There are times where I have claimed, confessed and even admitted to, living vicariously through my daughters. Mostly in the way of
costume making, but there are other ways too. The most recent of these has also involved the use of power tools, which made me very excited indeed. Here is where it began. With planning. So much planning.
Lots of drafts and thinking and rethinking. This is where dreams really get their start. Before you put things on paper they are lofty ideas floating around somewhere, but when you put them on paper, they take that first step out of idea land and begin the process of becoming reality.
I've included this photo in what will probably be quite a long post because just this simple step is so important and I wanted to recognize it, and not forget that I spent lots of time just on this very thing. Drawing and redrawing that one image. Each time getting closer and closer to what would be it's finality. Problem solving, discussing, bouncing ideas, getting feedback. Every moment of this, was worth it to make the end goal that much more tangible.
Needless to say, this planning also made me all the more excited for what it was going to be: A tree house. Something I've wanted for a long time, possibly my whole life. I don't think that it would have even been a possibility though, if it weren't for our neighbors across the road. We didn't have any obvious "tree house" type trees, and we weren't too keen on just building an enormous fort in the middle of nowhere. We love our
garden too much for that. But the guys across the road just put a platform in their tree.
Not a huge thick enormous tree, an ordinary two-hands-round-the-branches kind of tree. It didn't have a roof (or handrails for that matter), but the kids were up and down it like crazy. Having the best of times.
If that tree could do it, surely I could find a tree that could do it too, I rationalized. And I did.
In the back corner of our yard is a bottle brush tree. We've never give it much thought. In fact, when I went back to look for a before photo of the tree in the garden, I found we were sadly lacking. Even the
Garden Makeover from 2016 didn't include a photo of it. There are photos of every other aspect of the back garden bed where the bottle brush tree lives, but not the bottle brush tree. The best photo I could find was this one, from when we finished
renovations in 2019.
The photo is really of the deck, but that's the tree in the corner there. So ridiculous that that's the best photo. I should really get better at taking before shots. Oh well. With the bottle brush tree discovered and recognized as a potential tree house tree, we were on our way. The plan was to put in two posts over near the hedge for one side of the tree house platform, and then use the tree to support the other side.
I was not confident digging two post holes and cementing in the stirrups, even if I was keen to do the rest of it, so that was Steve's domain. After the
Water Tank Project, Steve deservedly wanted to take a break from yard work until the seasons changed. We were thinking April or May at the earliest. But then it was unexpectedly cool in March, and managed to get them in fairly easily.
I think the unexpected free time thanks to COVID-19 probably helped too, and maybe it was a good way to take our minds off what was happening in the world; focusing on a task that was manageable. Once the posts were in, we were off and racing. The whole thing came together in about three weekends.
The girls were excited and Rachel, more than Sophie, was up and down the tree constantly while we were building. She didn't even use the ladder half the time.
So the posts went in the first weekend, and the second weekend we put the framing and did the decking. So thankful that our neighbors lent us a second drill to help that go loads faster. Is our street the best street in the world? Yes, yes it is. You'll see why when I get to the thank you section at the end.
Decking on, we trimmed the edges and filled the gaps around the tree. We also added some support blocks to sections of the decking that were a little bendy. Then we built a hand rail around it. The front section where the ladder is got a high rail. Mostly that area is blocked off by the tree anyway (you'll see it in a photo further down). The rest of the rail is at a more appropriate child-safe height, and has a middle rail and some uprights for extra safety and stability.
The girls helped me to paint the handrails. Most of the wood we used was hard wood, but the handrails were a lot of pine and off cut branches, so we figured a coat of paint wouldn't hurt. I considered giving the decking a once over with some oil, but haven't made a decision as yet.
This is what you see when you come up the ladder. Tree house! There is a small blackboard that I put up on the back right. On the front left of the picture is a little ledge with a container on a rope for sending things up and down. The ledge wasn't part of the original design, but the timber joists when out that far and I had some off cut flooring that fit between then perfectly, so rather than cut stuff off, we just extended the decking over it.
Ladder making time!
We just nailed bits of timber to this sleeper and propped it up. It's got an extra bit of timber on the underside at the top to hook it onto the tree house platform and keep it steady. Hooray! Functioning tree house!
The last thing we did was to give it a name. There was debate for a week or so over what to call it, and lots of variations on a theme. The first week the tree house was finished (actually before the ladder was made), the girls did a "feed the wildlife" activity (thanks homeschooling COVID-19) where you put peanut butter on toilet paper rolls and then roll them in birdseed. Hang them in the tree and the birds will come.
Well, the birds did come, and so did the possums. And the possums loved the peanut butter and also had a really good go at eating the chalk. The front runner in the name debate for a while was "Possum House", but we were never really all sold on it and then Rachel made a sudden desire to have "Rainbow" in the name known too.
In the end, the ladder is now named "Possum's Way" and the tree house is called "Rainbow Fortress". Yes, I did check the spelling before I painted it.
And the girls got to put their hand prints there too.
I am so excited about the final product. A tree house! HOORAY! We are contemplating roofing options, but for now, the tree is very shady and the weather is prefect.
The other really exciting news is that we managed to build the tree house for about $150. I was hoping to get it done for under $100, but we had to get screws for the decking and nails for the ladder, and those things are kind of necessary. We got the two posts and four joists from a place called the Renovators Barn just down the road. They had loads of great second hand timber for a really reasonable price. I just love that they are contributing to the world reusing stuff too, rather than seeing it go to landfill.
But that was the only timber that we bought for the project. The decking was partially leftovers and off cuts from our own
renovation, but a large portion I scavenged from the curbside clean up in early March. Thanks to the people on Tuckett Rd who put out all of those timber benches. I used the top bits for the decking (it was tongue and groove! How perfect!) and the other wood for the ladder rungs. We used two bits that we had lying around too, left over from the
Water Tank project. There are random bits of wood from my Dad's stash too (is stash the right word for collection of wood? Hoard maybe?). Stuff that I recognize as part of the old pergola, and a piece that used to be one of the legs to my childhood bed.
A friend of mine on Arid St also gave us some timber that we used, mostly in the handrails. Our friends, Bec and Brad (who we went
camping with last year) also gave us the big sleeper that we used as the ladder. Tom from down the road gave us a half a box of screws for securing stuff to the tree. Billy from down the road lent us his drill for the decking. Ben, from over the road who let me look at the platform in the tree numerous times for ideas. Justin from down the road, who gave me the idea of using the stirrups after examining his daughter's tree house at her party. Do you see what I mean about living on the best street in the world?
I got some other handrail wood from the park off Broadwater Road when I took the kids there one time. The bush there is perfect for getting nice branches. Two of the longer branches are actually cut from the bottle brush tree it's self from some pruning I had done previously. The timber for the little jut-out bit were flooring off cuts that a place on McCarthy Rd were throwing out for free one time when I was driving by.
We painted the tree house with a mix of paint that was left over from our renovation, and also from my sister's donation from her high school art class days. The chalk board actually came from an easel that Sophie got for Christmas one year from Poppa and Ma. The easel since fell apart, but I kept the chalkboard for a time such as this it turns out.
Makes me so happy to be able to thank all these people that contributed to making this dream a reality. And the tree house is finished! When all the social isolating is done, I've no doubt that we will have an opening ceremony to celebrate.
