Treehouse Project: Day 13 & 14, The Climbing Wall

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Time to catch-up on the treehouse project. I left off with the roof completed, with the next major job being the climbing wall on the back. But first, a look at how it appeared before doing that:

Treehouse

Here’s a closeup of the top, so you can better see the roof in place:

Treehouse

We’ve since had a heavy rain, and I’m happy to say, nothing got through that roof!

See how in the first picture, there’s a short wall around the entire treehouse? I realized that to put my climbing wall up, that short wall had to come off the back. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to drill holes easily for the
climbing holds to be bolted to.

It was a minor pain, but I got through it easily enough since I’d screwed everything in, rather than using nails. Here I am at the end, having removed the last board:

Treehouse Chair

That’s my youngest in front, holding the one puppy that I agreed we could keep, both in the hanging chair I put up in the corner.

Getting the two big pieces of marine plywood up wasn’t easy, but after involving literally everyone at home, they were in place:

Treehouse Climbing Wall

If you look closely, on both the right and the left, as well as in the middle, there are 2×8 beams running vertically. These provided the support for the wall.

I was worried that the plywood would leave splinters in little hands, then I remembered I had a ton of floor varnish left from redoing floors a few years ago. I put two coats of that on, and it worked really well. The walls aren’t
slippery, yet there aren’t any splinters.

Next, time to put up the holds.

Treehouse: Climbing Wall

They work pretty well! You can climb right up to the top:

Treehouse: Climbing Wall

Next, I need to run a rope or something across the top, so you can pull yourself over more easily. Plus, the second wall needs to be done. But I was pretty happy with it!

And yes, I finally got a pulley installed:

Treehouse Pulley