Designing - Beam, Joist, Floor and Stud Plans

I have been planning, drawing, erasing, redrawing and planning some more all Winter.  I am trying to figure out the optimal design of the tree house with the lumber that I already have so I do not have to buy too much.  I think I have a pretty good idea of how this is going to look.

The first plan is the Beam Plan, which is technically the foundation of the whole structure since everything sits on top of it.  I am going to use two 2x12 boards parallel to each other.  I am going to add cross members as room permits to act as stiffeners so this becomes more of a box beam (per the suggestion of the eternal engineer - my Dad).

Here is the plan as I currently have it drawn.

Back in the Saddle Again

I know it has been a few months since posting anything, but the Winter was a time to take a break and reflect.  Now we are back and planning again and with that is more Craigslist searching.  We found another good buy, 20 2x4s (untreated) and 4 4x8 sheets of plywood. 

The 2x4s will work great for the wall framing.  The plywood will work great for the flooring inside the treehouse.  I was thinking of doing decking throughout out the platform, but I cannot pass up an opportunity like this.

It was $15 for all of this.  It's like a broke dick: you can't beat it.

Planning: The Lay of the Land.

While we were up in Wisconsin, Mia and I took really good measurements of the tree(s) that we want to build on and the distances between them.  We even took compass readings so we can later decide the best direction of the slope of the roof and so on.

I drew up a very basic layout of the trees.  Here is the scale drawing if you would like to play along.

I am going to use this to draw out the Beam plan and the Joist plan of the tree house.  Those should be soon to come.  Just a brief explanation of what in in the drawing, the small tree is self explanatory.  The large tree has a branch that starts about 4 feet off the ground, so that is what you see as a dotted line.  All the sizes and distances were measures at 7 feet off the ground since that is where I expect to build the tree house.

The Tree

The Tree.  The center point of a treehouse and probably the single most important part of the entire project.  This must be taken seriously.

Ok, so I may be over dramatizing this a bit, but it is important to get a good tree.  Since we have a lot of trees to choose from on the property, we can be somewhat selective.  For the first thing, we do not want a fast living tree.  This includes Poplar or Birch, both of which shoot up to a nice size, but don't live for very long.  They also have very spongy wood so it would not hold a fastener very well.  We want this treehouse to last a little but and it would be bad news to come back to The Hut someday and find the treehouse smashed to the ground.

The criteria I was looking for was as follows: a big tree at least 5 feet in circumference, healthy with no mushrooms or excessive dead branches, straight with at least 15 height that is free of branches, a neighboring tree that is about 10 feet away, and not Birch.

Well, there are a lot of Birch trees on the property.  They look nice and tall and big and straight ... but you just know they are going to be a recipe for disaster sometime in the future.  Mia and I walked the property looking for a nice big tree that is pretty much ANYTHING other than Birch.  There was a lot of "look at that tree ... aww nuts, it's Birch".

We concentrated on the bigger trees that were not Birch.  Some looked a little sick.  Some were REALLY far away from The Hut.  Some didn't have a neighboring tree that was big enough.  After all the searching, we kept coming back to the same tree.  This one:

And this is her sidekick:

Here they are together:

What I like about this arrangement is that the trees are about 11 feet apart, they are straight and healthy looking.  Here we are measuring the bigger tree's circumference:

Over 7 feet!  Ok, this is a good tree.  But, what kind of tree is this?  There were no leaves close to the ground to pick, so I had to take a picture zoomed into the leaves that were way up:

So what do we have?  Heart shaped simple leaves, alternating pattern, smooth surface... after doing the research, we have a wonderful specimen of an American Basswood.  This will work nicely.  It doesn't have the regal stature of an Oak, or the sexiness of a Maple, but it should have good heartwood to tap into and will live 120+ years.

I am not quite sure of the sidekick tree because I didn't take as many pictures of it, but I think it also is an American Basswood, which is fine with me.

Now that I have the tree(s) determined, and I laid it out on paper, I can design the treehouse that will span between the two trees.  This is the REALLY fun part.

Out With the Old...

As the cycle of life goes, that which is new will eventually become old.  Doug built a tree house about 20 years ago and nature did what nature does, slowly rotting away the structure so there is now just a skeleton of what was left.

Gina tells me that the treehouse was incredible fun for her and her siblings, when they were younger.  That is why it is fun to design and build a new one for the next generation, but visiting the old treehouse is still neat.  If you sit there long enough and watch, you can still imagine the by-gone days when the Pleticha kids played there.

X Marks the Spot

For those of you familiar with the property of The Hut, here is a little game.  Mia and I explored a lot of the property and we settled on a spot to build.  There is a really nice looking tree that we can use with a nearby secondary tree that will help. 

OK, so here is the game.  If you want about the most vague hint you can get and want to find the spot, here is your photo clue.  X marks the spot:

Give up?  OK, if you want another clue, try this photo:

Still not quite sure?  Ok, here is your last picture that should clinch it.  Again, X marks the spot.  I purposely didn't make the X very obvious.

Happy hunting!

Go West Young Man

We loaded up the $50 of treated lumber and headed on out West (and North) to drop it off at The Hut.  A special thanks to Jay Kirby for letting us borrow the trailer.  Here is a picture of the triumphant arrival of the Lumber to the hut. 

By the way, we put off unloading the trailer for a whole day because we had other stuff to do.  A second special thanks to my whole family.  It was neat to see Gina and Mia working as a team to bring the long lumber over to me to tuck under The Hut.  Frank and Anna even got into it by carrying the (very) small pieces. 

I have great helpers.