Refinishing a Wooden Playground

Category Toys

Restaining a wooden playground set with a paintbrush.

Wooden playgrounds are quite expensive. But if you maintain them and even refinish the wood and repaint the plastic components, if needed, they can last for a long time. This tutorial shows how to refinish a wooden playground.

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Refinishing a Wooden Playground

By lalala... [893 Posts, 111 Comments]

October 21, 2019

We bought this playground 13 years ago for our 2 oldest kids. We recently decided to refinish it, instead of buying a new one, for our 5 yr old son.

Supplies:

pressure washer
electric sander
sandpaper sheets, optional
Krylon spray paint for plastics
wood stain
paint brushes
screws and handware, as needed
cedar boards, as needed

Steps:

First I painted all of the colorful parts of the play structure. The metal parts had a rubber type coating on them and the rest of the parts were plastic so I opted to use the Krylon spray paint for plastics.

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - painting metal parts

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - blue handles

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - yellow brackets

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - painting the underside of the handles

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - red handrails

We reassembled the climbing wall once the wood had been sanded and stained.

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - blue plastic climbing wall part

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - reassembling the climbing wall after the wood had been sanded and stained

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - all foot and handholds replaced

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - young boy climbing with the aid of his older sister

We pressure washed, sanded, and stained the entire structure, replacing any wood that was dry rotted. Note: As you can see, we chose to put the legs up on tires full of gravel, to help eliminate rot and insect infestation issues this time.

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - staining wooden parts

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - man digging

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - tires under the swing legs

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - reattaching steering wheel

This wall needed numerous boards replaced, so we disassembled it and put it back together.

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - disassembling and replacing boards on one wall

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - replacing boards

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - back together

This is the finished play structure, ready for many more years of fun!

Refinishing a Wooden Playground - like new

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