Hit the deck!

This morning I got the chance to lay down the 5/4" x 5 1/2" decking that I picked up and cut last weekend. Eighteen fourty-two inch boards fit thissnug. Not too shabby!

A topside view.

Down under.

Preview of a view.

Up On The Roof!

Okay- There will be no pics here of Uncle Kevin up on the roof!...Why? Because I was too busy acting as his spotter in case he slid off!!

Seriously, though- once Kevin could sense that we were at a point where getting the plywood roof under way was a possibility there was no stopping him...as is often the case! Unfortunately we found ourselves one sheet short of a full roof. Three sheets on, one to go.

Prior to that we did manage to finish roughing in the remaining windows while listening to the J-E-T-S JETS, JETS, JETS take on the Pats in the AFC East Wild Card game. (Oh well. We were playing with house money after a season that sure exceeded expectations. Next year!)

Kevin and I partaking of the first meal in the tree house. Esther hooked us up with awesome wraps and some fine hot cocoa.

JT and uncle Kevin looking through the wall.

JT and Dad in the doorway.















JT in the house!

Wind and Rain...

It figures that after we commenced with the framing...with nice dry Douglas Fir...that has been carefully stacked for several months in our nice dry garage (to the exclusion of many other garage like things-including but not limited to our vehicles.)...only to have it rain like mad a couple of days after. In spite of the rain and some howling winds it appears that jt's treehouse held up just fine.







An updated view from the front...






...and one from the rear. Hopefully the weather cooperates this weekend and we can make some more headway.

Our "Quandry" Explained...

Okay, so our quandry didn't rank very high on the Quandry Scale, but it was a quandry none the less. Due to the manner in which our tree house's main fraim or "skeleton" is constructed, our tree house plans call for some non-conventional framing techniques to be used in the front and rear walls. It sort of flies in the face of conventional framing technique, so some of us found it hard to get past at first when it came time to commence with framing.






Here is a shot of one of the tree house's side walls utilizing what one would call conventional framing technique... with a 2" x 4" sill attatched to the floor and 2" x 4" studs toe nailed into that.

These two pictures show the front wall and it's more non-conventional "sandwich" like framing technique. The cross members of the main frame or skeleton create a gap at the points where both the front and rear walls should be anchored- at the top and bottom. This gap is the same width as a 2" x 4".

The plans indicate that this method of framing ties in the floors and walls in such a way as to provide greater strength in this tree house.

The down side is that the bottom of the these walls are open, giving access to the elements...not to mention pests! We agreed that capping off these openings from below with 1" x 6" decking would take care of those concerns and provide a base for insulation should we choose to go that route.

Quandry solved!

A New Turnbuckle...

Overlooked to up this point in our blog was the fact that we had to order a replacement turnbuckle a couple of weeks ago. Not because of any failure on the turnbuckles part, but rather as an adjustment to our "suspension system."

It became apparent the first day we got our main beams up in the tree that we had this issue. Due to the fact that both of our trees are not perfectly verticle, our four turnbuckles were sized and ordered with room for adjustment. Hanging from overhead as they are, the angle of lean in our trees wound up leaving us short in one corner.
Even with that corner's turnbuckle all the way closed we found we couldn't tighten the wire rope enough to provide the same amount of tension and support in that corner. With our wire ropes pre-sized and looped as they are that left us only one solution to tighten things up- a shorter turnbuckle!







Here she is!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve brought just the kind of weather we like- tree house building weather!! Who would've thunk we would be looking at temps in the mid to upper 40's- at the end of December!?

Uncle Kevin brought his usual repetoire of heavy equipment and Sean- on winter break- got into the act for the first time. Grandpa Bob Ramsey took advantage of our Florida like weather while up here and climbed aboard as well.

First we laid the 3/4" plywood flooring.

Here we find Sean and Kevin getting busy.

Nice view!

Next we tackled the ceiling joists.

This kind of work is definitely much easier with a floor in place...

When it came time to frame the walls there was some difference of opinion amongst us over wether or not to deviate from the plans in order to utilize conventional framing methods for the front and rear walls...or stay true to the plan.

We agreed to stay true to the plan. I will follow this post with another containing pics that will better explain our quandry.