Go to almost any lumber yard and the wood you’ll find there is milled on all four sides. Two-by, 4-by-, 6-by…you get the idea.
But since we built the Real Wood Playground for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in Joplin, MO where using round, pressure treated pilings made building our complicated layout possible and practical, I have been giving more thought to where leaving the round edges on the biog boards can make a lot of sense—and deliver a cool, long-lasting look.
The first place I can think of is a retaining wall. Built just like a seawall (or bulkhead as they are known in some coastal areas), setting pilings instead of 6-by can give that ocean feel and still stand up to life in the ground.
Another cool place—and I am stealing this from a sound-barrier on the edge of a highway I saw somewhere—is as fence posts. It’s a folksy feel to be sure, but the idea is that you set the piles in a straight line (like you’d do with any fence posts) then nail your “fencing” (in this case 2×6 or 2×8 stacked horizontally) on the front face of one piling and on the back face of another. Repeat as needed. It delivers a cool, very textured and very unique fence style. Building a gate in this would be super cool.
You can also do cool one-off projects with pilings. Cut three at different heights and set them in the ground near the end of a driveway to set it off or to place a light. Ditto for a mailbox post. I have sourced pilings from professional lumber yards with no problem, but check in your area where to get them. They are probably not a stock item and may require some lead time. They might also have a few hanging around, you never know.
Oh, and cutting them is fun. We used a chainsaw.
Or, if you have a real appetite to get around, build your own custom playground with them. Each pole is one of a kind, just like what you can make with them if you decide to go round.
