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Customized Wood Play Structures Create Backyard Fantasies
Barbara Butler's Creations Bring out the Kid in All of Us By Katherine Bontrager
There are certain things in life that manage to make even the most adult of us feel like a kid again, ushering us into a world where laughing, exploring and playing King of the Mountain are all acceptable forms of amusement. Barbara Butler not only discovered what brings out the best in children and adults alike, she also made it into a thriving business that Hollywood has come to love.
Her secret? Butler can capture a fantasy world and fashion it into life with wood and brightly colored paint. And don't assume a dream can be too complicated or extreme. She has built a jail and pirate ship complete with swinging bridge. And a castle with towers, a 36-foot slide and a mad scientist's chamber, all accented with rock climbing walls and hand-carved gargoyles. Whatever your dream play structure is, Butler can build it in your very own backyard
Faced with this daunting challenge, Butler went around San Francisco and played on all the play sets she could find, noting what really got imaginations and bodies active. She took the best elements of what she found and combined them with her own thoughts on play. What she found in designing her first custom structure was that it offered the best of both her worlds. "It really combined all the things I love: construction, painting, sculpture, play and children," says Butler. "I was really hooked." The new job wasn't all child's play, though. "It was a brutal learning curve because it required different tools and thoughts about child safety," she says. "At first, I even had trouble finding colorful stains."
