For a select few children , getting sent outdoors to play might as well be like your mommy shoo off you to the local four - wizard hotel – if the hotel supply to kids ' imaginations and had a tyre golf shot . No longer are we just blab out swingsets and a rust slide . The playsets in the next few pages are something the general public would most often see in a children ’s museum ortheme park , and a lot of them cost not just as much as a automobile , but as much as a literal menage . You could inhabit in . With a family .
So groom : You ’re about to feel profoundly halt about the credit card playground slide and single baseball swing you bought for the kids last vacation season .
5: Duffy’s Diner
Sure , those of us with a hardy vision might enjoy our littletoykitchens with wooden blocks of " bread " and plastic mold - iron skillets . But when it comes to play restaurant , you ’ll be firmly - pressed to find a more realistic reading thanDuffy ’s Diner … short of in reality use a 4 - year - old off - the - book in a greasy spoonful .
You know you ’ve get an awesome playset when Duffy ’s ( a replica of a ' 50s - style retro café ) is n’t just a fun idea , but may actually be nicer than most restaurants you rust at on a regular basis . Not only does it have the checkerboard floor I ’d kill for in my own kitchen , the drive - through window and an tot - on kid - sized red leather booth , it also has the option of an exterior private road - in movie theater screen . have ’s echo : This playhouse has the pick of summate a drive - in movie theater concealment . begin at $ 7,200 , you could buy a fairly seemly railway car for the cost of using that labour - in screen .
But do turn over that the cost might be offset if you could somehow win over the neighbor kids that shakes cost $ 5 a popping .
4: Better Than Swiss Family Robinson
A caboodle of us spent our childhood argufy our human knee climbing trees and picking small splinters out of our hands , hoping we could get a taste of the Swiss Family Robinson lifestyle . But perching precariously in grandma ’s maple tree and warding off squirrels was n’t exactly live like Tarzan .
inscribe the genial oftree housesthat are a quite a little more house than tree diagram . Seriously , for the cost of thisTree Top Inndesigned by Barbara Butler , you could corrupt a medial - price home in Illinois [ source : Illinois Association of Realtors ] . Because thistree housecosts $ 156,530 ( in 2013 ) . Of veridical money . To spend on a fraction of your child ’s overall playtime .
But is it worth it ? The structure contain several different Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and levels – along with handwoven rope railing – to create spaces for a clubhouse , pack of cards , balcony and spiral staircase . With run and wooden footbridges , there ’s no feigning here : You are straight - upliving in the tree . Even the clubhouse has a gable roof and laminated glass window and door , lest you begin to palpate as if you ’re roughing it a bit too much .
3: Central Park
What ’s beneficial than an awesome backyard playset ? How about 21 amazing backyard playsets ?
We ca n’t all loll around our backyard on a hot summer day , idly climbing our unhinged tree sign of the zodiac . While a destiny of us schlep to the one swingset at the parking area a mile away , those favourable kids in Manhattan get to enjoy a salmagundi of playthings at Central Park .
conceive that theBernard Family Playgroundin East Harlem carry fishing poles so Kyd cancatch and releasefish from the nearby Harlem Meer . Or that Diana Ross herself funded theDiana Ross Playground , featuring an awe-inspiring wooden looseness structure . Or theRobert Bendheim Playground , designed to be used by shaver with and without disabilities . . . and with a really cool sprinkler water feature . And do n’t forget theSafari , Mariners ' andWild West - themed playgrounds as well .
And there ’s a lot more , all in an area less than 1.5 square miles ( 3.9 straight klick ) , at no cost to parents .
2: Themed Sets
A mind - blowing playset might include harebrained features , but it does n’t have to depend on them to be unique . As we saw with Duffy ’s Diner , sometimes a skillful stem will transmute a timeworn one-time yawn of a wendy house into cutting - boundary kid ’s miniature .
Take , for example , the ship theme . What could be a footrace - of - the - mill setup is now ayacht . That ’s ripe : The next time your kid move into Jay - Z at an event , they can both commiserate about how hard it is to keep the pack of cards dry .
While ships are a pretty pop choice for backyard playsets , do n’t overlook the note value of afire station(starting at $ 5,800 , as of publishing ) . Lest they get too well-fixed performing pretend , cast away in thisbuilding " on fire"(starting at $ 4,900 ) , and now the child get a lesson in being argus-eyed about fire rubber .
But the ultimate cool theme prize ( and possibly the ultimate coolheaded parent honor ) might have to go to theGhostbusters post replica . The miniature set reportedly include a ghost containment bedroom , which is a fact I ca n’t verify becauseghostsaren’t genuine .
1: Not Your Grandma’s Swingset
So you ’re more of a diehard , say , and have no interest in sailboat structures , clubhouses in trees – and you surely do n’t want to mess with playing around in a public park . In fact , you ’re so special about your swingsets , slides and monkey bar that you ’d prefer todesign them yourself .
No problem –CedarWorkshas you covered with not only gasp - inducing playsets ( they set out at $ 2,500 ) , but a tool to help you design your own plaything [ source : CedarWorks ] . While a lot of the designs are technically traditional ( swingsets , tire swings , slide , climbing wall ) , the company habituate only northern snowy cedar with bigger Mrs. Henry Wood cut . The company also donates seedling tooffset their forest , and the set are environmentally well-disposed enough to be " returned to the land " without percolate chemicals from the woodwind [ source : CedarWorks ] .
Lots More Information
I do n’t want to brag , but I was the proud proprietor of a wooden backyard fort as a kid . It was super cool ; it had a sloping trough and a tyre jive . It also had a nest of yellow jackets every year , along with exposed nails . My female parent later converted it to a clothesline to dry washables in the summer . Talk about bang for your buck .
