Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Tree House Building!!

I was kept busy last week. The boys and I started building a tree house in our backyard. I posted this on Instagram on Friday:

Wednesday vs. Friday. There were bumps along the way, but it came together surprisingly like the plan I drew up. Now to just build a ladder, consider a fire pole, and decide what sides will have walls and what sides will have railings. And check out the sexy last pic. #HubbaHubba #ItsSurprisinglyLevel

And here were the images that went with it:

Wed vs Fri


On Wed, Henry and I got the 2x10s up and the 6 2x6s in place and level. Thursday,
I cut the ends in a straight line and added 2x6s to the ends (on the left and right here).
I also added the 2x4 brace that day.


Nothing is parallel as everything fits where it can.


End of day Thursday: joist hangers all in place, and lag screws into the tree at 10 points.


Friday morning: a day of decking! The first boards went faster
than these later ones that needed to be cut down.


Progress!


Friday evening: trimming the decking!


Surprisingly level!


View from the alley.


Beauty. (This was the "sexy last pic" I mentioned in the post.)

On Facebook, I added a picture of my original plan. Here's what I said:

Here’s the plan I drew up last month (after thinking about it for many months). The 2 biggest “issues/differences” were that I expected it to be tricky to get the 2x10s plumb, but it was even harder then I expected, and I settled for far less than perfect. And secondly, as you can see in the plan, I didn’t expect the 2x10s to come together and touch as they do in reality. We made it work.

And then after the Easter weekend, I posted this on Monday:

Today is the last day of the boys’ spring break, so we built a ladder for the tree house, and then gave haircuts *IN* the tree house (because why the heck not?).

That ladder will out-live the tree. Seriously. It's STURDY.

Oh, and on last Wednesday evening (the end of our first day of the build), my wife posted this following photo saying "Best. Dad. Ever."

Charlie LOOKS like he's helping here, but honestly, Henry has been a BIG help so far!

Stay tuned for updates! It might be a few days before anything else happens, but I was thrilled to get this far this quick! Keep an eye on my Instagram page for more.