M - The treehouse is FINISHED!

Well....IT'S DONE!! Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out.

I can definitely see things I wish I'd done differently or better but most importantly I believe it is very solid and very safe (at least as much as can be said for something six feet off the ground that will be inhabited by the little people.) I’m least happy with the appearance of the railing and most happy with the really cool ladder that comes up through the floor. Katie has already fallen off the first rung of the ladder and busted her tiny little 3yr old bottom. She was attempting to carry some toy up the ladder and thus was climbing one handed.

The other new rules are basically this: DO NOT climb up on the railing and DO NOT climb the tree (that will come later, of course!). Splinters are the remaining safety hazard. I already had to use a 3" decking nail to pick a nice splinter out of Noah's finger. He was a real trooper about it, too. He never uttered a complaint. It's called field expedience, my non-military friends :-). Otherwise I would have had to climb out of the treehouse, take off my boots, go get a straight pin from who-knows-where in the house, etc. etc. This would have given Noah way too much time to consider what was about to happen and, well, you can see I clearly made the right choice. For those wondering: field expedience - an alternative means or improvised method used to achieve the desired end when the right or proper men or materiel are not available, such as a timely but temporary improvisation from available resources; to stopgap, makeshift…

The only remaining things are touch up items such as more appealing trim work that would add to the aesthetics of the project. I put the slide at the maximum angle allowed per the manufacturer so it is about as fast as I'd like to see it go anyway. Since the ground slopes up slightly at the bottom of the slide it gives you a pretty good pounding as-is!! I've made a couple of trips down the slide and fairly quickly decided the ladder is so nice I should use it instead of the slide!

I wanted to share a few pictures of the treehouse in use as well as force myself to add up the numbers. I've resisted this until now because, quite honestly, I didn't really want to know. I estimated the total cost to be about $400 but wasn't even close! It seems building costs have gone up considerably since I built the deck several years ago.

Nonetheless, here is our treehouse project by the numbers:

• 520 linear feet of wood
• 7 pounds of screws
• Lowe's and Home Depot were essentially the same price on everything BUT major nods to HOME DEPOT for having a far better return process and much more helpful representative than Lowe's
• Single most expensive item - "Super Wave Slide - $69.97"
• Least expensive item - "Flat Washer - $0.15
• Number of 2x4x8's purchased - 18 ($3.39 ea)
• Number of 5/4x6x8's (decking) - 18 ($5.97 ea)
• Number of 4x4x8's - 4 ($9.97 ea)
• Number of 2x6x8's - 5 ($4.97 ea)
• Number of 2x8x8's - 5 ($6.97 ea)
• Items I had to buy but really didn't want to: 8lb sledgehammer - $19.97, Drill bit set $14.97
• Hours spent actually working (not at the store spending more money) - ~35 hours
• Sunday - 5hrs
• Monday - 3hrs
• Tuesday - 0hrs (RAIN!)
• Wednesday - 3hrs
• Thursday - 2hrs
• Friday - 11hrs
• Saturday - 11hrs
  

Total b4 returning excess materials: $679.86

Total of return materials: $103.11

GRAND TOTAL: $576.75

Was it worth it? OF COURSE! It gave me a fun alternative to spending lots of extra hours at the office (which is what I ALWAYS do when the family is gone). We've already planned a summer campout in the treehouse. Noah quickly identified another advantage of this elevated camping surface - Skunk Avoidance. If you need to know more about why that matters, CLICK HERE.

I also plan to add some swings and other features to the structure. Perhaps a zip line all the way to the pond should be in order????

Here are the first and last pictures I took in this series:



















And finally here are some pictures of the treehouse in good use by the kiddos. (For what it's worth, on a little housekeeping note, the whole place looks alot better now that I've picked up all the scrap lumber.) Does anyone want an old swing set?