I'm very proud of our yard. Here are some "before" pics but they include our salvaged swingset:
http://www.dancing-bears.com/images/yard1.jpg
This one shows our hammock and beyond that is where we'll put our raised bed garden. Working on that this week.
http://www.dancing-bears.com/images/yard2.jpg
We hung this pretty rope and wood swing (dh made) from a high branch. It has great travel!
http://www.dancing-bears.com/images/yard6.jpg
The swingset. The main "fort" part with slide was our neighbors'. Their kids are older and they put in a pool, so we rolled it over to our yard on big logs (took down some fence). We added a long beam and bought swings and a glider and hung them on there. We got rid of the monkey bars as they were rotted.
We'd like to add an old junkyard steering wheel, a cargo net to climb, and eventually monkey bars. It also needs to be pressure washed and stained as it's rotting a bit, but not too badly.
I would like to add sand pits, rope and wood bridges, more foliage and paths between the beds. Oh, and a treehouse in the big stand of trees near the swing....then you could jump onto the swing from the treehouse and really have a great time.
Right now we have a wading pool in the middle of the yard and the kids love to play with the hose. But they end up making mud and just playing naked in the mud!! Silly kids.
Enjoy creating your space! It didn't cost us much to make ours. We got heavy duty swing brackets because we wanted the (big) neighbor kids to be able to come swing on their old swingset, so the wood and swings and hardware we added cost about $150. Then we spent about $50 for mulch to go under it. The wood swing cost $5.