Backyard Discovery Skyfort II Swing Set

The playset is great, huge size, took about three to four days to put together with 2 handy people, about 8-10 hours each day. The packaging sucked though, the boxes were falling apart with pieces coming out. The delivery company was great, just too bad the boxes weren't more reinforced. But it still looks amazing and should last our kids till teenage years!

Let me preface this by saying my partner and his dad are VERY handy. This took them FOREVER. It wasn’t necessarily “hard”, there are just a million pieces. We followed the extremely generous “most popular “ review on here and printed the instructions and organized each step before starting. This was essential. We also sorted the screws and nuts and bolts by part number which was the only way I was able to help. With some bumps along the way this is absolutely perfect for our 6 and 2 year old. We are so excited. This mama is very happy.

My wife bought this set on Amazon for our grandkids, and THEN told me LOL. Some assembly required. I'm handy, though, and don't mind building and putting things together. This set seemed daunting at first, though. It comes in four large, long boxes. The instructions recommend laying all the parts out from all the boxes before you start, and that's good advice, since the parts aren't organized in the boxes in order of construction - they are organized to fit in as few boxes as possible. The wood pieces come marked with letter and number codes, eg: H10, H12, M4, M5, etc. Lay them out in the yard near where you plan to assemble it, and group the pieces by letters and numbers. You'll be glad you did. Same with the myriad bags of hardware - organize them by type (bolts vs lag screws) and their numbers. It will be easier to find the pieces as you go. It will take you several days to assemble, but don't worry about leaving everything outside as you build it - it's all meant to be outdoors. I have only the highest praise to offer for how well this set is designed, and overall how easy it was to assemble. With only a few exceptions, all of the wood parts come pre-drilled and the corresponding holes line up perfectly. I'm quite amazed at how well designed it really is. The written instructions are very good, but even better is the app they have for download. The app allows you to follow every step with clear animations showing the positioning and sequence of every bolt, washer, screw, and nut, which I found extremely helpful. You can also swipe on the screen to rotate in three dimensions so you can very clearly see exactly what is going where, and zoom in or out as needed for more detail. Another cool feature on the app is that you can tap on individual parts, including screws and nuts, to see what the part number is. I found that helpful when I somehow came across one subassembly (the two window assemblies on the fort) that needed to be installed on the fort, but hadn't assembled the pieces, having never come across that step (I later found it in the written instructions, so keep in mind it is helpful to have the app and the paper instructions for cross-checking). With the ability to click on the individual pieces in the window assemblies, I was able to quickly put them together with no trouble. There are several steps where they say you need two adults, but honestly I was able to assemble the entire thing on my own. None of the pieces of subassemblies are overly heavy or unwieldy. One piece of advice: have some 5/8" minus gravel on hand to help level the base of the fort, and the two supporting arms for the swing set and monkey bars. There aren't any real instructions on preparing the build site, other than to build it on level ground. Having the gravel on hand gave a nice solid base to build the fort base on, and to support the footings of the two arms. As far as anchoring, they never tell you until the very end of the instructions that there are several auguring tent poles that you'll put in at the end to secure everything. I kept wondering whether I should sink a few 4x4 PT posts in some concrete at the corners of the fort, but with the anchors they provide nothing that robust should be needed. The picture shows the final assembly. I'll be putting a PT wood border around it and adding several inches of bark around the play set. Overall, I highly recommend this play set, and can confirm that the grandkids are ecstatic to play on it.

I just wanted to let all you mamas with not a ton of family around to help your hubby build things that even though it says 2 people If your husband can build ikea he can build this by himself. I’m currently 9 months pregnant with baby number 3 and it took my husband 3 days to complete. I helped him organize the boards at the beginning which believe it or not the organizing was more annoying than the build but once that is done the build is pretty straight forward. Some of the holes in the boards were missing but you can easily make your own with a power drill. The kids love it and I think it looks nice in the yard. 10/10.

Overall can’t beat the price for this much quality. Of course there was a couple things during installation like a screw here or there missing but enough other extras to make it work. Follow the instructions and you will be fine.

We had to tear down our old swingset and replaced it with this guy. VERY pleased. I cannot emphasize enough the need to seal every piece of wood with some type of sealant before assembly. Took me 2 days to do that and inventory every piece. All in all, a great play set. Be prepared to keep with annual maintenance of sealing and tightening every part. The vendor does allow you to order individual pieces that need to be replaced, but doesn’t charge you for the parts for the first 5 years (under warranty). Again, you have to seal it annually to keep your warranty valid. Overall, good deal! No missing parts at all, and solid structure once assembled!

We call it the sky fortress. It took many hours to complete by using the digital instructions on the Buit app. There were a few errors in the instructions, and it took a little elbow grease to build. But the paper instructions were always spot-on. It's going to take some common sense and a "can do" spirit, ...and don't get impatient. For the negative reviewers that are unable to complete the product successfully, rest assure the error was on behalf of the builder, not the kit. The set says it takes two people, it took me about 30 to 35 hours alone. However a second pair of hands would have been very nice at some points and speed up the process. After year, I'll try to come back and review again I can see how it holds up. I also built the set on top of pressure-treated lumber... Hope that helps it last.

