Lifetime 90137 A Frame Swing Set Playset, Primary

Background:I looked at various wooden swing sets in the 1k to 2k range. I live in New England and our climate can be tough on outdoor wood. There also seemed to be low review scores for the lower priced wood sets as their claims of cedar wood were dubious. I have all the tools and a lot of background in finishing and refinishing wood, but honestly its another chore I didn't need. The wood sets look great at first, but you will have to power wash, sand, stain, and finish every couple years. Keep that in mind. I decided to spend a bit more up front on this set and do the assembly myself to come in at a decent price.Purchase and Delivery:Lifetime has PDF instructions on their website, lifetime.com, and you can pull those up to get an idea of the space requirements and constuction steps, do that first. I marked off the dimensions with some sticks to give a visual aid for both layout considerations and assembly. You also need relatively level ground. I had a good spot for it, so I pull the trigger. A small shipping company I had not heard of brought it to my house, after a confirmation call. It arrived in about 5 big boxes along with the plastic climbing wall and slide. Its likely you will have to be there to sign. I had them deliver on a day off and overall it was a pretty smooth experience.Assembly:The instructions tell you you need two people and I would say that is probably a good idea. I ended up putting together 99% of this thing by myself and it took up the majority of my weekend. I would estimate 12 hours total. For reference I work on a computer all day, but I do the occasional home project as needed. I would suggest having allen bits and a cordless impact driver to speed things along. The vast majority of what you will be doing is lining up holes in the metal pieces and screwing in bolts to nuts which both have allen wrench holes. I used two allen wrenches (that came in the box)for the majority of the assembly. It was not a big deal, but I could have made it easier on myself with a trip to HD or Lowes for the proper sized allen bits.The instructions are fantastic and the hardware needed for each assembly section are in separate clearly labeled bags. So while it was time consuming it was not frustrating. The only downside is the metal pieces themselves are not labeled so you will want to double check to make sure the holes in the diagram match the holes of the piece you are about to bolt on. I made one mistake and it wasn't a big deal but I was pretty careful and not in a rush. You will also need a ladder when it comes time to attached the roof sections. The peak of the roof is 11.5 feet and the roof panels screw in from the outside.Outcome:This set is incredibly sturdy, and looks and feels like the high quality item that it is. I am 200 lbs and can swing on the swings, climb on the rock wall, and go down the slide with no problems. I have zero concerns about letting multiple kids or adults play on this. I added some grip tape to the metal ladder rungs and the propeller swing. The ladder rungs are round and powder coated metal so I figured adding some traction would help avoid slips and falls. The deck of the fort has a great non slip surface and is no problem. My son is just under 2 and a half so he is little young for this, but we didn't want to get something that he would grow out of quickly. I think this should have me covered until he and future children grow out of swing set ages.

My wife and I decided to purchase a swing set for our five sons ages 2 to 8. We did allot of research before we decided to buy this particular unit.We where concerned about buying a wood play set. We live in Northeast Ohio and experience every type of weather imaginable. We have seen our relatives and friends spend thousands of dollars on wooden sets that fade, split rot and need constant maintenance. We simply did not want to spend thousands for a unit we would have to maintain.We already have a collapsible picnic table from Lifetime and love it. So after shopping around we decided to buy the Lifetime Big Stuff Outdoor Play set from Amazon.com as it was the best price and we where able to use our Amazon.com Store Card for 12 month Same As Cash financing.A few things that you should be aware of before you buy this unit:1) It is large. It takes up a serious amount of space in our city lot.2) It is very heavy and is delivered by common carrier. You will need to help the driver unload the product. It comes in an open shipping crate around 17' long, 4' wide and 5' high. The slide and rock wall are not boxed and are the lightest items. The rest of the unit comes in several large boxes each around 100#'s or more. So be prepared for a work out, or have a friend available who is fit and willing to carry lots of heavy boxes.3) This comes in about a thousand different parts including fasteners. TAKE YOUR TIME and read the entire directions first. The set up is pretty straight forward, but we made a couple errors simply by not paying close attention to the instructions. It only goes together one way.4) You will need two adults to set this up. I am not sure how anyone could set this unit up completely without another adult. Most of the unit can be assembled alone, but another adult is essential for several steps, holding parts still and for moving the unit around. I had my wife's help for a few of the steps, but set most of it up on my own. Like I said it is not terribly difficult, just time consuming.5) Find a level area if at all possible. I could not find a level area and it added a great deal of trouble to the set up.6) It is time consuming. It took around 16 hours to put this unit together. We received it on a Tuesday. We found the bag of fasteners and hardware and did an inventory on all the parts. THIS IS A MUST. We where missing the nylon washers for step number one, but everything else was delivered. We where able to replace the washers at Lowe's.I started putting the unit together alone Wednesday at 8 am. My father stopped by to help me set up the A frame for five minutes and I stopped working around 8 pm with about 2/3 complete. Thursday my wife helped me finish up and we worked on it from 10 am to 2 pm.I have had the unit completely set up for three days and my boys have been swinging and playing on it non stop from the time they get up until it gets dark. Bonus: It is much quieter in the house during the day as they are all outside playing!Bottom line: If you are looking for a solid play set and swing set I would highly recommend this unit. It looks exceptionally well made and solid and I believe we will get decades of use out of it.

Beautiful set, very well made and we expect our daughters will enjoy this set for years to come!