We bought this playset about 8 weeks ago. I've bought a playset from Backyard Discovery before and we were very happy with it. I built it myself. So I knew what I was getting into for assembly. This time we decided things are a bit too busy right now and paid for the assembly service. Well it's been one of the most frustrating and infuriating experiences. Go Configure is the company that will build your playset if you pay for assembly. As long as they are doing things I would steer clear. We accepted the initial five week wait time for a scheduled assembly to happen but when the day came the technician refused to show up and canceled on the day of. We gave them one more chance and two weeks later the day came for assembly and the technician again canceled without informing us. I want to stress that this was all treated as normal operating procedure by the admin staff at Go Configure. This was just something that happens daily. I'm sick of being jerked around and just requested my 750.00 back from Sam's Club instead. I'd rather build it myself than let it sit in boxes for weeks. Anyways, I'm prepared for a 40-50 hour build. My recommendation is to take your time and contact backyard discovery immediately if you find any missing or damaged items. And use a water protection sealant coating every year to extend the life of the product. And finally, don't pay for assembly.

At first it seemed overwhelming to build, but once we got all the parts seperated out into their respective piles/buckets, it was pretty straightforward. My father-in-law helped throughout the project. He was the hunter/gatherer for each step and assisted in holding/lifting. Using 5 gallon buckets we placed the hardware and lumber for each step as we went along so there was no break in building. It took us about 2 days working on it for about 8 hours and about 5 hours on the third day. The beginning steps were completed in the garage on day 1 after an evening of sorting the parts the night before. We built the 2 fort walls in the garage also and then started fresh the next day by putting them up. 2nd full day we completed the main fort up to the roof rafters. Day three consisted of finishing the roof panels, crows nest area, and attaching swings, monkey bars etc. Not a bad build overall, but do look carefully the orientation of the pre-drilled holes. We found a few boards upside down or turned incorrectly. We decided to just redrill the holes instead of disassemble and fix the orientation. Helpful tools to speed up the build, impact driver, buckets to place small parts in while outside, pizza for those hungry moments.

The kids love this set! All the neighborhood kids love this set! The price is most reasonable compared to the recreation outlet type places. I had to call around to get installation services. If you order online you have to call Go Configure at 888-746-6887 to install the set. Takes about 10 days to schedule an install date and then the guys did it in 2 days (~3 hours on 2nd day). Not too bad! Cost is steep - $679, but there were a lot of pieces and an inexperienced person would take 2-3 times as long.

We bought the Backyard Discovery Skyfort II for our Grandchildren. We purchased in at Sam's Club in Florida and delivered to my son's new house in North Carolina. Our visit was planned for this past weekend, driving there on Saturday and returning Monday, with the weekend to set up swing set. First, I did (or thought so) carefully research size of boxes to ensure it would fit in our truck. When my husband went to pick it up, yes the boxes all fit perfectly in bed of truck under our Tonto cover but somehow the slide was never mentioned anywhere for pick up size dimensions. (This was pretty much our only hiccup). After securing slide to top with ratchet straps, we made our way to NC arriving around 3:30 Saturday afternoon. Weather was great so we proceeded to unload. My daughter in law had googled and researched everything she could find about assembly and was ready. Research said it would take anywhere up to 60 hours to complete. We were able to complete project with 5 adults (2 of which were very handy with building and tools and at least 3 people working at a time) in about 16 hours. It went extremely smoothly thanks to organizing everything ahead of building and having a system that sort of evolved but worked splendidly. First in a large area, we separated wood into piles based on letter (leave lots of room especially for "M" and "H") and actually used alphabet wall hangings for identification. After separating by letter, we organized each pile into numerical order. On afternoon of day 1, after organizing wood, we decided to start with building the first main pieces - rock wall, ladder, gable windows, monkey bars and swing brace. It did not take long to figure out that the hardware also needed to be organized. So best advice I can give is to save plastic containers and separate all the hardware into them. keep all bolts together, screws together, etc and label containers with sharpie with size and last two letters of part number. They also go in order so very easy to go find 2 of bolt #19, etc. The minutes you take to organize will save you hours during the construction! My daughter in law and I collected the pieces needed, my college age daughter read out instructions while my son and husband built. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, GO IN ORDER!!!!! While they were working on one page, we would take picture of next page on our phones and one of us would collect wood and other would collect hardware. This kept everything flowing smoothly. Day 1, we worked about 4 hours and that was organizing and completing the extra sections. Day 2 we began building the actual fort following same process. We worked from 9:30 am until 9:30 pm stopping for a couple hours each at lunch and dinner so about 8 hours total. Not everyone was working all the time, there were children to watch and food to prepare but always at least 3 people were busy. We were able to finish everything except the roof on the club house. Day 3, my son had to go to work so we were short a person but by this time we were down to big sections and had a routine. We were able to complete roof and attach all the major sections. I know I said go in order but we actually skipped the railing on the crows nest while we completed the other major things for 2 reasons. We had to leave after lunch and knew that was something my daughter in law could finish without us, also it allowed the girls to start swinging and using slide while we worked. However we were able to finish by lunch time with everything, so we worked about 4 hours day 3 - and back home in Florida by 10pm. It was a lot of work but we had a great time and definitely allows for family bonding!

Incredible value. We searched everywhere and found this to put all other options to shame. Solid cedar was a big deal for us and hard to find. Rainbow has solid redwood, but at three times the price or more. Assembly is complex, but generally easy to follow. Make sure you have a couple nice drill/drivers and the rubber mallet. And buy a 7/16 drill bit and predrill every lag bolt with a 1/8 bit. Allow about three days work. Kids love it, and it looks great in the yard. We definitely feel it was money well spent. Matt

We were so excited about this play set, we have 4 boys and looked all over, based on reviews this seemed like the best deal for the money. We have had it for almost a year. It is completely falling apart. All the windows had fallen our within a month, the wood is extremely soft so the screws don't stay in, everything had to be screwed in at angles; which caused the wood to spilt. We were missing many pieces when we went to put it together, so it took over a week waiting for pieces to come in the mail. We treated the wood and stained it, but it doesn't look like we did anything. I am extremely disappointed. I feel nervous with my boys climbing on it, it is not stable and when they all swing it seems like the whole play set is going to fall over. I have to make sure that they all swing at different times, its frustrating for them and me, plus the swing screws don't go all the way through the top bar, they just screw in, with the wood being as soft as it is, I have to re-screw in the swings every time they swing. I'm wishing we had just gone with the lifetime one to begin with, now we are going to have to tear this one down and get a new one, and its not even a year old yet. Very disappointing.

we paid the extra $1,000 for assembly, that was in feb, now its june and we can not get ahold of the assembler and no answers. frustrating.

Kids love it. Mega swingset. Takes some time To build, but instructions are pretty clear and easy to follow. Quality material.

Perfect swing set for the grandkids to explore and play on !

Exciting playset for 3, 5, and 8 year-olds! All the kids are enjoying this and spending hours outside.