Finally...

I have been thinking about blogging for a long time. What prompted me to finally get my act together and start? It's the tree house! After thinking about building a tree house for a few years I finally got started about two weeks ago. In honor of my motivation I have named my blog "David's magic tree house". I throw in "magic" because:

1. Miles and Ella are reading the Magic Tree House series now.
2. It's a magical feeling for me to build a tree house for Miles and Ella (and for myself).
3. This tree house must be magic because it helped me start writing a blog.

Let's start with the tree house.

We have been living with this Mulberry tree in our back yard for 11 years now. Our tree is big and strong and its high canopy provides blessed summer shade. I am intimately familiar with our tree for the yearly pruning venture. I've always thought about building a tree house in it. After we put in the deck two and a half years ago, I decided the tree house project was next.

Here's a picture of Miles' ambitious plan. We'll see how far we get...


Thanks to Dave (Heather's Dad) who helped find out about the city ordinance 10 feet from fence, not higher than 15 feet) and for acting as a sounding board for ideas and design. Dave and Josie came down for Miles' and Ella's birthdays a few weeks ago and with their help we finally started building the tree house.

Miles drew this picture of what he wanted the tree house to be like. Well, we never quite get that far...

I spent a lot of time researching (http://www.thetreehouse.com/ has lots of great info) and thinking about the tree house design (and finally decided on making the tree house a platform tree house with a triangular base. To keep it simple (and keeping the cost down), I decided not to enclose it. The triangular shape is dictated by the supporting trunks. We also cut down a big tree trunk in the middle to gain more footage. Thanks to Srini for his chain saw. Otherwise, I would still be up there sawing.

After a weekend we have a basic framework.

View from the house (looking east)

View from below and looking south.

Here's Dave and I working...

That's about where it is now. I put two 1x6s down for the floor using the ipe left over from the deck project. I first though that I would just use ipe for the floor but I realized how expensive ipe has become in the last few years. I looked around and decided to try Garapa (http://www.advantagelumber.com/garapa_decking.htm). The order should arrive next week. I am looking forward to finishing the floor.

While we're on the subject of buying lumber, I visited Whole House Building Supply (http://www.driftwoodsalvage.com/), which resells salvaged building material. This is a great place for finding bargains. You save your money and help save the planet. I wish I had found this place before starting the project.