Projects

It has been very busy here the past few weeks.  I had two projects that I wanted to get done around the time of the girls birthday.  The first project was a fence.  We wanted to close in the back yard to prevent the girls from being able to get to the front.  I was able to get the fence all built before their birthday, but the paint came after.  The fence is 2 small sections.  On the left side of the house our fence connects to the neighbors fence and on the right side of the house it butts up to the neighborhood fence.  The fence took a lot longer than I had planned.  The ground was hard when I dug the post holes.  There were a couple days I could not work on it since it rained.  The gates took a while since I had never built a fence gate before, so I had to make sure I took my time to do it right.  There is only about 35 feet of fence, but it took more than a gallon of paint.  Here are pictures of the completed and painted fence.

The other project I wanted to accomplish was a swingset for the girls.  It took me a while to decide on what to get for them.  We looked at all those large kits at Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Walmart, Toys r us, and other places.  The kits were all very expensive, a most basic kits costing over $500.  These sets were built with cheap 2x4s and were not all that sturdy.  I then found a small kit at Target for around $100 dollars and then paid about $125 for the lumber for it.  Mom and dad stayed for a couple days after the party so dad was able to help me build the swingset.  It was easy to do, but it did take a little bit of time and some more money in drill bits to drill through the 4x6.  After it was all built I was able to use the same paint as the fence to give it a more natural feel in our back yard.  Sarah and I and more importantly the girls all love the swingset.  Here is a picture of the completed swingset.  I would also like to thank our neighbor for the slide, the girls can't use it quite yet, but I am sure they will love it soon enough.  

The set came with 2 adult type swings and a pair of rings.  Those are all sitting in the garage.  We put on a fourth swing for when the girls have a friend come over and play.  I mentioned that the girls love the swingset so I will also show you a video of them on the swingset.