I love when project is finished! And just in time for summer. Anybody want to wager on how long it will take for our kids to say they are bored? Give it time, they aren't out of school quite yet. But right now they can't get enough of playing outside in their new playground.