Treehouses

While contemplating our upcoming house hunting trip to the East Coast we decided to each come up with a  "Top 3 Wish List" for our new house.  Top of my list was an enormous pantry in the kitchen.  Our current one, a broom closet, could only be considered enormous if you lived in Lilliput.  At the top of my eleven year old's list, a new tree house.  The idea was met with great enthusiasm and excitement by his father, and in the last week he has thought of little else. The priorities of "proximity to good schools" and "large master bathroom" have been replaced by "lot size" and "types of trees" suitable for a tree house. 

My husband comes honestly by his love of tree houses.  He and his brothers still talk about the first tree house they built together as children.  The conversation always ends with belly laughs and the expression, "Good times, good times..." as they recount my husband being smacked in the head by a heavy pulley they were using to hoist materials.  After years of this story, it was no surprise to me that before my son reached the age of two my husband was planning a tree house. 

Our garden in California had puny trees and was the size of a postage stamp, but for my husband this obstacle was easily overcome.  "We build up!" he announced.  After finding an idea for a tree house that he loved, plans were drawn and redrawn with architect-like precision.  Multiple trips were made to the Home Depot to study roofing material options,  hardware, stone samples, and even to buy an additional saw, just so it could be used as ornamentation.   

There was endless toddler fun in that tree house over the next two years, and when we were relocated to the Midwest it was the tree house that made it onto the moving truck not my beautiful wrought iron garden furniture.

I know exactly where my husband and son will be right after we move into our new house, not unpacking the truck, or hanging pictures, but out in the garden scouting for that perfect tree.  This Spring, you may want to scout your own garden for one of those trees.  You are never too old for a tree house and if you don't have trees you can always "build up".

Our tree house design idea came from Tree Houses by Daniels Woods, at     http://www.danielswoodland.com/index.php.  For other great ideas, see Tree Top Builders http://www.treetopbuilders.net/ and Peter Kirsch-Korff Designs at http://www.kirsch-korff.com/Pages/treehouses.htm.