Re: Costco Playset

Hi I.,

We recently bought a nice wooden playset from Home Depot. It is a "build and play in one day" model. The total cost was a little over $1,200. To put it together in "one day", you would need two people working on it. I have a friend who bought the Costco playset. They ended up having to have it put together after her husband and his father spent two days working on it together. The total cost of the playset was over $4,000! Check out Home Depot, I think you will be pleasantly surprised!
M., a SAHM of 3 yr. old twins in STC

Hi I.,
We bought the playset from Costco a year and a half ago and our kids, 3 yrs and almost 2 yrs love it. I would say they were both capable of using the ladder and slide with a assistance when they were 18 months and my daughter scaled the rock wall at 2+ yrs. They've changed the design a little bit since then but ours took us 2 - 3 days to put together and I would consider us pretty 'handy.' The design is relatively simple but there are tons of parts! I researched other playsets online and this one was by far the best deal though ours has a cedar roof versus the plastic tarp kind which I preferred. It has weathered nicely and the cedar is still red though ours is in the shade for a good portion of the day. Feel free to email me with any other questions...I'm sure I missed some point I wanted to make but it's early and I've barely made it through my first cup of coffee ;o)

I bought the playset from costco and we love it. It is the same quality as the rainbow system playsets, but much less expensive. I does take a long time to piut together, probably 6-8 hours. My husband put it together and he's pretty handy at that stuff. If you aren't used to that kind of work, I would definately hire someone.
Good luck!
S.

We got the Costco playset last summer and love it!! I ordered it online so it would be delivered. It comes in a bunch of large boxes.

We did hire someone to put it together. It took two guys 8+ hours to put it together so I would expect a few days for a "novice."

It's made by Rainbow Playsystems and is a Costco-only model. The swing chains are cheaper than the rainbow model and it doesn't come with real baby swings but toddler swings. I bought two real baby swings by Rainbow on ebay. They were each about $25 -- $125 from Rainbow.
At 1 and 2 my girls have used it every single day when the weather is good. The six, almost seven, year old across the street still plays on her swing set regularly.

We bought one this year. It is great. The only complaint is that the swings are kind of close together. (Our old playset had them farther apart). The swing set took my husband and I less than a day to put together. (We had an impact gun, instead of just a hand socket wrench.) They make it so easy to put together by telling which box the pieces are in and which bag the srews are in. Also a chart with all the srew sizes. Just one thing, you might have trouble finding a swingset now. They stopped ordering them 2 months ago. They were selling only what they had in stock. The playset with tax cost only $1400.

Two of my neighbors have recently purchased the Costco playset. They both love it, and it looks beautiful. One of them had it installed, and said that was the way to go. We also have a playset. It is from Toys R Us. We purchased it 6 years ago, and are still using it. My oldest is 9. He still climbs on it from time to time. I am still glad that we made the purchase. Looking at the 2, I would choose the Costco, if cost wasn't a problem.

Don't know about Costco unit. We used our Rainbow unitl about age 8 and happily sold it to friends for $300. They were smart enough to take pictures and use black marker to label parts before moving it. Since we had boys, we did NOT purchase the swing unit, but later added the penthouse to add more interest. Have noticed some lsitings for Rainbow on Craigslist.com. You can also place free want ad. Rainbow is known for the safest and most well made, but new units are thousands of dollars. Of course, Costco may be just fine. Just an idea. Rainbow should be sealed or stained during good weather. Good luck.