Tag Archives: tree house

how to get a good laugh from a wagon load of amish sawyers.

how to get a good laugh from a wagon load of amish sawyers.

about 7 weeks ago i was almost ready to put on the decking on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) and wrote:

“one big remaining decision – to use pressure treated decking or not? i think i’m leaning towards pressure treated to help prevent decay. i’m thinking that anything i put on unfinished decking to prevent rot is going to be at least as unfriendly as pressure treated lumber. suggestions?”

well, you all did have suggestions and pretty much mostly everyone recommended avoiding pressure treated lumber when kids are going to be in regular contact with bare feet, if for no other reason than following the precautionary principle because there’s not-so-fun chemicals involved in pressure treating lumber. all a good reminder of something i already knew. but what wood to use instead of a pressure treated lumber that wouldn’t require treatment with chemicals to prevent rot?

a bunch of local folks recommended finding an amish sawyer who would mill black locust which is extremely hard and renowned for its resistant to rot. local folks who build decks out of the wood claim you don’t have to do anything to it and it will last decades or longer. perfect! and as an added bonus i would be supporting local sawyers whichy is A Good Thing.

it took a three weeks but i finally found a sawyer who was quite reasonable with price ( $1 per board foot, which is actually cheaper than cedar decking from a big box lumber store ) but originally he was so swamped with orders he wasn’t going to be able to fit me in for “a couple of months”. i must not have done a good job of hiding my disappointment on my face because he immediately said, “well, how much do you need? oh, only enough enough for 14’x16′ deck? well, i think we can try to squeeze you in. see ( with a twinkle in his eye ), this is my downfall, i try to make everyone happy.”

with a handhshake i’d come back in 3 weeks. in the end, because of other obligations they needed 4 weeks to squeeze my order in, which puts me 7 weeks behind but i’m just happy to be making progress and doing it the way i want.

i get ready to go out to the sawyers to pick up the wood with the vague idea that i’ll just make couple of trips in our jetta. i thought if i put the back seats down i could probably fit 8 feet in the car and have 6 feet hanging out the back, but i remembered the sawyer said he’d give me generous 14 foot boards, closer to 15 feet, so i’d have more than enough overhang to trim. right before i left to pick up the wood i thought i’d better measure how much room i had in the car with seats down and was suprised to discover i could only fit about 6 feet in the car.

uh, oh. there was no way i could drive down the road with 9 feet of board hanging out the back of the car. so i quickly tried to procure a trailer or a truck and could only come up with a compact chevy s-10 on short notice which gained me a couple of feet with the gate down, which still meant i was going to have 7 feet hanging out. oh well, it was the best i could come up with so i figured i had to make it work and drove out the sawyer’s place.

with the head sawyer, i loaded thirty two 14 foot boards in the bed of the truck and watched the bed sink lower and lower. because black locust is one of the hardest woods, it’s also veeeeery heavy, expecially when it’s still wet and from a freshly cut tree. the little chevy s-10 was sagging under the strain and the ends of the boards were really close to the ground after the wood were loaded. and even with the truck bed, the wood was teetering precariously. but ever the optimist, i thought i’d give it a test by driving a couple hundred feet from the saw mill to the end of the driveway. driving slowly up from the mill i could hear the boards dragging on the gravel driveway and slowly pulled up to a half dozen amish young sawyer men sitting on a huge hay wagon hitched to a team of very strong work horses. they all had big smiles on their faces. it was clear they they were all wondering if i was really going to try drive all the way back to town. the juxtaposition of me in my little s-10 and they in their big horse-drawn wagon was amusing.

i said, “nope. i guess this isn’t really going to work.”

they all let out hearty laughs. a few said simultaneously, “nope.”

one said, good naturedly, “i think you might need a wagon.”

“yup. i think you’re right.”

they helped me unload half the wood and we rigged some plywood and a spare tire and some logs to weigh down the wood in the bed of the truck that kept the overhanging wood from barely dragging on the road and i set off for town, slowly.

i got lots of looks from folks along the way, but made the two trips without incident 🙂

day 3229: lounging about with the chickenpox, imagining Super Awesome treehouse designs.

day 3229: lounging about with the chickenpox, imagining Super Awesome treehouse designs.

while i fiddle around on the deck, odin lounges about with the chickenpox, swinging in a hammock imagining all the Super Awesome things we might be able to design into The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s).

maybe a slide ( or water slide?! ) that take a steep dive off the deck and a few twists and turns on the way down. or maybe a climbing wall up one side with monkey bars along the bottom of the deck to a fireman’s pole that you slide down. certainly a hammock 15 feet up on the trees is necessary!

i have no idea how many of his crazy ideas we’ll build but i do love that he has crazy ideas and usually has a credible plan in his mind for how to build them.

almost ready to put on the decking on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)!

almost ready to put on the decking on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)! I.

a little more progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)! i made space around the trees with cripple joists, added the remainder of the floor joists and added deck blocking for stability. i think i decided to double up the end joists along the 16 foot side like i did along the 14 foot side for just a little bit more rigidity so i still have that to finish.

but after that i’ll be ready to add the decking and then the guard rail and balusters!

