Walls

I decided to make the walls about 6.5 feet tall - tall enough for most adults and not too tall to make the house look out of proportion. My neighbor, David McKinley gave me a hand assembling the walls on his driveway. Having another person to help lay out, cut wood and assemble the walls was great. The kids got into holding the wood as David guided it into the mitre saw. The kids helped us screw the studs into the top and bottom pieces.

Once we had the walls assembled, we screwed them in place on the treehouse deck. Having a strong friend's help was crucial - many thanks David! Not only was David a help getting the walls up onto the treehouse, but also keeping them straight as we screwed them in place and the together. Once the walls were in place we nailed diagonal boards to the walls and the floor to steady them while we built.



After the walls were up I screwed another "layer" of 2x4s on top of the walls for stability and to provide a place for the roof to attach. (This is not shown in the photo above.)

Unfortunately, after this I didn't get back to the treehouse for several months. Part of my delay was limited time and money and a big trip to Africa, but a major roadblock was the roof. The more I looked into how to build the roof the more choices I had. I was frozen by all the choices. Finally a good friend who is a master carpenter came to my rescue, but that's a story for the next post.