I hope you enjoy this brief photo journal of how we built our treehouse! You can use the links at the bottom of the page to view the interior, and our treehouse wedding!
Ron in the skychair, fastening the main support
We began to build our treehouse in 1995, using scrap lumber and a ton of imagination. We had no idea what the treehouse would look like when it was finished.
Since we had no ladder, we came up with this invention we dubbed "The Skychair", made out of an old chair, attached to some heavy rope that went up thru a pulley and fastened to Michelle's 4X4 truck.
Once we got the main support beams in place, and Michelle overcame her fear of heights, we started hauling up the lumber for the floor joists, one piece at a time.
The house is built about 20 feet up in a sturdy white ash tree. I originally used no nails in fastening the house to the tree, instead opting for branch clamps that I fabricated from steel pipe. The clamps are buffered from the tree bark with rubber sheathing, and are loosened every spring to allow for tree growth. The clamp pictured here holds 2, (side-by-side) 2x10's which is the main support for the house. In heavy winds, the beam can slide thru the clamp and still stay where it needs to be. In 2001, the tree branch grew large enough to the point where it began to engulf the upper part of the clamp shown here, and I was able to remove the underbranch part completely.
We built all the walls on the ground and used our muscles to hoist them up onto the platform. We uses 2x2 lumber for the frame and put board and batten siding on top of that. The openings in the floor for the tree to go thru were big enough to allow for some growth, but I'll probably have to make them larger someday!
As with most treehouses, the last thing to build were the stairs.
Take a look Inside The Treehouse
