Charis has been asking for a treehouse lately. That was somewhat of a relief, since it's better than her asking for a pet... Anyway, I told her we'd make one as soon as I could afford it. Meanwhile, I did plenty of research online, and did a lot of planning and sketching out what I wanted to do. Suddenly, some very generous friends donated the money for the wood, and we were in business!

Here's the tree in its pristine-ness, before I started doing anything to it. Poor thing. It has no idea what's coming...

First, I had to erect a support post, since I intended this to be much larger than just around the trunk of the tree. Charis insisted that it needed to be big.

Of course, she's also insisting that it needs a roof. Tough luck for now, kiddo. Daddy's friends are generous, but they're not made of money.

The next morning, I began building the frame. Where boards attached to the tree or the post, I used lag screws. At other connections, I used a combination of joist hangers, nails, and wood screws.

Denise took a few pictures of me working to prove that yes, it was me that did all this.

In fact, I did it all alone. All of my potential helpers mysteriously disappeared that day...

Once I had a good bit of the frame done, I let the kids come up one at a time to sit on it. Charis was still asking about the roof (sigh). Kurt loved it and didn't want to come down.

I wanted to be sure this thing was plenty sturdy, so I added all sorts of extra support. I'll probably add even more. This picture makes it look really off-kilter, but I swear that frame is level. :)

After lunch, I started putting down the floorboards.

Go on to PAGE 2 for more treehouse construction!