Misc...

I had a lot of fun building this treehouse. My daughters are enoying it. The older two have requested bean bag chairs to sit on for reading. The younger two like playing monster come get me.

To build a playhouse one must plan on spending a lot of time and hard work. This is not something that gets completed in a couple of weekends but requires several weekends and nights after work. The longest part for me was tacking up the cedar shingles. There are other alternatives for siding that would make this go much quicker. I would recommend having as much help as possible, a generator for powertools or a long enough extension cord to reach wall power, and enough free time.

Mostly Finished... and Future Plans

This is the final outcome of the treehouse for this year. Since I have to switch gears and start in on my cordwood for the season, I am out of time. My future plans include the following:

-Paint and stain
-A counter weight for the trap door
-Insulation and bead board paneling for interior as well as trim
-Linoleum flooring
-Wooden kitchen set including a refrigerator, kitchen sink, and stove
-Kid sized kitchen table with 2 chairs
-Pulley with a basket that goes down to the ground
-A kid designed flag
-Curtains for windows

Doors and Trim and Siding

The doors were made from 6" - 5/4 notty pine boards. I was able to join them together in a z bend fashion. Eventually the doors will be cut in half so they can open from the top and the bottom. I also used 3" pine trim board around the windows only. I decided if I trimmed the doors and corners, there might be an odd sized strips to side between the corners, windows, and doors.





Here is a picture of the the hardware used for hinging and latching the door...





...and siding. You can see that the siding used is cedar shingles. It was a lot of work but the outcome was worth the time.



This last picture shows the ridge cap that I finally put on the roof. I used a piece of the corrugated roofing and ripped it and was able to bend it over the ridge. I anchored it down with roofing screws.

Stairs/Ladder?

I know there is a forumula for figuring out stairs and maybe my stairs are classifed as a ladder due to the angle? I didn't want to make things to complicated so here is how I went about designing my stairs/ladder.

Using 1 - 10 ft. 2 x 8 pressure treated board, I leaned it up from the ground to the entry way in the trap door opening. I first scribed a line on the foot end of the board and cut an angle to make it level with the ground. I then did the same at the top making the cut horizontal to the upright floor joist. I repeated this on a 2nd 10 ft. 2 x 8 so now I have 2 stringers with the angles cut on both ends. With 1 of the stringers in the upright position, I measured to what I considered would be a comfortable step at that angle. I determined that a 1 foot rise would work which was excellent because I was dealing with a 10 ft. board (I like square numbers). I would need to router out 8 tread slots at a 1 ft spacing. With the first stringer in place, I used a level and marked each 1 foot tread position with a level horizontal line. I then routed out the tread postion at about a 3/4 inch depth. I mirrored these marks to the 2nd stringer and repeated.

I now have two stringers that I joined together with 18" treads. I used shorts from the leftover floor decking (Katie did all this measuring). When the stairs/ladder was complete, I screwed on a piece of plywood to the end that would join the floor joists. I then hoisted the stairs to the opening and screwed the plywood into the floor joist. It was necessary to level the ground with a shovel to make everything fit perfect.

Railings

The railing design is very basic and simple. I had 8 - 4 x 4 inch posts which I lag bolted to the floor frame every 7 feet. It was necessary to jig saw out a small slot in the decking in order for the post to stand up level. The corner posts all required that I lag on a 2 ft. extension block at the top in order to tie the tops of the posts together with a 14 ft. pressure treated 2 x 4 on all 4 sides. I added 2 x 4s all around at different heights. My overall total of 2 x 4s came up to 4 - 16ft 2x4s and 24 - 8 ft 2 x 4s. The horizontals were cut down to fit in between the upright posts.





I may end up adding some ballisters in between the bottom 2 uprights so I don't have to worry about the youngest kids falling through.

Plywood, Steel & Glass

With the walls and roof framed, it was time for the sheething. I ended up using the plywood I had left over from a deck I took apart. The good part is it is all pressure treated. It doesn't look pretty now but it will all be sided. I covered all of the walls and roof leaving openings for the door ways. Once the roof was covered I added drip edge all around then sheethed it with corrugated steel roofing. These steel pieces were leftovers and were given to me. I have not gotten around to a ridge cap yet but I will end up ripping a piece of the steel and bending it to make the cap.



I decided it would be easier for me to frame out my windows then cutout the plywood. I decided what height I wanted the window then framed accordingly. The windows I am using are vinyl sample windows that I got for free. I have 2 in the front, 2 in the back. 1 on the right side and I am using a 24" X 48" crankout window as a picture window on the left side. Some of these photos were taken with the next steps already done. I will explain my railing design in my next post.

Framing

With the completion of the platform, it is now time to move on to the framing. As I discussed in earlier posts, the footprint of the building is going to be exactly 8 ft x 8 ft. I want to make the house tall enough for an adult to walk through the doorway without having to duck down. The wall height is 6 ft up to 8 ft at the peek.

My 10 year old stepdaughter had a blast helping with the measurements. Ensure that the building is square by measuring from corner to opposite corner. The building will be perfectly square if the two diagonal measurements are the same. Be sure to include your helpers as much as possible. This is the stuff they will remember.



Here is a picture of the completed frame and crew. I used 2X3 lumber. I roughed in a 33" doorway opening for both the front and the rear of the building. I also made my studs and roof rafters 24" on center. I left a 3" rafter tail which will be exposed. The framing for the windows will be completed after the plywood sheathing is added. I also added a 4 x 4 beam as a type of ridge pole which will extend from each gable end. It will eventually have a pulley with a rope and a basket that will lower to the ground so the kids can pull things up this way instead of carrying things up the stairs.

