Would easily be a 10 but the small screws are terrible and strip before tight but other than that and a few cracked boards I'm not excited about and a bad scratch in the slide. I'm happy with the purchase easy instructions took me 17 hrs by myself to assemble

We purchased this as a Christmas gift for our 3 grandsons (ages 2, 5 & 8) to replace one that was old. It has great features & the kids love the fort. They prefer to eat lunch at the picnic table rather than come inside even when it’s cold. It is good for all ages & very sturdy. With the size of this play set, numerous kids can all play at the same time & it not be crowded.

We looked at many playsets and their reviews. There were good and bad reviews for many, so we took a chance on this one. My husband put it together by himself. It took about 31 hours over a weeks time to build. Before he began building, he organized materials by the steps in the book, which made finding what he needed much easier. He needed my help only a few times. Our children are 11,8, and 4, and so far, they all enjoy it.

We just assembled this thing last week. Here is my experience and my recommendations. After ordering this Playset, I printed off a set of instructions. It gave me a chance to get familiar with the parts and assembly sequence. It also gave me dimensions that I needed to make sure ground was leveled. I bought better wood screws with torx head. I believe I went with 2", 1-1/4", and 2-1/2 inch screws. I should have got a box or 2 of 1-1/8" because there were many of those and I had to use their phillips head they provided, which was a pain. So, when the playset arrives in 4 large boxes, I recommend going through each box, one at a time and checking off the inventory sheet that is provided in each box. Lay everything out. There are stamps on each board and they are faint. If one is too faint, use the directions that show the piece and re-label it at this point. Put all the stamps in the same direction. This helps later when searching for the board you need. In my case, the boards that I laid vertical, I had stamps at top. If boards were placed horizontal, the stamps were to the left. There were some boards marked the same, but in different boxes. So keep that in mind. After you inventory each box, you can put all like boards together to save time and floor space. Like other reviews on here, it is absolutely necessary to sort out the hardware before you begin. The instructions are set up in steps. Starts out with sub assemblies, such as the slide, rock wall, etc. All together their are about 140 steps or so. Each step states what hardware is needed to complete the step. So buy large baggies and put hardware in there for each step, and clip the bag to each step. This is time consuming but will save you time, I promise you. Once my adult son and I started, it took us about 14 hours the first day. We stopped twice to eat. The second day, we spent 16 hours on it, taking only 1 break. The last day took about 3 hours attaching the sub assemblies onto the fort. The instructions were pretty good. The only problem was an occasional board that was hard to tell which way was to be orientated. But for the most part, we had zero trouble. Just takes time and patience. I recommend using a couple of cordless drivers for screws. Do not use an impact wrench.. we destroyed a few pieces of hardware with one. Also, there are 3 or 4 places to put spindles that need to be spaced apart. Make spacers before you begin. It helps. There are places you need to drill holes. Almost every hole we drilled through the board (mostly 7/16") blew out and splintered on the back side. So have some sandpaper and stain so you can make it not look so bad. Overall this was a good bonding experience for my son and I, and his daughter absolutely loved the playset. I believe it was worth it. As a side note, we had a party with about 30 people and many children. I bought a bunch of fireworks and the kids watched from the playset. It was great to see them have such a fun time.

