The Backyard Playground

By combining building projects for children's play structures with tips and ideas for creative landscaping, this book goes much further than any other to helping readers create a fun, safe, and interactive outdoor play area for their children in an environment that is useful and appealing to adults. The projects in this book include a broad range of designs, for toddlers to teenagers. The play structure project is the classic, timber-style set found in many gardens and can accommodate several accessories and future modifications. Playing in either of the two tree house projects, kids will find adventure, privacy, and a connection to the outdoors. The climbing wall project provides kids-and parents-with a fun way to develop strength and concentration. There are also projects for playhouses and a fort that kids can help build and several plans for child size outdoor furniture. Where appropriate, projects are designed for adaptation to a different use after the child outgrows them. For example, the sandpit project is a decorative sandbox that can easily be adapted into a garden bed; the playhouse could become a garden shed in later years. In addition to the projects, there are dozens