Restaining a Rainbow Play System

[Purple18]

Has anyone restained their Rainbow Play System? We've had ours 1 year and it's already in need - lots of snow this year sitting around on it. How much of a project was this - is it a DIY project? Any pointers to make it last? What type and color stain did you use - I'm hoping this won't be an annual project. Thanks!

[mnosky1]

We restained ours last year - it was 5 years old and just starting to look bad though. Some areas looked really good though with the initial ceadr stain still intact but other areas were looking worn. We live in PA so it gets a lot of bad weather - it is in mostly shade so it had areas of mold (green stuff) too. One other time I just took a scrub brush too it and that really brightend it up.

So first we power washed it and that actaually took off the old stain and all the dirty stuff- this was the trickier part because you had to power wash it evenly and it was easy to get carried away and also not use too strong a setting because some of the wood did start to splinter/get rough. I sanded over a few spots. We looked at a bunch of different stains and I googled it and looked at a few pictures peopel had posted - I'm sorry I forget what we used (I might have some left at home if you want me to look) I thought ours turned out really nice. The color was more orange than the original and I would have liked a more reddish tone but we couldn't tell until it was all painted and dry! I was surprised how many people commented on it - neighbors, family etc. We had my husbands work party a month later and everyone thought it was brand new.

Oh, and I repainted the plastic pieces (disc swing and telescope) that were all worn (red was pink) (I had done this another year) but this didn't last - they look great for a few weeks. I used spray paint for plastic and it then chips off. It works on other outdoor plastic stuff so not sure why no luck on the swing set stuff.

And we are not very handy, although we try, and we never used the power washer before. I think it took most of 2 days. Power wash one Saturday and paint the next saturday (one person power wash and then both of us painted - the kids went to the grandparents for the afternoon when were were painting).

Oh, one other option, our rainbow store offers a service where they will come out and wash and stain your set and tighten everything up, etc. I could have sworn it was something like $250-350 when we bought our set - now that was also 6 years ago but now that service is done by another group and the cost was a lot more ($500?) and they didn't have openings last summer or something so we didn't do it.

Good luck.

Michelle

[sidmand]

We're also not handy at all and haven't done it ourselves. We've had our set about 5 years and done it twice. The first time was by Rainbow and like PP said, I think was around $300 or so. Then Rainbow left our state and there was no one "official" to do it but I found someone on Craigslist who used to do Rainbow sets and did it. I originally was looking at a handyman who would also do it but figured it made more sense to go with someone who knew playsets and what needed to be tightened, etc. I can't remember offhand how much he charged but I think it was about the same. I think we might need to do it again soon though!