The first build weekend!

Well here it is folks, our blog about our treehouse. We are three couples, Greg and Jane, James and Hannah C and James and Sarah H. This all started after Greg read 'The Treehouse Diaries' by Nick Weston, feeling inspired he gathered together the rest of us to build what all grown men (and some women!) dream about, an adult sized treehouse to stay in. So we got together, found a lovely tree in one corner of James C's parents' garden and decided to build it!

This weekend saw the first of many building weekends. Having visited site on previous occasions to recce trees and other key features, our tree had been chosen, our design roughed out (Greg even made a model of it!), calculations done and timber ordered. The timber for the floor structure is the only timber we intend to buy, the rest we hope to recycle and scavenge from various sources. The timber was paid for (£333.46!) and delivered to site on Friday, there was no going back now!

Day One

First job was to get everything to site, happily we had use of a 4x4 to tow my trailer to within a few feet of site so that all the scavenged wood I brought could be shifted in one go, I'd hate think how long this would've taken by hand as the nearest road access to site is a bout 300 yards away. Which in the grand scheme of things isn't far, except when you have a hundred or so of pieces of wood to move by hand! This is the carefully packed trailer:

and this is what it looks like unpacked: 

Believe or not this whole pile of wood cost us just a couple of boxes of tea bags, it's worth making friends with local timber yards, it's amazing what they throw out!
We then set about setting up the site with a shelter to keep the tools dry, clearing the various shrubs and small trees that would pose a danger or were just in the way and finally carrying all the structural timber onto site. These were much to big for the trailer so had to be lugged the old fashioned way.

And we're ready to go!

Saturday was a short day due to some of us having to travel quite some distance, so we concentrated on getting the first 'sleeper' bolted to the tree. This is the datum point that everything else will come from, it sets the floor height, the angle from the tree, everything. Getting it right was worth taking some time over.
Here we are cutting it from the length of 8"x3" timber that we'd bought.

We'll make another of these at some point to go on the other side of the tree to support the balcony rails. It's bolted to the tree using M10x200mm coach screws and 50mm square washers (3mm thick!). We gave the tree a little 'shave' first to ensure as flat a surface to bolt to as possible without damaging the cambium layer of the tree, then drilled and bolted it up.

It was in place by end of play Saturday which set us up well to crack on Sunday morning.

Day Two

Which we did despite the continuing rain, and when I say rain, I mean RAIN! It poured it down on and off (mostly on) all day Saturday and Sunday. Work was slow and a bit more hazardous than was comfortable at times due to the amount of mud that got churned up, but we pressed on. By there end of Sunday we had the main 'rails' up on the sleeper and a supporting leg underneath them. This was no mean feat as as quickly as we could dig holes for decent footings for the posts, they would fill with rain. Lots of hardcore later and we managed to secure the foot of the first post. The first structural element of the whole design was now standing up all on its own.

Building the 'rails':

Rails resting on the sleeper, awaiting their first supporting leg:

Rails are now horizontal! Held up by their first leg (and a bit of rope). Leg just visible on for right of pic:

James C is very pleased :-)

Side view

Day Three

Monday brought glorious and very welcome sunshine with it. Spirits were lifted and we were set for another day on the build. It definitely seemed like we'd found a rhythm in the team by this point, jobs were getting ticked off left, right and centre and progress was swift under blue skies. The first joists went on top of the rails at either end and in the centre. Once the end plates were secured to them we had our perimeter set out and the full scale of what we were building became apparent. It was BIG! 15'9"x16'1" to be exact. On paper this seemed reasonable for the accommodation required, when it was set out in real planks of wood up in the trees 10' off the ground, it looked massive! Still, better that than too small, it does potentially have to sleep 6 adults, plus we have 2 children between the 3 couples.

By the time we really had to call it a day we had all the joists on, all the 'noggins' between them (noggins help to prevent twisting of the timbers as they dry out). We also had the second leg under the rails and a stilt in too. The stilt is extra long so that it will reach and support the roof once it's on. These supports combined with fixing the joists to any passing trees meant that already the floor structure is feeling very firm. We still have 5 more stilts to add in too, one in each remaining corner and one half-way along each side. I'm not worried about this thing falling down!

So that's where we are until the next build weekend when hopefully we'll start on the roof and flooring. Watch this space folks.

Heno