Monkey Bars Indoor DIY Guide

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If you’re looking to take your playroom up to the next level with some monkey bars indoor, you’ve come to the right place. Adding monkey bars was one of our favorite additions to our playroom, and they’re always a big hit when kids come over. This post will go through each step of the process.

For more playroom inspiration, check out these amazing playroom design ideas as well.

Supplies Needed for Monkey Bars Indoor

You can find most supplies needed to install your monkey bars indoor at your local hardware store or on Amazon. To start, we ordered 24” sections of 3/4″ black iron pipe with threaded ends (called a nipple) to be the rungs, as well as double the amount of 4” black cast iron nipples. We purchased 90-degree elbows for the pipe, as well as threaded cast iron floor flanges for the application. Therefore each rung consisted of:

• 1-    24” section of pipe
• 2-   90-degree bends
• 2-   4” sections of pipe
• 2-   Threaded floor flanges

Other supplies needed are:

• 3/4″ plywood sheet
• Lag bolts with washers
• 1″ screws

The amount you will order will depend on your space and how many bars you will have going across (our space is about 11′ x 10′, and we have 6 going across and 7 on our ladder going up).

Prep Work

My husband cleaned all of these materials, attached them together, primed them and painted them black. All of these parts are threaded, and the attachments were made using pipe wrenches with a rag over the pipe to wrench connection point to prevent scuffing/scratching of the metal. He tends to be a perfectionist because after being painted, I’m sure that nobody would have noticed it anyway. 

Then he picked up a ¾ inch sheet of a finished plywood, cut to just past the width of the flanges. At this point, he marked the location of the ceiling joists and attached the plywood running the length that we wanted the monkey bars. Our monkey bars ended up being perpendicular to the joists, but it would also work being parallel to the joists; you’d just want to make sure you do the next step otherwise the load on the 2 joists would be too much.

Be sure to get lag bolts long enough to go through ¾” plywood, 1/2” drywall, and 1” into the joists, and use washers with them. He then pre-marked where his bolts where going to attach the plywood to the joists, and then used a router bit on the 3/4 plywood to be able to countersink the head of the lag bolts to just below surface of the plywood. This eliminates the potential of knuckle scrapes. 

Preparing the Space

Next, he went up into our attic space and used a couple of 2×4’s running across the top of the joists to essentially tie these together to share the load on any one joist over the group of them. Our set up was already sharing the load fairly well as it was perpendicular to the joists AND using plywood to tie it all together from the bottom, but my husband is an all or nothing guy.

If you run parallel to the joist and only span the length of two rafters, you will have to do a significant load sharing up top with 2×4 bracing. While we haven’t gone for a max load type of test (we don’t want to inadvertently bring down the bars) we have had our 200 lb friend use the monkey bars indoor (cautiously at first) with no issues, and my husband (160 lbs) has done a few tests to shock load it by jumping up and grabbing it with his downward force/momentum increasing his weight. He has also hung on the rope and tried to jump up and down to increase force, with no issues. 

Installing the Monkey Bars & Finishing Touches

Back down below, he was now ready to attach the bars to the plywood. He measured out the distance apart that we wanted them, AKA one on each joist since we were perpendicular. He made sure that on either side of the bar one of the 4 holes in the floor flange lined up with the stud. Then he placed a long screw into that one. If he got lucky and two lined up, he did them both with a long screw to go all the way into the joist.

All of the remaining holes in the flange were attached to the plywood using 1” screws. That’s just long enough to get through the flange and maybe push into the drywall by an eighth of an inch. Again, these multiple screws/attachment points help load share.

Creating The Ladder

At this time, there were monkey bars indoor, but unless your kid could jump really high, they weren’t accessible. We needed a way to get the kids up there. He decided to create a ladder in pretty much the same fashion.

He used plywood attached to the studs (now its running parallel), bars built and attached the same way. Except he used 14″ sections of pipe here to be able to capture the studs, which are 16″ on center.

You might consider using 2” pipe on this portion for the sides of the bar to shorten the distance between the wall and the bar. The greater the distance the bar is from the wall the more force is applied to the studs. And unless you want to open up the stucco from the outside or cut into the drywall if it’s along an interior wall, there is no way to brace these together. However, keep in mind that the plywood, as well as the multiple screw attachments of the flange are meant to help share the load to decrease stress on the studs.

Fun Extras

As an added bonus we bought a gym-style climbing rope and attached it to the last monkey bar, furthest from the wall ladder. Now the kids have two options. They can either climb the ladder and climb across, dropping on the ground or climbing down the rope. Or they can climb the rope and climb across, dropping to the ground or going down the ladder.

Important to note, we placed a soft mat along the length of this wall. That way the kids can jump down without hurting themselves.

For more ideas on creating the ultimate kids spaces inside and out, check out my posts about the best backyard activities for kids. I also share how we built our inground trampoline.

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