Our children absolutely love this playset!!! Very sturdy, great quality. The assembly definitely takes awhile, make sure you have some friends to help you, but the instructions are super easy to read. You will not be disappointed with this purchase!

I had a great local builder, Almighty Labor Services LLC, build the set. They did a fantastic job and I would highly recommend them. The manufacturer did leave out a few pieces of hardware that my builder was nice enough to replace. The only complaint I have is with the slide. The bars under the slide are about an inch too short. After only a few slides down the bottom most bar fell out because of the inadequate width. I replaced the bar myself and it seems to be fine. Overall A+ still and a great purchase for the family.

Love it but slide cracked.

Overall I was really impressed with the build quality. It took me a total of 24 hours to put it together, which I decided to do in two days. As you put it together you'll realize it's built to withstand heavy weights and pressure, so I can say it's definitely safe for the kids.

I really love this set. Does it take forever? SURE! But... here's what I did: After its arrival, my best friend and I used bedtime, and our massive garage, to lay everything out. Very first step? Print the PDF version (found online) of the manual, page by page. I just printed the actual steps pages, and not all the rest. So, use your "print pages" option to save yourself a few trees. Next, I purchased fold top, cheap sandwich bags and had a couple sharpies handy. Then we opened the boxes, and pulled the packing slips out (one box was missing a packing slip, so we just used process of elimination). There is no rhyme or reason for how this all is packed, other than it fits perfectly, into 3 boxes, like a puzzle. The steps have you put together big items first (monkey bars, swing set assembly, rock wall, rear ladder, crow's nest base and slide). Then, it goes on to step by step for how to build the clubhouse. After the main structure is together, you attach all the things. We took the first page(s) and found all of the items needed to construct the first big item. We laid them all into a pile, found all of the nuts/bolts/locks/etc and put them into individual baggies (clearly labeled). We piled them all together, and put the corresponding papers on top of it. Then to the next large piece's parts and pages... and the next, and the next. Soon, all of the main items were placed into piles, with every piece of wood and hardware, with the pages that told you how to construct them, laying on top. Next, we got to the instructions for each step of the main structure/clubhouse. Since you can't really "group" them together, we literally went page by page. Each page has what wood pieces and hardware are needed, listed on the top. Some piles had 1 piece of wood, and a bolt or two... some piles had MULTIPLE. (Oh... each baggie, with hardware, I would write something like "monkey bars - bolt # and what size/quantity"... just look at the photos for all of these examples, cause I don't want to explain it wrong). But, we just went page by page. Laying it all out, in order. This took us 2 nights... just the two of us (and a few adult beverages). Here was my thought process... I had myself, my husband, and 2 other couples, willing to come over and help FOR ONE SATURDAY. What I didn't want? One single book, being passed around, people looking for things, using wrong pieces, losing things, etc. If I had them for a day, I needed to make the MOST of it. It totally worked! It was the most methodical madness...ever. All the comments from friends were "I'm so glad you had this all so organized!" They all came over Saturday morning. They brought their drills and bits (and coffee). We got started right away (about 11AM). Each couple grabbed one of the larger item piles, and put together whatever it was (my one piece of advice? Pay attention to the slide... bolting the wood to the bottom? You need to leave a little slide at the end. The piece of wood doesn't sit flush with the end of the slide. I missed this. Thankfully, a friend had a good idea with how to fix it, without making more holes in the slide... thank you, friend!). After all of the items were constructed, we set them in the front yard. It was now on to constructing the clubhouse. This part was harder to work with all 6 hands. But, some were working, and others were grabbing items/tools/instructions/etc. We decided to build most of the clubhouse on the driveway, for a level surface, and easy access to all of the steps, that were still laid out in the garage. Once we got to a point that we felt we should move it, we brought it down (again, refer to photos). From there, we had people bringing each step down, and crews alternating working on the rest of the steps (it was pretty hot that day, so the switching off was nice). But, it was great to have some extra company and encouragement. ;) Toward the end, we had all the crews connecting the big items, simultaneously, and the lone man up in the crow's nest (that thing is seriously the most time consuming part of it all). While they were finishing all the last details, I ran to Home Depot, and picked up 15 50lb bags of play sand. I think we wound up only using 12-13 bags, for all of you wondering. By 7PM, every last item was done, the sandbox was filled, and the kids were having a blast. Later, we got some 5" edging, and edged out an irregular shape, around the play set. It took about 6 yards of play bark to fill it with a few inches (makes my mama heart feel better, in case anyone falls off). All in all, I'm estimating it took about as long to lay out the parts as it did to put it together. However... it was completely worth it. I would NOT do it any other way. Nothing was lost, broken, installed wrong (except ALMOST the bottom board of the slide). A few pieces were a little warped.. but none were broken. This is WOOD. Not every piece will be perfect. Do I regret this purchase? Absolutely not! My kids are like "can we go out and ...

This is all put up. Took 3 days. The kids love it! It looks beautiful. Some pieces of wood came chipped and 1 was split but we managed it. We are ove all happy with this purchase.

Great set! Took 4 full days to build. Only building tip i have is to triple check where the pilot holes should be when attaching to framework.