Building a tree house!

Soldato
Joined
26 Jun 2008
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Location
Wakefield
My brother promised his kids he would build a tree house for them this summer, so we have taken a few days off from the office job to have a go ! We are both rather inept when it comes to building and have no prior experience but thought it would be fun :D

We decided to build it in this section of the garden around the tree next to the fence post, there was already an old climbing frame that needed to be pulled up -



Once that was out of the way we decided to work out what shape and size it was going to be, we are going for three identical squares in an L shape. -



Each leg will be put into a post spike and hammered into the floor, they seem solid enough -



Two sections completed and most of the third one done, just need to add the back post (ignore the green slide) although some of the posts look a tad wonky by the time everything was attached it lined up nicely -



Laying wood across the top of each square to add support plus a beam underneath, we will also be adding an additional leg in the centre of each square to give more support -



After that we decided to add decking -





View from the office of work done so far -



Still lots to do, we need to reinforce the legs with diagonal planks of wood, finish adding boards to the back square and put the decking on. The actual house it is going to get built on the right hand square, that should be interesting :D

The whole thing feels completely solid to walk on.

As long as the weather holds out (and work permitting) we should have the base completely finished by Friday.
 
Bloody hell! Looks like about half an hour :p

Is it going to be a shelter or a 4 sided and roofed thingy? I'm looking at doing similar.

What did the decking cost?

Feels like about 50 hours so far :D We are going 4 sides and a roof, depending on how difficult it is, and how annoyed we get we might look into buying a pre-made solution for that (but hopefully not).

Decking was £150ish, which gives enough for two of the squares (don't plan to deck where the house will be built).
 
You sure it's going to be stable enough just using post spikes? Once kids start bounding around on it and wobbling it all over they are probably going to start getting pretty loose...

Time will tell :D Having been up there sawing with my brother, it does feel completely solid, we are also going to attach it to the fence at the back as well as strengthen the legs with diagonal beams, plus each three sections are bolted to each other for additional support.

We also added gravel around the bases of the post spikes, they don't seem to move at all.

No more work on it so far though, think we are going to pencil in some work on Friday.
 
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