Home stretch/under the gun - screening part 3

Well, believe or not the screening is in. It was a challenge without a ladder (see below), but I screened most of the openings from the inside instead.

At the other window, I built a moveable screen window so the kids could open it and get to the bucket and pulley.

Home stretch/under the gun - screening oops!

So, I was working on an old blue fiberglass ladder. I'm stapling on window screening on the outside of the tree house about 10 feet up. Suddenly I hear this ripping, crunching noise and the next thing I know, I'm dropping through thin air! I had extended the ladder all the way and was standing where the top and bottom overlapped. The fiberglass rails holding the ladder together cracked and the two ends popped free! I ended up ridng the lower section down while the top section fell away! Except for a scrape on my wrist, I landed without injury on my well-padded rear end (the result of all those Buffalo Wings)! Could have been worse I landed two-three feet from a big boulder, I could have bounced my head off THAT on the way down. Yikes!

Home stretch/under the gun - screening

Ok, this is a picture from last winter. I put it up mainly as a place holder, as my next project on my punch list is for screening. The treehouse is built on the back corner of our lot near a vernal pool. During the day, the mosquitoes are otherwise occupied. however, after dark they rise from the pool and would quickly make their way into a treehouse full of 11-year-old overnighters. I was planning on throwing screening on the outside and using wood strapping as trim to hold it into place. More on this later!

Home stretch/under the gun - roofing

So now, July is coming and with it my daughters birthday party. She wants to have it as a sleep over in the treehouse, so I have to come through. The next big item on my punch list is a roof. After lots of web browsing and research I chose a cedar shingle roof. It has the right combination of water resistance and lack of weight that would work in a treehouse. I picked up/rent some roofing paper, a nailer and compressor as well as 5 stacks of shingles. Throwing on my safety harness (Spiderman gear), I got on the roof and started nailing. Here is the view of my safety harness and the roofing paper.

Boy - was I beat! Now here it is 2/3rds done.

Finally! All done after nine hours on the roof.

Siding and tweaking...

With the help another good friend in town (Doug, see last post), we were able to put up much of the siding for the tree house. Once we were organized the panel placement went up pretty easily. We used 3/8 textured hardboard that was pre-finished with exterior finish and has an exterior fake wood grain. I had to go back and re-nail some panels as I started with the wrong fastener (2" galvanized shake nails). I used 6d 2 inch galvanized nails.

Now, for the tweak...As I was getting ready for the work day on the tree house, I noticed a decided racking to the studded frame of the treehouse, probably because the frame was not fully braced before the winter weather set in. I did not shingle the roof because I want to finish stiffening the frame with plywood siding.

The solution! A cross brace to pull the frame back into square before the siding went on. Doug and I tried a simple pulley I had in the basement. No luck. The pulley just didn't have the muscle to tweak the house back into true. Doug thought for a minute and said "I remember a block and tackle in my garage.." He returned with a serious set-up set-up. Problem solved!

(although you should seen have tautness of the tackle line!...)

Flooded!

Happy Spring!

I wanted to start by posting the after effects of the recent 100-year storm we had in Massachusetts. Reading the news you can see we had large areas of the county that were flooded, to the point that a number of state and county highways were closed and communities inundated or isolated. Back at this old treehouse, the pond and the vernal pools that you saw in my December posting were at flood stage and formed one contiguous body of water that ended up in my back yard! At one stage, the lower footings of the treehouse were sub merged. Contrast the photos here with those of the same place in December.

If you remember the old picture of the vernal pools you can now see they look like a pond.

Finally, this picture of the treehouse (with my buddy, Doug on the deck) seems normal but it was taken fron the vernal pool (now a pond) from a canoe!

View from the top

Thought I'd try something different. Here are three views from the treehouse. The first is from the side of the tree house. the tree house is set back on the corner of the lot.

The second is the view from the back deck looking into the woods behind our house.

The last is from the back on one side of the deck. You can see two vernal pools. In the spring, you can hear spring peepers and wood frogs. Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!