Spring Spruce Up! Our Outdoor Play Space Makeover

Here’s what I imagine our neighbors have been thinking of us since we scored and (somewhat painfully) reconstructed our kids’ secondhand play equipment last summer:

“Wow. That’s an ugly playset you have there!”

“Why yes, yes it is. Thanks for noticing. We like to put our least attractive assets right in view of our neighbors whenever possible, so this works out just great.”

“What are you thinking putting that thing up in your backyard? Is it safe?”

“Well, we’re thinking that our kids are high energy balls of fire that could rival natural disasters. We’re thinking they need a constructive place to run off all that naturally occurring energy. And yes, the darned thing is solid as a rock or we wouldn’t have even considered allowing our children on it… “

For the record, this conversation NEVER happened; no, it’s just my paranoid version of what I think people might be thinking about us. In truth, our neighbors are all extremely nice people who would never come out and say the things that I’d hate for them to be thinking. That said, I’m thrilled to no end that we’ve spiffed our little eyesore up and become a tad more presentable to the neighborhood at large. 

Can you blame me? Here’s our “before” picture of the swinging back yard bench:

(Yes, I almost forgot to get the before in all its glory… still learning.)

And the “before” of the ever-so-lovely playset: 

Ugh, right?! Pretty rough.

So after living with this nonsense since last July (which is when Chris heroically reconstructed the playset through feats of engineering and sheer physical strength that I shall not go into here), I’ve been staring at this thing through our kitchen window. All through last fall, all through the winter, and into the beginning of this spring, it’s been out there looking like this. And if you know me, this sort of thing - no matter how functional - bothers me. Visual dissonance is not something I can tuck away in that portion of my brain marked “Don’t worry about it until it’s time to worry about it” because it is fresh every. single. time. I look out the window. I’m crazy like that, I know, but it’s hardwired. There’s really not anything I can do with myself when I get like that except make change. And change in this case looked like mulling over paint possibilities all through Georgia’s coldest months. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner… there was the playset. Every snack, every trip through on the way to the garage… there was the playset. Every trip to the mudroom for shoes or a coat… there was the darn playset! It would not leave me alone, I tell you.

And while it was mocking me through the panes of the kitchen window, I was quietly plotting against it. I was designing it anew in my head. I had big plans for it, but I couldn’t let anyone or anything in on it lest my plans all fall to pieces in the debate over rainbow colored this-or-that which would have been sure to occur had my daughter been anywhere near the conversation.

When I finally decided on the color, I was pleased with myself. I had mulled over about a hundred different possible combinations including one or both of the outdoor pieces. In some combinations, they were different color schemes from each other. In other combinations, they were the same. But in all of them, because I had been influenced by the wishes of my six year old, I had far too many colors to work with, period. It started to feel frustrating because nothing was clicking! I wasn’t sure what I thought it should look like, which is actually quite unusual for me. 

Then, finally, in a moment of clarity — maybe it was the fresh air and exercise that cleared my head as the weather started to warm so delightfully and we spent more time outdoors, I’m not sure — Bingo! I had it. Though the wood was sturdy and solid on both pieces, it was hard to see them that way since they were both so faded and had been through so many different kinds of sunlight and weather. I tried to imagine what they had looked like as new, what they would’ve looked like together, and what they would’ve looked like if we’d purchased them from a higher-end retailer (to us, at least) like Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel or the like, rather than having inherited the one and come into the other secondhand. That’s when it dawned on me: Chocolate Brown. Not only would it not be so loud as the stark white that the bench had been sporting, but it would blend beautifully with our wooded lot, it would create a visual partnership between the two pieces, and hopefully weather somewhat naturally, thus creating less work in the repainting-down-the-line category. So I took myself off to Home Depot to investigate paint colors, knowing I wanted a color a bit more dramatic than the stardard cedar colors of most playsets and also that the paint itself had to be really, really durable to stand up to the use that these two pieces would see at the hands (and butts and feet!) of us and our kids.

I ended up choosing a paint that was a paint and primer in one, which I have never used before, but which I highly recommend. I chose Behr’s Premium Ultra Plus Paint and Primer in One in a color called “Sweet Molasses”. The paint associate encouraged me to go with semi-gloss because he said it was harder wearing than the more matte versions of the same paint. In any case, this stuff was like magic. One coat was all it took to prime and paint and completely cover the surface of whatever I painted, regardless of what color it had been before. (Hello, white bench! One coat to makeover glory!)

Here’s the final result - the “after” picture of the playset:

And the pièce de résistance - the “after” picture of the new and improved bench:

All told, this little makeover of our backyard play space breaks down this way in terms of dollars and cents:

Paint + Primer in one from Home Depot: $36/can (I used the entire can.)

Flexible silicone paintbrush for detail work: $6

Two indoor/outdoor bench pillows from Home Depot: $12/each 

Two medium modern metal + glass lanterns from Pier 1: $10/each

Two garden hooks to hang lanterns from Home Depot: $4/each

Decorative solar light owl from HomeGoods: $15

All told, my investment for this project came to right at $110. Its impact on the space both visually and in terms of how much we’re now using the area is HUGE. The kids are super excited about it and my brain is no longer sending out little mental hate telegrams to the ugly backyard play area. (That’s worth at least $100, if not many times that amount.) We’re really enjoying our backyard makeover and I know it’s only going to see more use as the world begins to blossom and the weather continues to warm.