are you sick of construction pictures yet?

We only have one more day of work to complete this project, so your misery will end soon. More importantly, OUR misery will end soon. It's been a pretty good project, but as with all projects, little things here and there need tweaking and adjusting, and it's just getting a bit wearing.

But anyway, here we are on day 3 of construction of our new playscape -- The Map Man is diligently making the 2nd story safe with railings and boards so that the kids can play up there again without giving me a heart-attack. I'm diligently taking photos of the process. (Just kidding, I've honestly done my share on this project, and in fact, despite what it looks like in this particular series of photos, I've gotten my hands plenty dirty and my muscles plenty tired.)

One final step before letting the kids loose on the tower: bolting on the slide. By mid-day the tower was safe for the kids to play on (assuming they don't launch themselves out the window, which will eventually get a screen, or the tunnel opening which will eventually attach to -- duh -- a tunnel). There's still quite a bit of work remaining on the tower -- the clubhouse and porch need a roof, and the entire bottom story needs rails and boards and another wall (and sand in the sand pit, like our entire side yard isn't sandy enough!). The roof will have to wait for another day, but we got busy on the lower story right away.

The kids were beyond thrilled to get to play on their under-construction playset! They spent the late afternoon and evening scrambling around the clubhouse and decking, climbing the ladder, sliding down the slide. Pretending that the upper story was a restaurant. And a pirate ship. And a space craft. And a jail. I personally thought that it looked like The Map Man was in a pig pen down in that bottom story....

Here's The Man screwing down the bottom story floor/decking. I told him that this is really good practice for next summer when we build a new deck. (I'm trying the idea on for size -- we desperately need a new deck, ours is about the size of a postage stamp and has looked like it might collapse at any moment since we moved in here 11 years ago. We did bolt it to the house a few years back when the kids started venturing out there, so collapse isn't really possible, but it's just a sad, sad, sad deck that needs to go. So eventually there WILL be a new deck out there -- the question is when, and if we'll attempt such a lofty project ourselves. We're capable -- I think -- but do we really WANT to do it?)

And here's what the playscape looked like by the end of the day. What's left, you ask? The roof on the clubhouse and porch. The beams for the swings and trapeze bar. The tunnel that goes over that and leads to the clubhouse. The crow's nest that goes in front of the tunnel entrance. The climbing wall/ladder that leads to the crow's nest. Hanging the swings. Collapsing into an exhausted heap.

It sounds like a lot. Ok, it IS a lot. But I really think we'll get it done with just one more full day of work, so hopefully over this coming weekend, if the weather holds out for us. Hours logged so far: about 22. But I'm guessing that the instructions assume that the "two moderately skilled people" are people that each own their own sets of tools. Sharing one tape measure between the two of us is not the most efficient way to get this job done.