Outdoor swing set - wood, metal, other recommendations?

[maylips]

We are looking at getting DD a swing set for her birthday. The wood ones are better looking to me, but obviously much more expensive. Sam's has a nice one for around $1,200 that we're considering but that is still high.

Would you recommend your wood set? Anything we need to look out for as we do our research?

TIA!

[Tondi G]

If the one from Sams is the Rounded cedar Play a round brand then that is a good buy! It's made by Cedarworks! Costco also has a nice set for $1,600 made by Rainbow. We are seriously considering the Costco set this year!

[mom2mack&max]

We have the Sunray (made by Rainbow) playscape from Costco. We bought it in Aug. and love it. We found a man who installs them in less than 8 hrs for $375. Ask your local Costco if they have any one that does that.

[AngelaS]

We have had a CedarWorks set for almost 10 years. I still highly recommend it!

[DrSally]

I saw one in the TRU ad that looks nice, but it seems too cheap. Wondering about the quality. I'm also considering the costco one as well.

[WatchingThemGrow]

We got the one from Sam's for about that much. It is the Play-A-Round Lookout IIRC. We like it a lot. After the first year, we pressurewashed and sealed it. Probably should have done it earlier. DH put it up in a weekend, with his brother's help for about 2 hours of that time. We also got the rubber mulch they sell there. The bottom is lined with landscape fabric and has cheap landscape timbers to contain the mulch. It is a really nice set.

[brittone2]

We started w/ a metal set from TRU, thinking if they were happy with that, we'd just stick to it for the price (eta: we aren't sure how much longer we'll be in our current house as DH will be re-entering the job market with a new degree in another year or so). It is pretty non-offensive looking...it is a dark green metal set.

DH then built a playfort for the kids. It has a 5-6 foot high fort with a slide, and a playhouse/little market underneath. They use the swings from the metal set since our wooden playfort doesn't have a swing arm.

The metal set and the wooden fort are all on pea gravel. The sandbox is on top of the pea gravel as well.

My kids were pretty happy with just the metal set for 1-2 years with no complaints. We just expanded because they love to be outside. I wasn't crazy about a metal set originally, but for $200 or so, it couldn't be beat.

[Melbel]

Over 8 years ago, we purchased a simple Rainbow swing-set w/ slide and fort, delivered and installed for $1,100. After about 4 years, we paid the company to move and reassemble the set for about $150 IIRC. My DC still use the set almost every day and we have been happy with our purchase. I am not happy, however, with Rainbow's customer service. We have a couple of boards that have warped on the ladder to the fort area. When I emailed pictures, they agreed to the repair under the lifetime warranty but insisted that we present an original receipt that DH had purged.