Backyard Swing Set & Sandbox
Learn about backyard swing set and sandbox space requirements and get design tips for placement.
A video transcript featuring Scott Cohen, The Green Scene
Before, this side yard was actually a ravine. It dropped off and this land was about 4 feet lower than it is now. It wasn't functional for a play area. What we did is use the soil that we excavated from the pool, and bring it over to this area. We compacted it, raised this up, and made a nice level area here to accommodate the sandbox and the playset.
Concrete sandbox constructionTo create the sandbox here, we poured cast concrete curbing. We actually created forms onsite and poured the colored concrete into the molds, and then filled it with play sand. This is not typical construction sand or washed plaster sand. This is actual play sand. It doesn't compact and it stays nice and clean and it's filtered; there's nothing in it that could hurt children.
To give us an opportunity to personalize this a bit, we stamped the child's name right into the concrete and she got to put in her handprints and a little bit of decoration, which is kind of fun. Any time you can customize something and make it special for the client, it's always worthwhile putting in the extra effort to do so.
The sizing of this sandbox needed to be large enough to accommodate the play equipment and also sliders that come down these slides. Be careful when you're looking at the specs for the play sets online because they don't always tell you how much space you need in front of a slide. We like to make sure there's at least 3 to 5 feet of sand for soft landing in front of a slide. It's a lot of fun to have your own sandbox in your own backyard, and that's what we created here.
