HOORAY!!!

FINALLY! It's a go!

Up to the very day of the party, my daughter kept asking "you WILL finish in time, won't you?" As late as an hour before the sleep over , I was putting on door handles etc. But fnish we did (With wife,daughter and son chipping in).

After we finished the fittings, we used Christmas lights for decoration and stuck a small TV/DVD player for a movie.

Home stretch/under the gun - dutch door

It sounds really simple! My daughter wanted a dutch door onto the deck. How hard could it be? All you have to do is build a door out of 2x4 s and cut it in half. So that's what I did. I took a width and a length and built a frame threw some plywood on it and sliced it in half - NO GO. It turns out that the doorway isn't quite square. I figured the inch it was off didn't make a difference, but it does. See attached photo - note the curved slash in the door when my saw hit a nail.

Ok, time to start again. This time I taped together to large pieces of Kraft paper, then taped them over the doorway. Then, I drew an outline of the doorway on the paper to use as a template. That worked better. The other change was to use the plywood as the door and use strapping to frame the door and the doorway. Voila! Open...

and closed!

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.