Josie and Lucian’s Treehouse

A story of a dad who who has always loved the treehouses, spending a summer in the Treehouse Workshop of Pete Nelson and finally realized his dream of building his own treehouse for his daughter and her cousin!

This the words of Chris:

“This treehouse is on my parent’s property where I grew up. My parents were having some trees cleared next to their house and “discovered” this tree among all the others. It’s a Western Red Cedar, and as you can see my father must have topped it maybe 20 years ago. When topped, Cedars have the particular habit of redirecting their higher branches to become leaders. So when my parents, who are new grandparents, discovered this tree they had me over to look at this gnarly tree.

Early on in my life as a carpenter I worked for a summer with Pete Nelson of Treehouse Workshop. I’d always wanted to build a treehouse of my own, and now that I had a daughter and a little nephew, this tree provided the perfect opportunity. This tree was screaming for a treehouse. Over the years I had also squirreled away scrap materials from job sites, like the bevel siding, flooring and door that could only really be used on a project as small as this. The windows were reclaimed from the ReStore in Seattle. The decking, rafters, benches, skip sheeting and trim were milled on site from the other cedars my parents cut down. All in all, I think we spent less than $1,500 on materials.

The treehouse’s interior dimensions are 5’11” by 5′, which is just enough to allow my brother and I to sleep on the floor, while our two kids can sleep on the benches above us. It is also apparently just big enough for my mother’s morning yoga routine. The deck is just big enough for two chairs.

Being a stay at home dad, I worked on weekends off and on, and completed it over the course of six months”.

If you want to see more about this treehouse, just look at his blog or at his flickr.

Thanx Chris for your words and I hope you can enjoy your treehouse! Personally I love the perfect integration of this treehouse with the tree and I love the link between the branch and the ladder! Congratulation!

More pics in the gallery below. 

Pics by Chris Axling