Finishing the Siding & Other Details

Okay.  So, now that the siding is all installed, I have caulked all the panels (top, bottom, sides, etc.).  The eaves and soffits are all painted. We started painting the siding panels, but decided that the gray color was too cold looking, so we have started repainting it a beige color that looks much better.  Windows are all painted and ready to be installed.

We have tightened the cable to the large pine tree to stabilize the treehouse even further.  I am still considering a third cable. I am not sure if it should be to the pine tree or possibly to the oak tree that the treehouse is built upon.

I have finished building the faux chimney in the workshop. It is made out of wood, and it is covered with facing stones.  It looks real.  It is real heavy. I have to now figure out how to get it up onto the roof of the treehouse.  I am thinking of using a pulley hung from the pine tree immediately above the crow's nest to get it up to the crow's nest from the ground.  From the crow's nest I will move the pulley further over on the branch above the treehouse so that lifting the faux chimney from the crow's nest to the roof will be more easily accomplished.

I purchased a new fixed pane window that I want to mount on the side facing the crow's nest about six feet above the floor of the treehouse and at ground level of the crow's nest.

Finally, We start building the Actual Treehouse

At long last, we actually starting building the house.  The main section will be 7' x 6' with the sleeping alcove section being 5' x 6'. There will be four windows and one door in the main section, and three windows in the alcove section.  I had some multi-pane double hung windows hanging around for the last 20 years. I finally get to use them.  I did not have any frames for them, however.  We spent yesterday morning building new frames for six of the windows.  As you can see in the image above by yesterday afternoon we had built one wall of the main section.  By this evening we have completed framing out the other three walls of the main section.

I dropped my tape off the deck and I could hear it rolling down the hill.  When I got down there it had rolled quite some distance away from the tree, all the way to the fence.  While climbing back up the hill I notice the treehouse from a different angle than I had seen it from before and I thought it might be a good shot for the blog.  Judge for yourself below.

Here are a few shots from the deck:

We spent a good amount of time this afternoon releveling the alcove section.  I am learning that even without adding more material weight to a section, many times just the passage of time is causing portions of the deck to become unleveled.  I don't have a good answer to this problem yet.  I don't even know if the deck has stabilized yet. Only time will tell.

Next is building out the alcove with the crow's nest on top of it.  We did add one small section to the deck for a stairway to go from the main deck to the crow's nest.  I still have to build the stairway to get up there and cut into the railing so that it will be accessible.