The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

It rained today, but cleared up for most of the afternoon.  Late in the day it was starting to sprinkle.  Soon afterward a magnificent rainbow appeared near the treehouse.  
I bought more supplies today.  I still need to buy the shakes for the roof.  Hard to find the really thick ones.

Treehouse walls, etc.

This weekend we worked on the railing on the crow's nest above the alcove and the stairway to the crow's nest.

We also worked on the eaves, finishing off all the work there and painting them green.  We also added a new large window on the front of the house, which can be seen in the image above.  Finally we added the siding to the same wall with the window addition.

Further Progress on the Treehouse Roof

This week we primarily continued with work on the roof, but first we installed the cable to stabilize the entire structure.  We installed eye lag bolts on diagonal corners of the deck and two eye bolts into the nearby pine tree.  Then we installed a 5/8" galvanized steel cable from the one corner of the deck, through the two points on the pine tree, and finally back to the eye bolt at the other corner of the deck.  The swaying of the deck has diminished greatly.  There is still some small amount of movement, but I will install U bolts adjacent to the eye bolts at the pine tree to limit any movement of the cable through those eye bolts.

Back at the treehouse we built a scaffold hanging out over the side of the deck where there is nowhere to stand so that we could finish laying the 1/2" plywood on the roof and the remaining facia board.  We also installed 1/4" plywood on the soffits, put on the drip edge, ice shield, and tar paper.  

On the flat roof section (the crow's nest) we put on ice shield, followed by a layer of roofing adhesive, and finally a layer of tar paper.  Before installing the soffit plywood we installed wiring so that we can install lighting under the eaves later.

On the railing, we cut the opening for the area on the deck where the ladder will go to the crow's nest, installed new posts, and the railing to protect that addition, and installed a new ladder to the crow's nest.

On the crow's nest, we started the installation of the posts for the railing.

Treehouse Roof

We spent the morning and part of the afternoon cutting the curved rafters for the roof of the treehouse. The rafters are about six feet long and have an 18 foot diameter circle curve on the outside, and a similar curve on the lower side only on the exterior and on the eaves.  We have now installed about 25% of them on the treehouse.  We should install the remaining ones tomorrow along with the facia boards and the plywood.

Today, we installed the remaining rafters, installed 1/2" plywood over most of the rafters, and a fascia board on one side only.

More Progress on the Treehouse

We have finally completed the framing of the entire treehouse, including the alcove and the crow's nest deck above and behind the house.  What has not been completed yet are the roof rafters for the main section of the house, wrapping the house with siding, intalling the shingles, and installing the windows in the frames.

We had to level the deck for the treehouse for the third time.  The weight of the structure is causing some branches to move a little.  To maintain the deck level we had to drop one corner about 2".  I am somewhat concerned with the total amount of weight we have brought up into the tree.  I am going to be installing more metal support brackets shortly in key locations.

I have now read up on building curved rafters. This should be very interesting as I have never tried to build a curved roof before.

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. 

Adding a little more space for the treehouse and crow's nest

This is a better shot of the treehouse from the West late in the afternoon with the sun on it.

I have now added an alcove onto the main deck so that I can enlarge the treehouse to about twice the size I had originally planned on.  This is so that sleeping space will be ample inside the house.

I have now incorporated two new branches on the south side to support this addition. It is 5' x 6' in size.  I will build the treehouse into this alcove, but I will put a flat roof on that section so that I can put the crow's nest above.  This will make the house about 6' x 11' in size and yet leave a sizable veranda on the main deck.