Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

My husband and I read all the reviews and decided to take a 3 day weekend to put this together. We worked 6.5 hours the first day and 9 the following day. Except for putting the cafe seats and the flower planter in place, we were done at the end of the second day. It took my husband about an hour to finish it on Sunday. Our grandchildren absolutely love it! No, it wasn't easy to put together, there was a lot of sweat and head scratching, but thankfully my husband is good working with tools and wood, and we got it done. The directions aren't completely clear at times, and several times we had to backtrack and take apart some things to get other things put together, which is why we only gave it 4 stars. Seems like there could have been an easier route to the directions. We only had one piece of wood that wasn't labeled, but figured it out by measuring it, and all our hardware was correctly labeled, so we were thankful for that. One suggestion to anyone thinking about buying this product, and has been mentioned before in previous reviews, is to separate your wood according to how you will be using them. We figured that out after about an hour and separated everything and things went much faster. We anticipate many hours of enjoyment for many years to come with this product.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

DO NOT BUY!!!
It looks good online, smaller in person. Not worth the money spent. Swings are too close together, clubhouse is too small, not enough bars for the monkey bars. The "chalk board" is just a tarp-like material that kids can get pushed through because there is no wood backing behind it, the rock wall is very small. The wood is too thin/small. I worry about the boards dry rotting and breaking. It's very small scale, my year and a half old son hits his head on the top of where the slide and rock wall is. He can't even see out the window on the side. Instructions weren't very easy to follow.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

My 2 yo daughter loves it! She of course can't climb to the top yet but soon enough!! The only problem my husband had was a bag of screws was labeled wrong. Oh and there were holes drilled in the wrong spots. Easy fix though.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

swing set with not so much swing. Overall it looks pretty, but the quality of the wood is low grade, some of the dowels werent drilled to fit the holes in the monkey bars, we were missing wood for the sides of the clubhouse. It's also smaller than it looks in the pictures.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

This is the 2nd playground I've assembled for my children from the line of Toys R Us playgrounds. The last one I built may have been 6 years ago. While this newest one was bigger, it seems like I had less problems assembling. It is still a pain in the you-know-what to put together, though. There are so many steps and pieces. And you absolutely have to have someone help for some of the steps. My only complaint about assembly is the fit of the shingle roofing and siding. If you place the shingles flush with each other you will end up with a gap at the top of the wall or roof. It may be wise to leave a small space between them while stacking them. They will still overlap, but then you won't end up with a gap at the top of the wall or roof. I've only had it assembled for a couple of days, but my kids already love it and, unlike my first one, this gym doesn't move around and sway and creek. I know in time it might, but my first one did immediately after assembly. The directions are pretty good and all the hardware was with it (unlike my first experience). Be sure to read all of the directions and drill pilot holes when it says too. The illustrations are good and super helpful, but there are specifics you have to read. I ended up cracking one of the dowels for the monkey bars because I didn't read about the pilot holes. I'd give it a 5, but assembly is just too annoying (when it says 14 hours with 2 people, it isn't kidding).

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

The quality of the assembled play structure is pretty good overall. The only part that I am not happy with is the "chalkboard"... It's simply banner-type material screwed to a wood frame and there is no wood behind it. I'm just worried that over time my son may break this part loose and will fall through! We plan on reinforcing this with wood instead. Please no not be discouraged by the bad reviews just because they had a hard time assembling this. Understand that anything that requires assembly that comes in 3 large boxes full of wood pieces will take a little while, however, the directions were easy enough and it took us about 16 hours for 2 people to complete. We see our son getting lots of good use out of this!

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

We were excited to find such a nice looking play set at such a great price. The boards appeared and felt flimsy, but once bolted together the playset was sturdy. It is a little smaller than I had initally thought it would be but my 3 year old daughter and her friends from the neighborhood love playing on this. The chalkboard is a tarp rather than an actual board but the kids still love to draw on it and it is easy to clean. The lemonade stand has been a hit also. There are only 3 monkey bars and it is a little tricky for the kids to get into the playhouse from the monkey bars.

