Jumanji Tree House Inspiration

Hey Gnomies,

Today I’m sharing a little makeover I did on my daughter’s play set. We got this play set for free off of Craigslist a couple of years ago. All we had to do was disassemble at the previous owner’s yard, haul it away and it was all ours.

When we reassembled it in our yard it looked a little rough. It was structurally sound but we had to replace a few boards that were starting to rot. I knew I needed to re-stain the play set to protect it from the rain this fall but I decided to have a little fun and make it over into a funky jungalicious Jumanji inspired tree house.

First I scrubbed down all the wood with a bristle brush and outdoor furniture cleaner and let it dry in the hot sun for a few days.

Once I was confident it was totally dry I painted on an outdoor wood stain. I’m not sure of the color because I found it in the “Oops” paint section at Lowes for $10.

Once the paint was dry I got to work.

I bought this reed fencing and stapled it to the sides of the playset. The fencing came in a 13ft roll so I had to cut it into sections and then re-twist the wires that were holding it together so it didn’t unravel.

The thatched roofing on the top is also from Home Depot. They also sell it at Lowes and Walmart but HD had the lowest price at the time that I was looking. I purchased two 8ft rolls.

I cut each of the rolls in half, retied the ends so they didn’t unravel and attached them to the existing PVC holes with zip ties. Each side of the curved roof has two sections of the thatched roofing layered on top of each other.

I also gave the PVC pipes a quick coat of the brown stain because they were originally white and didn’t look good. Now they blend in more.

Once I had those two features complete I knew the play set needed something “more”. Lucky for me my in-laws (who are also my neighbors) have a large patch of tall bamboo growing in their yard. They said I could use some for my project.

My daughter and I chopped down about 6 tall pieces of bamboo and trimmed them to size. Then, we attached them to the playset with rope and more zip ties.

To finish things off I bought some fake vines off of Amazon and strung them around to make the playset look more tropical and I grabbed a bunch of faux flowers from my craft stash and poked them into the bamboo and reeds.

I added a few accessories from around the tree house like the coconut monkey and the bamboo wind chime.

The fun part about this project was that I got to go down the slide about a million times while I was working on it.

Chloe loves her play set and on sunny days she likes to hang out in there and pretend that she is living in the jungle with her stuffed animals.

When the weather turns sour soon I will probably take down the roof and put it into storage for the winter to preserve it.

What do you think of my Jumanji inspired tree house?