easy for us to assemble, some help from the wife and kids, I had my 8 and 5 yr old looking for the next pieces and spouse looking for the hardware. next time we do this we would unpacked all the boxes in order 1,2,3,4 and tape the packing sheet in front of each row so you can look at the packing slip to see if the part was on that list in that box. we figured this out toward the end and it sped up the searching for parts 100%. took us about 15 hours max to assemble. better planning I know my family working together from beginning to end we could do it in about 7 hours. yes its tough for a novice mechanical aptitude/lack of prints and drawing experience. Kids LOVE it, they are on it all the time. it does hold up to the abuse, may seem cheap at first but once put together the structural integrity is strong enough for kids.

This is an excellent playset, able to entertain as many as ten to twelve children at once! I just hosted a May Day party and the kids loved it. It is very solid and well designed. My only complaints: the swings are mounted a bit too close together and the telescope is very poor (it is poorly made, has no magnification, and breaks easily). A few comments about assembly: I purchased the Skyfort II from Sam's Club online and it was delivered in four 200lb boxes one week later. First step: take inventory of all contents and make sure you have EVERYTHING before you start building (in my case, everything was). As you take inventory, arrange all the parts and hardware, systematically and in a covered area, to make it easy to find the parts you will need for each step. Time for inventory - 6 hours. Following the advice of other posts, I weather-treated each wooden piece with a satin-finish polyurathane (2 gallons, $50 each) to extend the life of the playset. This took about 20 hours to complete, but when my kids are done playing with the Skyfort ten years from now it should still have pretty good resale value. Assembly took about 30 hours by myself. I already had all the right tools and have assembled a lot of furniture in the past, so I ran into very few problems. Follow the directions very closely, doing each page in order, and double-check your parts before completing the build on each page. Make sure you always use the right parts for each step of the assembly!!! If you don't, you will find yourself without the right part when you need it. Tip #1 - Keep all the hardware in the plastic bags they come in. Each bag is clearly marked with part numbers that correlate with the instructions on each page. Tip #2 - Once you have completed Step 4 of the Fort assembly, move the fort frame to its permanent location (which should already be prepped) and make sure that every part of the core frame is straight, level and at right angles before proceeding. Tip #3 - For the porch roof assembly, do steps 1, 3 and 4, and leave step 2 for when you actually install the porch roof later in the build. You'll have a easier time with the installation. Tip #4 - For Do-It-Yourselfers like me: invest in six to eight Irwin Quick-Grips. There are MANY situations when you will want to simply hold two boards together in one or two (or five) other places while you screw or bolt another section. The Quick-Grips will act as your helper and save a lot of awkward situations! The key to a successful build is to BE PATIENT and think carefully about each step before you do it, and I think you will be surprised how well the whole Skyfort comes together.

The directions are very confusing, You have to look a few steps ahead to find out if a board is backwards or upside down(and believe me it matters) The Spanish version has close up pictures, but the English version does not. Now that it is together it looks great! My advice is to have it professionally installed!!!

Pros: 1. Fun mid-range swing for the price 2. The children enjoy it 3. Fast delivery and easy scheduling Cons: 1. The boards with the lookout tower should be one slab and not planks because sand/ particles fall on the kids underneath who are swinging. 2. The swings are a bit low so need adjusting 3. The monkey bars could have an extra bar to provide the needed length for smaller children to reach 4. The people who put together the swing set missed screws, studs, and altogether some need to be screwed again. Some screws were even screwed too much which has caused the wood to break and create splinters and broken pieces. We’ve had to make several adjustments in only 1 week. 5. The wood has huge splinters! Advise children to wear shoes at all times.

First, I couldn't find a better price than on Sam's Club or if there was a slightly better price they charged $400-600 for shipping. I got free delivery through Sam's Club. Second, it does take a while to assemble. Most of the reviews I read stated it took over the time stated in the directions. The directions state it will take 2 people 24-36 hours to assemble. I did it by myself in 36 hours (about three 12hr days). My full time job is a desk job, but I do some light woodworking/DIY projects as an occasional hobby. I did not find assembly hard, just time time consuming. There are a lot of screws and bolts! Handling some of the pieces myself was awkward and help would have been nice for attaching larger pieces. Also, MAKE SURE your yard is level where you want to build, otherwise it will slow you down and give you difficulties. For safety's sake, you want the area to be level. I eneded up digging out part of my yard after the fact, which only adds more time to assembly. Third, the directions are ok, but read a step or two ahead to make sure you have the board's orientation correct - some have holes that are closer to one side than the other that you don't want to have to go back and remove later just to turn it around. This happened to me 2 or 3 times. When using your electric drill or screw driver be sure not to over torque the bolts and screws. The quality is decent, but you can crack the wood if over-tightened. Quick note on quality: it's chinese cedar. The parts that need to be thicker are and I had no issues. Also, keep in mind that this is natural wood - there will be imperfections and some slight cracking that won't affect the product overall. If you want flawless, buy plastic. One final piece of advice, take the time to lay out all the pieces on your lawn prior to assembly. This will save you so much time as there are a lot of pieces. The wood was sorted by letter and number, so when the directions called for a piece it was easy to find. I also took all the nuts and bolts out of their plasctic bags and put them in red plastic cups for easier use - just make sure to label the cups with the contents using a permament marker. This will make grabbing screws and washers a lot easier than digging in a plasctic bag.

