Thread: Outdoor Timber Play Set for Daughter

treated timber is fine straight into the ground, should be good as gold if you paint it, if you put it up in the air a bit then the little one can have a sand pit underneath, just watch the cats poop in it though, a regular clean out is needed, the biggest nightmare is the safety aspect of protruding bolts, nuts, screws, chains, finger holes, protuberances, safety mulch and just general traps for littleys, I built a couple for caravan parks around here a few years back and oh hell the hoops the council made me jump through was enough to put me off building anymore, good luck with that! I have built a lot of cubby houses, a lot easier!

As a father of two girls who were once that age, there is no way I'd be making it out if treated pine. I know they did away with arsenic treatment a few years ago, but anything that keeps timber from rotting underground has no place in my daughters mouth.

Use the galvanized stirrups and some decent hardwood. Pine is fine for the structure if she can't get to it, but not for any exposed timber.

Keep in mind that the green treated pine at the big shed is often so wet that you'd think it is still growing. Leave it out in the sun and it will twist like a pretzel in an hour or so! stuff like design pine is better and comes preprimed if you're going to paint it.

Trav