one big remaining decision – to use pressure treated decking or not? i think i’m leaning towards pressure treated to help prevent decay. i’m thinking that anything i put on unfinished decking to prevent rot is going to be at least as unfriendly as pressure treated lumber. suggestions?

almost ready to put on the decking on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)! II.

here you can see a bit of how i put in the cripple joists to give the trees room to grow while having 16″ on center joists. it’s hard not to get a little vertigo looking 12 feet down through the joists!

an update on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)!

an update on the The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)!

well, i thought i was going to make a little progress over the winter since odin inspected progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) but it turns out that heaving floor joists up a ladder in the ice and snow always ended up being last on my list of things to do. hi. ho. the good news is that it stayed up all winter!

now that the weather has finally turned a little warmer i’m raring to get back to it and have almost all the floor joists up! just two more to go which will be a little tricky since i need to create cripple joists around the trees. but not too tricky.

and then i can start putting in the decking, a guard rail and balusters so it’s safe enough for odin to run around and even pitch a tent and sleep up there while i’m designing the treehouse.

i have to admit that i’m pretty excited about how the 14’x16′ deck in the sky is turning out! and even more excited at how sturdy it feels even in strong wind gusts.

after i’m done, maybe i should make a little video along the lines of the “lollipop fort of death”?

day 3046: odin inspects progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s).

day 3046: odin inspects progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s).

slowly but ever so surely i’m making progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s). i got a few of the 16′ joists up on the supports while almost nominating myself for a darwin award. today odin helped me attach more joist hangers to the 14′ 2x10s so we can quickly drop in the rest of the joists.

lots of folks are asking me about the how secure the platform will be. you can probably see the top of the four supports are bolted on to the 3/4″ threaded rod that runs through the trees. the bottom of the supports are attached to the trees with 3/4″x8″ lag bolts. the top of the supports which i think are called knee braces are made from 2×8″ treated lumber and angled boards are notched into the top and attached with 1/2″x6″ lag bolts. the joists in 16″ on center. somewhat surprisingly, everything is level and mostly square!

the supports are about 11′ off the ground and the joists add another foot, so the treehouse will be about 12′ off the ground when i built it on top of the platform.

i’m pretty impressed with the stability of the structure. hopefully, i’m just as impressed after all the joists are attached and the flooring is put up 🙂

( side note: the blue rope is part of the the most super awesomest tree swing. EVAR! )

that moment when you realize you might be in the running for a darwin award.

that moment when you realize you might be in the running for a darwin award.

so i’m building the platform for the floor joists for the The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) out of really big and heavy treated 2x10s a the problem arises. how exactly am i supposed to hoist the two “sistered” fourteen foot 2x10s that make up the ends of the platform twelve feet in the air so i can attach them to the sixteen foot 2×10 joists?

i had attempted to recruit a small army of strapping, oldish men to help me out, but we got rained out last weekend and i just wanted to make some progress without having to coordinate another work party.

“easy!”, i thought. i’ll use a pulley and counter-weight the boards with a trash can loaded with about 250 pounds of paving bricks that i just happen to have laying around ( i just knew they’d be useful for something! ) and pull the two fourteen foot 2x10s that are screwed together up twelve feet and nail in the joists.

what could possibly go wrong?

so, i hauled the trash can up the ladder precariously perched against the tree, and wound the pulley rope through the handles and around the can and started loading it with pavers. after putting in about 250 pounds worth of pavers in the trash can it started dropping and the fourteen foot 2x10s quickly started to raise up to the required height! awesome!

whem it was just about where i needed it to be, i realized i still had to climb back up the ladder and huff and puff to get it up and over the 3/4″ threaded rod that’s holding up the supports that the joists will run along.

creeeaaaaaak. the handle on the trash can started to give way and the rope started to unwind and loosen while i’m standing 12 feet up on a ladder trying to “man handle” a couple hundred pounds of treated lumber.

all too slowly it dawned on me that if the rope gave out completely i probably wouldn’t be able to keep holding on to the boards and they’d fall down the ladder and take me out. hard. double hard.

uh. oh.

luckily i summoned the strength to hoist the boards over the threaded rod and rigged the slack in the rope to hold them in place while i quickly screwed in a couple of joists.

phew. but still. a close call. yikes.

Another Big Job for the radio flyer wagon.

Another Big Job for the radio flyer wagon.

why yes, i’m slowly making progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) since drilling two foot holes through the trees! the supports are up ( i’ll show more on the design later ) and today i started framing out the 14’x16′ platform for the 2″x10″ floor joists that will be built around two of the trees.

so, once again, i paid a visit to nelson’s agricenter to pick up four 14′ 2″x10″s and a couple 16′ 2″x10″s. only, i didn’t have the car so i had to take odin’s radio flyer wagon. the fine folks at nelson’s are used to this kind of behavior from me, since i only live a couple of blocks away.

as i wheeled the wagon into the lumber barn, the lumber guys didn’t skip a beat.

lumber guy number one: “i see you’re starting another big job, huh.”

“yep.”

lumber guy number two, scratching his head: “well, i dunno, i guess we’ll skip putting a red flag on on it.”

“yeah, probably doesn’t need it. just going down the road.”

so they loaded the boards on the wagon and i wheeled it down the street to much to amusement of several small kids playing in yards along the route.