How About a Floor

Now that the floor frame was complete, it was time to move to the decking. My original plan was to use all pressure treated plywood that was left over from an old deck I disassembled about 6 years back. From my memory I had thought I had all 4 x 8 sheets of plywood to cover the whole deck. I wasn't really concerned about using pressure treated framing as it would have all been shielded from the elements. My memory wasn't as good as I thougth because the pieces were not true 4 x 8 pieces. They ended up being 48" x 90". 6 " shorter than I anticipated. Now I needed to come up with another plan. Let's do the floor of the building out of what little pressure treated plywood I had and do the wraparound decking out of 5/4' decking planks.

Because the frame was not built out of pressure treated lumber, I topped it off with strips of tar paper before laying any of the plywood and 5/4 " planking over it.

As you can see by the picture I scribed around the two trees leaving enough room for growth. I also made a trap door in front of the left tree which will eventually have ladder stairs coming up through.

Bracing

It is important that your platform is braced properly to ensure it will be solid. I had a couple of decisions to make. I could A) run pressure treated 4 x legs to the ground in all 4 corners which would make it plenty stable or B) set up diagonal bracing and lag it into the trees. I decided that option A) would make it into a ground structure instead of a true treehouse so I opted for option B). Remember Ewoks and Swiss Family Robinson...



This picture shows you how I went about stabilizing the platform. Keep in mind, this option does have a little more spring to the step but is more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. I made sure to lag the diagonal pieces to the tree at the lower intersection as well as the horizontal cross pieces.

How to Make a Platform Hover

Now that the platform dimensions have been figured out, the question arises, how do we get this thing off the ground? With a will and little bit of careful planning there's always a way. Let's start with the cross beam. I started out with a couple of pressure treated 2x6 boards. I lagged them into the trees on both ends tying the two trees together. I only used 1 lag per end and per board to ensure the trees would still have the ability to pivot and flex. This would be the cross beam my platform will rest upon. I made sure to use 2-2 x 6's paralell to eachother as the weight of this platform will start getting heavy with the building and the kids that will be playing on it. These cross beams were made level cross wise as well as perpidicular.

The next step was to build a platform frame. I made the frame out of 2 x 6 lumber. The majority of the frame was made on the ground. I first made the plaform 14 ft long by 8 ft wide. in order to get it up between the two trees the rest of the platform would be built in the air around the trees. I was able to hoist this platform up by myself by using 2 x 6 lumber as ramps. I found the balancing point on the cross beams and put up temporary 2 x bracing.



This is what the platform looks like with the temporary bracing. ...And yes, that is my 3 year old daughter. Don't worry, she was plenty safe.

The fun part was the remaining framing around the trees. I doubled up the outside perimeter with a 14 ft long board and filled in the rest of the floor framing every 2 ft on center. This gave me doubled up 2 x 6's on all 4 sides.

Dimensions

I wanted the house to be built high enough up where it will feel like you are up in the air but not so high that if one fell out that it would be fatal. The height I decided was to be roughly 8 feet. Because the structure was built on a slope this puts the low edge at about 6.5 ft and the opposing end at 14 feet.

The next step was to determine the footprint of the building. With the distance between the two trees being 8.5 ft. that left enough room to make a structure with a foot print of 8 x 8 ft. Of course it has to have a deck of some kind. Let's give it a 3 ft. wraparound. Now it's decided, a platform of 14 x 14 ft. will be necessary!

I wanted the building to be big enough where the kids can sleep out there and have enough room to invite friends out too. I also wanted to make sure it was tall enough where an adult could get in without having to duck their head. I will make the side walls 6 ft and the peak roughly 8 ft. tall.

I'm beginning to think this treehouse is going to look like something out of the Ewok Adventures movie or Disney's Swiss Family Robinson.

The Design is Underway

For me, I got most of my design ideas out of a book;

Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build by: David and Jeanie Stiles

This has been a great book in showing me the fundamentals to Treehouse design. I knew I had to find a way to put a platform in between two trees that would have the ability to flex with the wind. Once I had that, the rest would be easy.

I started by locating 2 trees down by the small river that runs through our yard. These trees are close to the river yet high enough where they wouldn't get uprooted in the event of a flood (this section of the river can "move" in the spring). One of the trees is an oak tree between 50 and 75 years old and the other I would estimate to be a 30 year old maple.

I pulled out the tape measure and started recording numbers and brainstorming to determine what could be done...

Things to Consider

When building a structure of this type a lot of factors need to be taken into consideration. Careful planning is essential before a hammer is lifted. I tried to answer these questions prior to moving into the design of the structure.

• Site - Do I have a suitable place to build this structure?


• Permit - Do I need to check with the town for permits?
  
• Accessibility - Is this structure in a place where you can easily get materials in and out of and is it close enough where my kids will want to use it. Can we keep an eye or ear out in the event of an emergency?


• Electricity - Will you be wanting to run electricity to your new structure? Do you have electricity to run powertools?


• Safety - Are the trees mature enough to support your structure? How high off the ground are you going? What type of access will you be building to get into the structure? Is this structure appropriate for the ages of your kids?


• Expense - How much money are you willing to spend on your structure. Will your budget be enough to incorporate safety?

The idea

I have mostly completed the construction of a tree/clubhouse. I have decided that I would like to share the steps and progress of this project with others. I am planning to log this in chronological order up to my current point.

The idea is to have an area where my kids can go to play that is a private and peaceful place. It needs to be built strong and apealing to the eye. I decided to build a clubhouse up in the trees as an alternative to buying a premade playhouse as it can be customizable and is less expensive. I had a good start with recycled materials but a lot of the framing lumber had to be purchased.