We have an outdoor toddler climbing frame/play set in our house.
It was outdoors for the first 6 months or so of us living here. Then it became apparent that the extended period of cold weather in England compared to what we were used to the last place we lived, meant that my kids were not going to get very much use of the playground outside before they grew out of it. I took it apart and scrubbed it down (…a more extensive process than I originally anticipated; I was quite grumpy about it by the end of it) and ever since then it’s lived in our playroom.
(The trade-off here is that we don’t have a dining room. Or a dining table. I do not live in a huge space. I eat at the kids’ table in a teeny tiny chair, or on the floor, or on the couch. 🤷 It’s what works for us in this phase in life.)
It has lasted so much longer than I would’ve thought! As my kids get older and taller and bigger they’ve begun repurposing it in different creative ways. I tied a bunch of scarves to it at one point and they made them into various things to string objects on or balance objects on or hook them to. I’ve filled the top with stuffed animals. We’ve slid a million things down the slides. I’ve taped paper to it and had us color and draw on it. It’s been covered in duct tape to be Spider-Man’s webs. Lately the kids have been filling it with different shapes of mats and building things. It has given us a really great outlet for playing and climbing year-round.
