Steve's blog

Of poop & painting

Scat

We're back! Yes, after quite a hiatus from tree-house building, the work has continued. I climbed up the ladder for the first time on Saturday and found a little surprise. Now, whether it is racoon, possum, coyote, dog or -- God forbid -- human, I don't know. I guess it will remain a mystery.

You go, girl!

The whole fam pitched in this weekend and did some serious interior wall painting. Keeping with the spirit of the blue floor, two opposing walls were covered in the deep wine color we have in the master bedroom. The other two were going to be the green color that the girls chose for their bedroom, but we didn't have much left. So the default was (boring) tan.

The view up

While the paint was flying faster than hands in a bowl of daddy's famous popcorn, I was up above in the tree putting more rafters up for the roof. It's pretty slow going since (1) I'm up in a tree, thank you!, (2) the angles are a bit tricky, (3) each rafter has to be attached to the tree trunk and (4) I have to make sure that the 1x4s that will go on top of the rafters will be able to lay flat. In any event, progress is progress.

In case you were wondering...

Now that's a treehouse!

In case you were wondering what our treehouse will NOT look like when it's done, here you go:

Source: Treehouse Chronicles

No pics

Last weekend Sandi was away in Palm Springs with friends and while the girls were at a birthday party, I was able to finish the last of the four walls. Whew! I also started on the rafters for the roof but let's just say that getting those angles right is not that easy. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos at the present. Maybe if I had a webcam in the tree, I wouldn't need to keep posting photos... Hmmm.

The blues

I was trying to talk Evan into helping me work on the treehouse today because I had the day off, the girls had gone shopping and I wanted to be outside. At first he was resistant, but he got more interested when I told him we were going to paint the floor. (Eventually we'll put lineoleum or something over the plywood, but for now we need a layer of protection against the elements). My idea of using the same tan color that is on the walls in our house, however, struck him as somewhat pedestrian. So, we ended up going with his idea... blue.

 

рыжеволосый человек

My two favorite redheads. =)

Elena stains the railing

Sandi works the inside

Video footage

The following video was shot by one of our several videographers-in-residence, Elena Claire France.

Tree House by Elena

Non-structural enhancements

Staining begins

Weekend before last we got in a little more time on the tree house. I found that when I had to do complex work with measuring and cutting, the kids would easily get bored and wander away. So this time I bought some waterproofing stain and put them to work coating the outside.

North-facing wall

I was also able to get another half wall done (on the side with the 20-foot fall that makes all the moms nervous).

Finally, the guy who owns the lot behind us sent in a crew recently to cut down dead trees, clear brush and generally do some spring cleaning. So the tree house has got an even better view to the south east now.

 

Room with a view

 

Compost

One more note before I go to bed. This has nothing to do with the tree house (except that it lies in reasonable proximity to the aforementioned structure) but we have our own compost pile. Actually, the picture below is old because now we have two compost piles - an active one that gets all the juicy cuttings from the kitchen and a ripe one that is just about ready to go into the garden. Anyway, here's the photo.

 

Composting

Catching up

I missed the entire month of March and most of April. I didn't fall off the earth, unless you count flying to Massachusetts, which I did twice for a week each time. Life has been busy and thus blogs tend to fall by the wayside. Since the last posting we had one major workday in which we finished the wall on the back side and completed part of the wall on the ladder side. The walls look a bit eclectic because they are pieced together from some lightweight doors taken out of the house and various other scrap boards. Enjoy the photos and I hope to post again before another month has gone by.

Generational work

Main entrance

I know with certainty that my mother and my wife regularly imbibe the lyrical prose which herein may be found. Given their respective roles in the author's life, that is to be expected. Whether anyone else out in the vast blogosphere -- yes, it is a real word -- stoops to patronize these humble offerings, I know not. Be that as it may, I am content, for although I am generally not one who loves to hear himself speak, I do love to hear myself write. =)

A few posts ago, I talked about pouring a footing for the post to support a landing for the front door. Above is how things looked after building the smallish platform and temporarily fixing the ladder in place.

Several weekends ago -- time has slipped by, what with rain, indoor projects and computer hard disk crashes -- my parents came down for the day, and my dad kindly joined in the construction process. I don't mind the pace at which the kids and I have been making progress, but things definitely go a lot faster when you have another pair of adult hands to help out! 

Dad

We were able to install a railing around the landing and permanently attach the ladder so that it feels much more secure to the little hands using it. Since then, I trimmed down the ladder rails at the top and added some simple vertical boards around the outside to enclose the platform.