I have wanted to paint our kids’ playset for awhile now. My sister in law purchased it for our kids a few years ago and when it was first built it was absolutely beautiful! It has just the right number of swings and a slide. The boys absolutely love the punching bag and the climbing wall as well! The company even included a kit for sealing the wood that we never even opened. I am not sure I could even tell you where that kit is right now if I wanted to. Needless to say, the playset has weathered over the past few years and with the first two projects for the One Room Challenge under our belts I knew that it was the logical next project. Why not add a DIY painted playset to my ever growing list of ORC projects!?!

In case you missed the first few weeks of the challenge, I’ve included them below. Make sure you head over to the One Room Challenge blog to keep up with the other participants.

Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5 // Week 6 // Week 7// Week 8

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After doing a little research, I determined that I needed the following materials:

• Exterior Oil-based Wood Primer
• Semi-Transparent Black Wood Stain
• Exterior Latex Acrylic Paint
• Black Outdoor (All-Purpose) Spray Paint
• Vintage Teal Outdoor (All-Purpose) Spray Paint
• Pressure Washer
• Paintbrushes

Once everything was delivered I started off by pressure washing. My goal was to get it as clean as possible, although I definitely underestimated the amount of grime and dirt. I seriously had no clue that the punching bag under the playset was so dirty! I had to take it off and scrub it to get it somewhat clean. Check out the difference!

I waited until the next day when everything was dry to spray paint the rock climbing wall. I thought it would be best to do this first because I would not have to worry about protecting the wood from the overspray. I sprayed freely, because I fully expected the primer to cover it up.

I also used the black spray paint for all of the metal pieces that were originally green as well as the flags, handles, and the telescope. The spray painted portions were the most enjoyable because I got to see a quick result.

Once I was done with the spray paint, I moved on to prime all of the wood that I planned to paint. I decided early on not to paint the inside of the roof due in part to how challenging it would be to reach it, but mainly because there was a wasp nest up there. My husband sprayed it and the wasps never returned but I was still nervous to venture in that general area.

I think painting the roof was my absolute favorite. I love the way the stain adhered to the wood and I feel like it really causes the entire playset to pop. Once I painted the roof, all doubts I may have had about this project quickly faded. I also got over my fear of ladders while painting the roof. I am seriously thinking about other projects that I can do involving my new ladder buddy!

After the roof was completed I touched up some of the spray painted areas and moved on to paint the wood. I really wanted the playset to match our house, which made it easier when it came to picking paint colors. I already had most of these on hand, so this project was pretty inexpensive for me. I just love these colors together! You can see that out boys could not wait for me to finish painting before they started playing on the playset. Thankfully, I was able to limit the amount of dirt and debris.

The more I painted, the more conflicted I began to feel about the yellow swing chains. I initially planned to leave them as they were because like the slide and swing seats they will get a lot of traction. I took my conflict to Instagram for a vote, and the overwhelming majority of voters said that should paint them blue! So that is what I did!

There she is all painted, pretty, and in full compliance with the rest of the backyard (the greenhouse and garden spaces). Now I am ready to move on to the next spaces for the backyard transformation! What do you think? Would you ever do a DIY backyard playset project? Don’t forget to head over and check out what the other ORC participants are up to this week!