Almost done.

There was not that much left to do on the tree house, but somehow it still took a whole day. By mid morning we were done with the railings. It took the rest of the day to wash the tree house, put on a coat of deck oil, and anchor the hand rails together. You might remember that I had applied deck oil when the floor boards arrived and wonder why I'm applying oil again. Well, I only applied deck oil on one side of the boards. But it ended up that the most efficient way to cut the boards necessitated using the non-oiled side in some cases. So lesson learned. As it is now, I only have scrap pieces of the floor boards left. I was either a really good estimator or I was just lucky.

Here are the pictures.


View from the north.


Here's the newly oiled floor. You can see the three different kinds of wood used: garapa (most of the floor boards), tigerwood (the 4" boards), and ipe (the dark brown boards).


This is a view looking east. The picture was taken before I tied the hand rails together.


Today's another glorious 70 degree day in late November. I love the way the floor boards look in this afternoon sun.

What's left to do.

1. There is a small section of railing to be added near the stair entry.
2. We might need to reinforce the railing on the south side.
3. A curtain/drapery system around the north and south side would be great.
   
4. For now, we are using my folding ladder. It would look a lot nicer if there is a wooden ladder. Maybe someday.
   

That's it for now. The next post might be when it is all finished. (Or will it ever be finished?)

Railings up.

We are nearing completion of the project. As of today, we are almost done with the railings. It seems like the railings would be a straight forward process, but I had different approaches in mind. For example, I thought about putting up walls made from old closet doors. But I eventually decided against it because:

• first of all, it would be a lot of work
• I didn't want to put too much stress on the tree
• having walls might make it feel smaller. I prefer the airy feeling.

One of the arguments for walls is that they would shield the direct view into the neighbor's back yard. After some thought, we decided that we could put drapery around the tree house on the neighbor's side. At this point, it is just a thought, we'll see how it is when it is implemented.

Here's what it looks like with only the front railing last weekend. I'll take more pictures tomorrow with the other railings.


View from the house.


View from the side.


Another side view. Miles swinging in the fore ground.

continuing tree house construction..

We try to get the family to talk more to each other during dinner. One thing we've learned is to have everyone say what is their good thing and bad thing for the day. Last night, Miles and Ella were arguing about who should go first and eventually came to a compromise that Ella would go first with the good thing and Miles would go first with the bad thing.

Miles: My good thing is that the tree house is almost done.
Ella: My bad thing is that the tree house is not done yet.
Heather and I: Miles, your turn for bad thing.
Miles: My bad thing is that the tree house is not done yet.
Ella: My good thing is that the tree house is almost done.

---

The Biowash deck oil from EcoHaus arrived Thursday. The Garapa decking 1x6 arrived Friday. The weather was perfect for working on the deck this weekend. Temperature was aroud 80 deg F. What more can you ask for for mid-November?

I spent Saturday afternoon staining. Garapa has a really different look from Ipe. While Ipe is more reddish, Garapa is more yellow and golden. Here's a picture of the stained vs. the untreated 1x6s.


I took a 1x6 Ipe left over from building the deck, sanded it down a bit, and use the deck oil on it. It really brought back a lot of the color. Here's a picture comparing the two. May be next spring I'll clean up the deck and refinish it.



Back tracking a little bit, while I was waiting for the decking boards to arrive, I was able to work on the tree house a little using materials I already had. I added two more joists at places where the span might be too great. I also put in two floor boards using the Ipe 1x6 left over from the deck construction. Here are the pictures.


Here's the view from the ground looking at the bottom of the "V".


Here's the view from the top. The metal plate you see there is a gutter I put in to channel rain water away from a hole in the tree. Rain water was collecting in the hole, mixing with fallen leaves, bird poop, and gave off the most foul rotten smell.


This picture shows the two Ipe 1x6 I put in. You can also see the single railing post on the right.

There is not one single right angle on the deck. Plus the fact that I have to make the boards go around the tree trunk in a few places greatly slowed progress. It took me the whole afternoon to put in about 10 boards. This is what it looked like when it got too dark to continue.

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.