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Big, Bad Treehouse

I was just thinking about this thread the other day! This treehouse is so awesome!
 
Time has been limited this summer, so the updates will be sporadic, but I'm hoping to have this completed in a couple more weekends. The weekends might not be consecutive, however.
 
MotoWhip101 said:
I was just thinking about this thread the other day! This treehouse is so awesome!
Click to expand...

Me, too! I was watching a show about treehouses on TV this weekend, and immediately thought of this one!
Can't wait to see it! :)
 
No doubt the only tree house that will appear in the barf books. Way to go Andy. :applause
 
You are a God Andy :hail
 
Dude you are Barfs Norm Abrams. Showed my kid this treehouse and he just said whoa....
 
There is something anticlimactic about driving the last nail. After it seated, I stood up, looked around, holstered my hammer and climbed down through the hatch in the roof. Done.

My mom had flown out for the Labor Day weekend to finally get a look at this crazy project I''d been telling her about. Unfortunately, the infamous rim fire near Yosemite had surpassed 300 square miles and was blanketing an area four times that size in thick smoke. The tree house is located near popular camping and recreation areas and driving in, we saw the post-apocalyptic vision of deserted campgrounds and cabins, shrouded in smoke. It's one thing to see those images, but another to have the accompanying smell. While the smoke was bad, the fire itself was not a threat to the area.

After we arrived, we walked up to the tree house site and Mom had the same reaction most other people do who have seen photos and then visit the place; she stopped dead in her tracks with her jaw hanging open. Satisfying, to say the least.

We hauled tools up the tree, ran hundreds of feet of extension cord to get power and brought up the two bundles of shakes I would need to finish the roof. By then it was late afternoon and we decided to knock off, have a good dinner and get an early start the next day.

My mom speaks of getting old. Maybe it will happen at some point, but at age 81, she still mows her own lawn and wanted to help by passing material up to me on the roof. I hadn't intended to put her to work, but there was camaraderie in the process and she was able to relax in a folding chair until I needed another batch of shakes. Theoretically, anyway. I don't think she did much relaxing while I was walking around on a roof 30 feet up a tree.

We had a system where I would lower a bucket on a rope through the hatch in the roof, she would fill it with shakes, I would haul it back up and install them until I needed more. Eventually, we got to the details, where the rest of the roof was finished and it was time to install shakes on the hatch itself. The hatch is at the peak of the roof, right next to the tree, allowing me to access the roof for repair without having to go out around the eves. I can open the hatch, tie a sling to the tree, clip by belay line into the sling and venture onto the roof without risking a fall.

With the roof finished, we humped the tools, ropes and cords back down, loaded them onto the ATV and called it a day. The next morning, we went for a walk and took a few last photos before heading home to escape the smoke.



The tree house peeks out from behind other trees, with its host tree towering above:

20130901_091941.jpg




Mom tells me not to take her picture:

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The underside of the roof, near the access hatch:

20130901_091221.jpg




The finished tree house:

20130901_094315.jpg



The last stroke of the hammer closed a chapter and opened another. The past two summers have been largely consumed with the project and the next one promises to be one where we'll just play up there. While being a fun project, it has also been an opportunity to show our kids that normal people can build the things they imagine.
 
Awesome. Long may she run. :Port
 
Andy, that thing is magnificent. A good reminder that someday, if I manage to get my own little patch of land, I'll be building a nice yurt.
 
Bravo Andy Bravo!!

It's wonderful that your Mom could be involved in the final details!!
 
I was telling a friend who is a retired carpenter about this thread last night.

He said that is cool.. and then I showed him the pictures and he went holy shit.. that is awesome!!

It is.. :applause
 
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