Friday April 7th, 2006 - The adventure begins.  Head down to the Home Depot in Cambridge on Pine Bush road and  pick up a 'Timber-Bilt' Highland kit that was held for me at the Contractor Desk.  Drive 25km home and open the package and there isn't a manual inside.... It's also missing some brackets and misc hardware.   Basically a $200 box of screws and fasteners.  Lovely.  Call the HD in Cambridge and speak to the guy working in Lumber who says that he has openned the remaining box and there are 2 manuals in there.  Fine.  I drive back down to Cambridge and retrieve the manual as well as go through the hardware list.  We get the missing hardware from the 2nd open box.  Leave and get home.  Read the manual, and it's not complete!!!  Geesh.  Apparently, there are supposed to be 5 manuals in the box, one for each playground layout.   I return the incomplete kit to the Home Depot on Northfield drive, and  look for something different.

The 'Highland' kit is no longer carried by HD in Canada.  It is replaced by a newer kit called Crestwood.  The hardware/fasterner has changed allowing the use of brackets instead of long carriage bolts to attach together  the 4x4 pieces of the frame assembly.  Any ones you find left at Home Depot are likely on Clearance, and may be open-box.  I suggest you check them out carefully before leaving the store.

I ended up seeing the unpacked skid of this year's stock at the HomeDepot on Northfield, but none of it's priced yet as it's not supposed to go out on the floor.  I convince a clerk to look up the price in the computer.  $230?  Fine I'll take it.   I get it home, and read the instructions.  I decide to build option "B", as it has the larger slide, and provisions for monkey bars.  (My daughter's a monkey, or likes to think she is.)


Saturday April 8th, 2006
7:30am - Get up and dressed and get ready for what turns out to be the 1st of 3 trips to the local HomeDepot.  I unlock the trailer, and head into town with my coffee.  It's a brisk -1C.  I have my lumber list with me, and I proceed to count the cedar that I need.  My cart is getting full, when I realize I left my wallet at home.

8:30am - return to Home Depot with my wallet, retrieve my cart of lumber and go pay.  I leave about 600lbs heavier and $700 lighter.

Returning home, I set up some saw horses and lay a couple of slabs of particle board to form  a  makeshift workbench/table.  I start cutting the 2x4 pieces with my 8.25" power mitre saw.  The 2x4's go smoothly, with the mitre saw.  My friend Todd arrives, and he does the measuring and I do the cutting for the 5/4 x 6" deck boards.  Unfortunately, my mitre saw isn't deep enough to  cut the full width of the deckboards,  and I'm short about 1/2".  I rig up a different cutting jig for use with a 7.5" circular saw and our cutting continues....  It's about here that  I realize..... hmmmm  I think I should have more wood.

Julie admiring our handi-work while trying to not look cold.


(L to R) Me, John, Bill


Jordan and Brianna enjoying the finished project




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