Custom Swing Set Design Tips for Maximum Value

It’s always nice when someone who has done something you have never done before comes along beside you with their expected advice. Unless you are at the gym and the advice is unsolicited. That is just awkward and uncomfortable. In this blog post, I will give you some custom swing set suggestions that will add a lot of value to your vinyl swing set without breaking your budget. My suggestions include:

• Using Fireman’s Poles
• Adding Dual Slides
• Adding just the Lemonade Stand
• Increasing Your Tower’s Size

This blog post is for the people who have a set budget, picked their set, and have a little more budget to work with.

Fireman Poles

My kids play wild, imaginative games. From zoo keeper to a game they invented on their swings called “Toronto Traffic” (most likely named and developed after watching their dad cooly and skillfully maneuver through Toronto rush hour traffic), my kids love transforming everyday objects and adding them into their imaginative play.

A fireman’s pole is a great tool for a child’s imagination. It can be a secret hatch they use to escape from the tower during a dragon attack or the vine they use to swing through the jungle. It really adds a fun element of creative fun to a swing set tower!

The fireman’s pole is an inexpensive item to add to your tower. Because of its size and shape, it doesn’t add much to the footprint of your custom swing set. It is a great item to add to an empty side of your tower, and for the cost/fun ratio, I believe it gives you more fun for the cost than things like spotlights, wheels, or tic-tac-toes. However, that is just my opinion on what my kids would enjoy.

You can see the fireman’s pole on the Bungalow and Palace swing sets.

Dual Slides

A customer favorite, dual slides take the fun of sliding and crank it up! Now, your children can do slide races and incorporate them into their play! The cost of an additional waterfall slide is not prohibitive compared to the fun your children will get from it.

A few sets come standard with dual slides. The Cosmic Launcher and Marina are two great examples of how much fun it can be and how the spacing can differ. The Marina has them close together, while the Cosmic Launcher, utilizing its bridge, has them spaced out a bit further.

Are there advantages and disadvantages to the spacing? Not necessarily. The only thing that pops up in my mind is if you want to put pools at the end of the slide. For the Cosmic Launcer, we could use two separate pools, while for the Marina, you would need one larger pool as there would not be enough room between the slides for separate pools.

The more children you have, the more value dual slides provide. However, even if you only have one child but plan on having lots of playdates, dual slides are a great option for you as well!

Lemonade Stand

I can hear you protesting. You saw the cost of the Lemonade stand with 2 chairs, and now you are accusing me of suggesting an add-on that breaks the theme of not being too costly.

Hang on, read the subtitle again. It says lemonade stand, not lemonade stand and two chairs.

Adding just the lemonade stand is a great option as it is surprisingly inexpensive. Most of the cost of the lemonade stand and two chairs is in the chairs themselves. The chairs are tricky, time-consuming, but beautiful pieces of furniture that are the meat of the cost of this item.

If you are content to provide your chairs, the lemonade stand itself can be added to most sets without the chairs, saving you a lot of money!

You also do not need to have decking under the tower to add on a lemonade stand. While the decking is a nice quality-of-life improvement, it is not a requirement for a lemonade stand. Our craftsmen adjust the height of the lemonade stand if you do not get decking under the tower.

Increasing Tower Size

Now, this may be a controversial pick as, yes, if you scale up the tower size a lot, you can blow out your budget. But if you step to the next size up, it isn’t too expensive and provides tremendous value!

For example, a good way to get a little more value out of your swing set without driving up your cost too much is to go from a 4’x4’ tower to a 4’x6’ tower. The roof size and cost stay the same, but you get a bigger tower. This is a great way to sneak in extra space for things like the fireman’s pole or an additional slide.

While a bit more costly, this is also true for scaling up from a 6’x6’ to a 6’x8’.

How does this provide value? A 4’x4’ playdeck has 16 square feet of space. If you go up to a 4’x6’ swing set tower, you will have 24 square feet of space to play. A 6’x6’ tower has 36 square feet of space, while a 6’x8’ has 48 square feet of space. Space is an often overlooked factor in play! More space generally provides more opportunities for fun!

Conclusion

We are all trying to get as much value as possible from our money. Using items like fireman’s poles, dual slides, adding just a lemonade stand, and slightly bumping up your tower size, you can make your custom swing set budget a lot further.

Don’t hesitate to contact our design team if you have any questions about customizing a swing set. Designing a custom swing set is full of questions and decisions, but never fear; that is what our team does day in and day out. They will walk you through the process each step of the way until you have the design that is perfect for your family.

King Swings has been crafting custom swing sets for over thirty years. We started in an Amish barn in Strasburg, PA when Ben King started creating wood swing sets. Now, our vinyl swing sets are taking over the nation neighborhood by neighborhood. Our teams enjoy crafting your custom swing set designs!