PROJECT: "Tree" House 01

The kids have been asking for a tree house for years and we just never really had the time/space to build one. But we're going to do it anyway!

Here's the corner where we're going to build it:

Notice the trees?

Yeah, well, turns out that they are destroying the fence, the neighbors irrigation, our planting boxes, and the neighbors grape vines. Plus they're messy trees. So we had them removed.

Talk about a blank slate! :)

So, really, it won't be a tree house, it'll be a free-standing platform with a roof...

Phase 1, or "Materials gathering" has been going on for a while now, actually. We've been trolling FreeCycle in our area for supplies and we've managed to gather:

Asphalt shingles for the roof
Miscellaneous scrap 2x4s and other lumber
Several used pallets

Today my younger daughter and I went and picked up a pile of left over shingles that a nice person was willing to give us. The lady was incredibly nice and, coincidentally, her leftover shingles were from her own tree house project! So she took my daughter on a tour of their tree house while I loaded up the shingles (and one ENORMOUS spider... [shudder]

We're going to see just how much of this thing we can build using repurposed/recycled materials.

We have enough stuff to get started building it, but the weather is just not cooperating. It's been in the 90s (F) for the last several days. I'm hoping we can start working on this thing on the 4th of July.

Fingers crossed!