Building a Jungle Gym

Building a jungle gym for your very own can be an excellent addition to any home playground. In fact, is there really ever a truly complete playground without some sort of climbing apparatus? In years past, this climbing apparatus was the traditional jungle gym arrangement of a geodesic dome made from triangle shaped metal.

Recently the term jungle gym has come to mean just about any type or style of climbing apparatus that can be found on a child's playground. These can be anything from a simple "rock climbing" wall, to a fort design. If you are interested in building a jungle gym for your new home playground, then these simple guidelines should be able to help you decide on exactly what is gong to best suit your needs.

• Style. To begin, you are first going to have a rough idea of what you want. Is it going to be the geodesic dome? Maybe you are going to go with the an old fort style, or maybe a rock climbing wall. You could even go with a combination of these.
• Material. What material are you going to use when building a jungle gym? Is it going to be wood, plastic or metal? You can find kits for each style online as well as at local home improvement stores.
• Size. This is one of those areas of life where size really does matter, since the size of your jungle gym plays a huge factor in a couple of different ways. The first is that you do not want to have your yard appear to be too crowded, and if you are not careful with the size you could have a yard that looks very crowded. The second reason is that the larger your jungle gym gets, then chances are the larger your cost is going to be.
• Budget. You need to know how much money you have available to spend on this item. Is this a single purchase, or is it part of a larger remodel or landscaping project? What is the cost of the various materials that you are going to be using? How much time can you set aside for this project.
• Location. Where in the yard are you going to place this? Does the proposed are have to undergo an extensive work to prepare it, or are you going for the more "natural" look? Can you see the apparatus from your home, or does that matter?
• Building. Finally, you need to know how you are going to undertake the actual building of the jungle gym. Are you going to do it yourself, or are you going to hire the job out to someone else? Either way is going to work just fine, but be aware of the fact that each method comes with it's own advantages and drawbacks. Be sure that you carefully weigh the pros and cons to each before making your final decision.