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Tree House: Day 7-9, Walls & The Second Floor

August 9, 2007 by Danny Sullivan

Building the tree house has continued! Though not today. There was too much work going on for me to sneak out for a brilliant sunny day that was beckoning me to do construction. And rain the day before. But over the weekend, lots and lots of work!

Most of Day 7 was spent doing the walls:

Wall Frames

In my mind, I pictured two brothers shoving each other or their friends against the walls, causing them to burst open and spill precious child cargo all over the ground. So I wanted them strong. But I also wanted big windows. And, I wanted the beams to be on the outside rather than the inside, even though I’d get more support that way. So I added some long beams in between top and bottom, plus secured several short beams.

Wall Frames

It all seemed pretty sturdy, when I was done. The next day, I moved on to try doing the walls. You’re supposed to overlap the board. I found this a pain — a pain to measure, to do on my own, plus look:

Walls Are Tricky

You got those gaps on the side. I later realized you’re supposed to put a board running down along the gaps. But heck, I just decided to put the boards against each other.

Front Wall

That means there are small horizontal gaps where maybe rain might get through. But I might also seal those in other ways from the inside. Or not. It’s a treehouse, after all. Mainly, shifting to the boards flat against each other meant progress was rapid.

Starting The Walls

Sunday — Day 9 of work — it was time to do steps. I wanted to do these beautifully crafted steps. Steps, as it turns out, are hard.

In the end, I cut two board and screwed them both together at one end, the bolted the other ends to the tree. I then put some scrap decking on top:

Steps

Not pretty, but they work. Here’s another view, as I’m so happy with them:

More Steps

I even cut the bottom one a bit to mesh against the tree. In my mind, I have it that I’ll make even better steps to replace these temporary ones. In reality, I’ll probably never get back to them 🙂

Now that I could climb up, it was time to get the roof frame going. That took tons of time, though not as much as for the first floor. I’m better with the jigsaw and doing diagonals now. Once the deck does down, you don’t realize how much foundation work has been done. So here’s a shot of some of that:

Roof Frame

There was great excitement of being able to climb up. Don’t worry. Most of the time, I had some big board to provide better security than having the kids wander around those great big holes.

By the end of the day, people were coming over. I had most of the top deck down but not enough for guests. So it was strictly only for first floor use. Here’s our dog, getting away from her puppies:

Dog House

And the real test — tons of kids in the tree house, and no collapse:

Treehouse Fully In Use

Tomorrow, if the sun’s out, I’m likely to get my roof finished.

Filed Under: Treehouse

About Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is a former analyst and journalist who works for Google to help educate the public about search, to explore and explain issues that may arise with search, and take feedback from the public to help promote solutions.

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