My order of the Skyfort ll Cedar Swing Set/Play Set with Slide arrived on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I applied water sealant to ALL wooden pieces and sorted by the alpha of each part number. Saturday had 2 men help get through step 4. No building happened on Sunday. Then I was on my own through for the rest and still had 3 young children in tow throughout almost entire build. Set was completely put together by Wednesday. Part H2 and the swing beam gave me some trouble and thankfully I called someone in to help me align it because once I got it to where it should have aligned the little cut out notch would fit the beam in it. Could have used a little more direction as to where pieces went on the structure, Step 7(example place wall boards on "interior side" of structure#. But overall I would highly recommend this set and company to anyone. However do yourself a favor and have help and get a babysitter during build:-) I could have gotten more help but the kids and I weren't willing to wait a week, so Mamita got cranking to it while daddy was working all day. Oh ya but 1 BIG complaint I have is for the screws #PWF 10x1/2#provided for green triangles like step 34 are AWFUL and just strip out. Just terrible!

A Reviewer stated "so easy a caveman can do it" and it really is, just helps if you have the proper tools and know how about some carpentry aspects and knowledge of hardware. These direction were 97% clear as to what to d0! I'm a Handy man and enjoy doing projects, as long as I get a new tool for it. For this project I bought a Makita LCT203W which included an impact drill and a normal drill in small form (perfect weight for a project like this and I highly recommend it) It was nice to have three drills so I didn't have switch bit heads and drill bits. I took the advice and inventoried everything (except hardware bolts and such) and nothing was missing. as I checked pieces I used the top of the boxes as extra space to sort the pieces, thus I have 8 boxes with all the pieces in them with labels facing up. This helped alot and if I sorted the pieces by page it would have been better but that only works if your putting it all together in a few days! (due to 90 heat wave I had to wait till it cooled down. A MUST do: another reviewer mentioned placing bolts and nuts and such in plastic bins and labeling them. I went to the dollar store and bought about 20 plastic Tupperware bins and it was THE BEST thing I did and made it easier. there are tons of screwing bolts and screws with this and having easy access to them and nicely sorted made it easy going! GET THEM!. I too put the window in the front, like the picture. directions had a flat front and peak window in the back, so I switched them. All in all, it took me 3 days to put it together and had my lil' ones help out and cheer me on. It's just what I wanted and looks beautiful in the yard. I was amazed at how quick it comes together after the the frame goes up. be aware, that perch...took me 3 hours building that little thing! Your can't go wrong with the price and was delivered in 8 days from the day I ordered. boxes weighed about 200 lbs each. Good luck everyone and enjoy it. Just remember, have 3 drills ( a small impact really helps) & enough batteries & bins for the hardware, and ladders. I built it pretty much on my own! now onto the next project! :o)

I had shopped around for a long time - this swing set was well worth the price! Me & my husband put it together (him more than me!) Took us a good solid 2 weekends. Directions weren't the best to follow, but came out great! Make sure you count ALL the parts in the boxes prior to starting - the company was great sending replacements. My son, who is 4 yrs old, LOVES IT!

We decided to purchase this swingset and assemble it ourselves (how hard can it be?), because another $700 to have someone set it up just seemed absurd. As soon as we started to put it together, pieces were breaking. Window frames peeled back and wood pieces split right in half. Although it is fine now, it took many hours of adjusting the work based on the shoddy materials. I would not buy this brand again.

My husband finished putting this together last night, and the kids were thrilled!!! It took him 2 full days, plus several hours prior building individual pieces in the garage before he brought them outside. You won't find a better playset for your money! All pieces were in excellent condition when they arrived, and we weren't missing anything either. Also, shipping was super quick and the freight company who delivered brought it right into our garage (4 large boxes). We are looking forward to years and years of fun in skyfort!!!!