I bought this set in August of 2015 at the end of the season to get a better price. Finding after the set was built that the original price would have been well worth the money. I actually did not build the set until April 2016 after some rainy and cold weather kept me from starting on it as soon as I received it. After sitting for 7 months the wood was still in perfect condition and very easy to work with. While deciding which set to purchase I read and researched a lot of reviews of the set. I actually found quite a few that were really detailed and helpful, although I had to be careful because some of them were for the earlier model and the instructions are different for each one. I think the most helpful was a review that suggested using sandwich bags to separate the hardware for each step. Take time to go thru the instruction book page by page to familiarize yourself with the steps. As you do put the hardware for each step in its own baggy and label it for that step. It will take you about 4 to 5 hours to do this but it is worth it as it makes the steps go faster while actually building, not having to take time to pull the hardware for each step as you go, plus it inventories the hardware so you know if you are short on anything before starting. Separating the boards is a must. You will need a lot of space to do so. I had a space in the very back of my yard that we spread a trucker tarp to lay them on and put another over them so if it rained during construction the boards would not be sitting in water until used. As you inventory the boards, putting them in alphabetically order, then putting each letter in numerical order is very helpful with time spent building. Each step is detailed as to which boards and hardware is needed, but please be careful to pay close attention as to the orientation of the boards. Most have predrilled holes that will need to be in the right places for following steps. In some steps it is difficult to see which way the predrilled holes are supposed to go, but if you look ahead a couple steps to check where other boards might intersect with that board it will help to make it clear which way to position it. If you are careful and make sure each board is positioned correctly there is no need to drill guide holes except in the few places where the instructions actually tell you to drill a hole. The building process was easy. Being a truck driver my husband is on the road a lot so I built the set by myself. The first weekend consisted of 5 hours on Sunday, after spending Saturday separating the boards and hardware. The week was only 1 hour after work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, got rained out on Thursday and Friday. The second weekend was 8 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday, 1hour after work on Monday, with the finishing touches (attaching the slide, rock wall, ladder and swings) being done in 1 1/2 hours after work on that Tuesday. A total of 23.5 hours. I feel like having a helper would have only been someone in the way. Having two "A" ladders was very helpful though, as I used them to hold the swing bar up while I attached it to the play-set. And it also eliminated the need to continuously move one ladder from side to side while working. I bought the optional floor that covers the sand box area. I had some issues with this part of the building process. While installing I had to cut the two end pieces, they were about 1/2 of an inch too long. I also discovered that the predrilled holes were measured incorrectly on the floor boards. When the factory drilled the holes they fell right at the edge of the board they were to be attached to instead of in the middle of it. Problem solved by screwing them in at an angle and the extra floor space allows for a bigger play area without the worry of sand and dirt. I also did not use the monkey bars, grandkids still a little young for those. Instead I called Backyard Discovery and ordered another M1 and 4 more M24s to make where the monkey bars would go enclosed like the opposite side (Step 37). Helpful suggestions: If you do get the optional floor….Do NOT install the L2 boards in step 6 (of the play set instructions). DO install the optional floor before you do step 18, in which you will have to cut O2 to fit above the floor board. I then bought a little L brace to attach O2 to the floor board. In step 55 before attaching the J2 boards it would benefit you to go to step 58 and attach the two M25 boards to the J2 boards before attaching the J2 boards to the crow’s nest bottom. If you attach the J2s first, when you go to attach the M25s the roof will be in the way of being able to screw the screws in. The only Con that I can honestly say I see with this play set is the sliding board. It was very difficult to put together and does not seem sturdy. I wish it had come with the one piece thick plastic slide I saw with some of the other sets. I do not think it will last very long. The rest of the play set is very sturdy. I weigh 190 lbs. and while constructing this set I climbed all over it. Once the second floor floorboards were installed I stood on them to continue to build the upper level of the set. I even had to climb into the crow’s nest to build part of it. None of the boards felt like they would break under my weight. After replacing one of the swings with a baby swing, all of the grandkids can and will enjoy this play set for years to come. I added some pictures of the building process.

My grand kids love this playset, although it has only been in service for 6 months it is holding up well. I stained and sealed all boards before assembly, an important step for full sealing of the wood. Also do the pre-inspection, I had some bad pieces of wood, which were promptly replaced with no hassle. I recommend taking your time with assembly as some pieces were difficult to orientate properly to get the pre-drilled holes lined up.

It took 2 full days to put this together with 3 reasonably skilled guys doing it. The hardest thing was keeping my kids off the thing while we were putting it together. My 4 kids (range 1-9) think they've died and gone to heaven. We've wanted one of these play structures for years. We looked into several different kinds and felt the best about this one. This one has about everything you could want in a play set and is very solid and safe. Only recommendation for those building it themselves it to be very organized and systematic when you put it together. The structure comes as 4 big boxes with hundreds (seems like thousands..) of pieces of wood and screws/bolts. All the pieces are numbered with a letter and a number (i.e.. M12). Taking 2-3 hours at the beginning to lay out piles of all the numbered wood and screws/bolts is well worth your while and saves a lot of time later trying to find pieces. The 4 boxes are not very well organized as far as having what you need first easily available, so taking time early to organize it yourself is well worth it. We also plan to put a border around our play set and put some rubberized mulch in. A tidbit we are discovering is that this border and the rubberized mulch are VERY expensive and will end up costing more than the playset itself.... Anyone wishing to build a set needs to be aware of this, as it is a bit of a surprise to us... Overall, we love this set and would recommend this set to everyone.

I purchased this product a few weeks before Easter, & with the help of family & friends we were able to assemble it in time. I highly recommend assembling this product with a group of people, because it is very time consuming if you do it with just 2 people. It is a very sturdy product & with proper care I believe it will last a good 10 years or so. My husband & I put a weatherproof coating on it prior to assembly to ensure long lasting use.

Our two girls (ages 2 and 4) love this playset! It has everything we wanted and they won't outgrow it anytime soon. Although it was a lot of work to put together (took me and my father-in-law about 2 FULL days, working pretty much nonstop), it was well worth it. We didn't see any others that even compared to this and we did a LOT of research. And the customer service was great, we had a few imperfect boards and they shipped us new ones, free of charge, right away!

Bought and installed this last summer and it is still in the exact same condition as it was when I installed it. I would recommend if you’re going to install your self to definitely layout all the wood And layout all the bolts and hardware. This will make the process go much quicker when time for install. I also reinforced the main deck with treated 2x4’s. Reason for that is while you’re building it you will be on crawling and standing on that a lot and what they give you is not sufficient enough. Also if you’re going to have multiple kids up there I would definitely recommend it. Would definitely recommend this product. Well designed directions and good solid materials that will last.