This month, the Cyberhomes crew will share what's on our wish lists for the holiday season. Join us for 12 days of great gift ideas for home and real estate buffs.
Brett Nordby, Cyberhomes product manager
On my wish list: A customizable Disney Palisade II Premium Play Center for our children (one is 2 1/2, with another due in May). We live in a great community, but it's quite a hike to get to the local playground. Our children (and me, too) could climb around like monkeys a lot more frequently, and other kids from the neighborhood could have more to do when they come visit as well. To protect the little ones from gravity (and to protect our inside floors from the abrasive and messy nature of sand), a rubberized safety surface would be nice. It comes in a number of colors and is poured into place and smoothed over with a trowel. Not only is it highly durable, it's ASTM-rated for impact resistance in playgrounds. You've probably seen it on school and community playgrounds.
Cost: The play center itself is about $3,104, with options, plus a couple hundred more for the large 4 by 4 supports; hopefully a holiday sale might drive that down a bit, but regardless, the cost per hour of enjoyment is ridiculously low. The rubber playground surface, however, is actually surprisingly expensive. If I did the excavation and put down four inches of cheap crushed stone as a base, the installation of the rubber would still cost about $3,500 ($4,500 if the contractors did everything). At those prices I'd have to find a cheaper alternative, like several inches of wood mulch, even if it ended up fading in a year or two.
Gift's added value to home: A backyard playground is a wonderful thing for any family with children, so if we were selling soon we could probably recoup the costs if we found buyers with kids in the right age range. Playgrounds don't last forever, though; I imagine in a resale situation the play center itself would depreciate to basically nothing in 10 years, and the residuals on the rubber play surface wouldn't be significant. Still, it would be a decade of safe fun!
My gift to you: An outdoor wireless speaker — in keeping with the theme — adds to any backyard retreat. I received a $99 Brookstone speaker as a gift awhile back, and it works surprisingly well. It's not meant for a dance party, but it's perfect for providing audio ambiance to a dinner or quiet get-together. The best thing is that the music I play inside plays outside as well — people can wander in and out and not listen to competing music.
Click here to read the previous holiday wish.
Click here to read the next holiday wish.
—Brett Nordby