Us is primarily me –Pete Lawson (aka cedarpete). I’ve been in the wholesale lumber business since 1976 shortly after graduating from Colby College in Waterville Maine. As you can probably guess most of that time has been spent buying and selling Cedar. I still do that, some to play set companies, some to factories in China and some to the distributors that sell specialty products to your local lumber yard.
Cedar Swings and Play Sets began in 2008 when the wholesale company had a surplus inventory of play set parts. Most of the companies that used to manufacture play sets here had shut down their factories and moved the work to China. The few that continued to manufacture here focused on treated lumber due to its cheaper cost. It was time to roll up our sleeves and start selling play sets in order to liquidate an inventory.
Today we are focused on delivering a high quality, all Cedar play set at a reasonable price. We are able to do this by having very low over head, and keeping our product line simple – you won’t have to decide between 30 models on this web site! We buy our Cedar directly from the mills out west, and it is delivered here to New England very efficiently –by rail.
Our play sets are made from standard lumber sizes normally used for deck and outdoor construction here in the US. When compared to the box store sets coming from China the most noticeable difference is the thickness of the wood; our deck boards are a net 1″ thick compared to 5/8″ in most of the Chinese sets. When compared to a treated set think of it this way; Western Red Cedar sells for almost twice what chemically treated Yellow Pine sells for because it’s more highly prized. It’s a beautiful, naturally decay resistant, fine appearance wood that will remain that way in outdoor use.
So that’s our story. Feel free to give me a call or e-mail your questions.
Thanks, Cedarpete!