Super Swings!

It's been awhile since I've shown you this strange area outside of our house that we call Ryderland.  With the house being built into a hill, we've got an interesting series of levels, and in this photo you can see 4 different exterior doors:

 At the very bottom is the slider from the Family Room, the next step up, in the lower right corner of the photo is the Workout Room slider, directly above the Family Room patio is the Living Room Deck and slider, and directly above the Workout Room slider is the Screened In Porch and Kitchen slider.  Whew.

These are all pre-move in photos, but they give you a better look at those bottom two patios, surrounded in rock.

 

 The Family Room patio was the most awkward, as it's about a 4 foot drop, and there are no stairs, so the only way you could get in or out of it was from the Family Room.  It's like an adult playpen.

That is until my Dad built us these.

Which made a previously dead space super useable for us.  I even hung a swing for him up on the Workout Room patio.

But it's not just Ryderland any more, Bo just turned one and is ready to start playing out here with his brother.  The first step- get that little man a swing.

I started by drilling a couple of pilot holes into the rafters, and then twisting in my swing hardware.

 

Once I got it started, using a screwdriver gave me a nice, big handle to quickly twist this piece into place.

 
Then I just had to screw in the plate around it.

 And we're in business.

 I had some extra chain left over from the last swing install, so I swagged it first to see how much I would need.

Once I settled on the correct length, I just needed to cut off the excess and load in the babies.

The best part is that the Screened in Porch above keeps out the elements, so even on a rainy day we can get outside and play on the swings a bit to get the wiggles out. 

It's not a traditional playground, for sure, but it works for us.  With a pretty narrow backyard, this was our best option to create a play area for the boys, and I'm proud we were able to make good use of this previously dead space.  Ryder begs to head down to his playground every night after dinner, and with all the lighting in this area, we'll be able to even as the sun sets earlier and earlier.  We may just need to bundle up!