Where to Build?

Being in the Southeast pine dominate. Tall but soft these trees have few branches that can support a tree house or any platform really. But our back yard has several tall, strong pines that have stood through many heavy storms and at least one tornado that passed overhead.

The Stiles' book that I am using, Tree Houses You Can Actually Build, has designs for one to four tree designs and good advice about where to build. Beside our swingset sit two tall, strong pines that seem like perfect candidates for a two-tree design. They seem healthy and undamaged and are both seem think enough to share the support for our tree house.

With Timothy, our youngest, I head out to photograph our proposed location. He stands between the trees and holds a yardstick to give me a scale. I plan to use this as the base for a drawing of the treehouse. Looks like a good location: near our swingset, not too close to the house to detract from it's appearance, angled nicely and on the side next to the boys' best friend's house.

Now inside to decide on a design. I read the whole Tree House book to get the big picture and to understand my option. I learn so much on everything from level platforms, roofing options, supports, ladders, trap doors, and so on. With the trees eight feet apart I decide to make the treehouse 12 feet by seven feet with an L-shaped porch within that space. Here are my conceptual drawings:

(In case you're wondering what I used for the drawings, I brought the photo of Timothy into OmniGraffle - Mac only, sorry - set the scale, traced the tree trunks, hid the photo layer, then drew the treehouse over the trunks.)