It does sway quite a bit when the bigger kids swing on it so I wouldn't get it for a kids much over 6 unless they are small for their age.

More time was needed for assembly than the instructions said. My husband is a bit of a do it yourself-er and he was able to put the majority of it together by himself.

It is a nice play set for the price when you research what you get for for your money.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

OK - so lets be realistic... this nice big clubhouse comes in 3 boxes - of course it is going to be work putting it together... but if you are organized and take a little time in the beginning to set up - it goes pretty smoothly and in the end you are left with a great clubhouse and happy excited kids!!!

My suggestion for prep work is to open the boxes up and mark each piece of wood with a pencil to the corresponding page that piece is needed on. Note - you will have some pieces that are needed on multiple pages so make sure pay attention to qty of piece per page. When that is done, line up all the wood in order from page 1 to the end so you wind up with about 20 rows of stacked wood. This took my husband and I a little over an hour the night before we started and it was worth the time!! We also put the bags of HW in alphabetical / numerical order which helped as well...

When building we found that while my husband followed the directions on the page to put that wood together, I would grab the wood for the next page (already laid out for me from my work the previous night) and get the HW ready (washer and lock nuts and screws all together). I could stage it so all he had to do when he was done with what he was working on was walk over and put the HW in and tighten... and I would start on the next page.

We did have a few hang ups where holes didn't line up perfectly but we either drilled a new hole or put in a little effort to get it to line up. Overall it was only a few pieces...

It took us 2 days with 2 people working each day - 1 person to do the work the other to prep for the next page. It was about 14 hours total and in the end my kids have a great playhouse. We started on Wednesday, finished Thursday night and had a b-day party with about (7) eight year old girls (who love the clubhouse and playing lemonade stand) and (3) toddler age kids (who love everything about it) and it was a HUGE hit :)

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

This was the worst item I have ever wasted hard earned cash on.
The wood was so light weight, I knew it would not last
long, some boards were flawed.
It took 2-3 men 3 days to complete this clubhouse. We had high winds the night that the Ridgeview was completed, it blew over doing damage at about $150.00 in replacment parts.
We had bought the warrenty JOKE it DOESN'T COVER WOODEN PARTS. So why buy the warrenty.
We decided to buy our own lumber and rebuild, a better and stronger set.
Before we got the lumber. Another strong wind came and totally destroyed what was left (the clubhouse its self). The anchor system is worthless.
IF YOU MUST WASTE YOUR MONEY, make sure you cement your set down.

Comments about Big Backyard 1009842 1009842 Ridgeview Clubhouse Deluxe:

I am not a handy guy by any means. I was horrified after reading the reviews that this was going to be a nightmare but it was on sale and I'm a sucker for spoiling my kid.

I opened up the boxes and all boards were labeled well enough. I took an hour or two to lay everything out and wrote their respective part numbers on top for quick reference. One board was tough to read but I then went through the inventory list and figured it out. I double checked and not a single piece was missing. One board was slighlty splintered but completely usable. Another board was moderately warped but went into place just fine.

One of the hardest thing about this was figuring out how the instructions read. Not that they were hard, they were just fairly technical and you need to learn to look for what you need. Ex: "(G2) 2-1/5 X 2 bolt" seems technical when all you need to know is: I need the G2 bolt.

You're going to see a lot of thin cedar and think "how is this going to hold anything?". However, once constructed, the thing is solid and held my 210 lb frame on the second level. I also sat on a swing and it held, no problem. If you're splintering boards, your tightening too much.

I had some help from my neighbor for a total of 5-6 hours, and my wife helped for a few hours while our 2 year old napped but I handled the lion's share solo. All said and done; it took 15 hours which I fully expected.

Not a project to tackle for a couple hours here and there. Plan on a weekend and that's what you'll get. Looks great, solid, and a rewarding project if you take your time. My only complaint is that I realized afterwards that the "deluxe" version is more expensive and you don't get much extra (just the dormer and roof pieces). I got it on sale so it worked out but that's not something I would normally pay extra for.