How do you Build a Children's Treehouse-An Inspirational Guide
Building a Children's Treehouse
Spring is a great time to build a children's treehouse,Imagine the fun for children and everyone for that matter to have a den in the summer months. In the winter you could plan and design your treehouse and when you have built a solid base for your treehouse you can use your imagination and use any sorts of recycled and reclaimed wood or fencing for your tree house.
This is intended to be an inspirational guide rather than a strict experts guide.
Choose a Good Tree
Obviously you need to choose a good tree and its quite simple, you choose the straightest tree. A tree that is leaning, or growing at angle will create more problems for you.
Expert help
If you are not familiar with extra long bolt clamps and using ratchet wrenches , this is where you may need some extra help from an expert..You need to avoid damaging the tree trunk so your base should be consist of two solid beams, (at least 4150mmx 100mm thick).These are held at right angles to the trunk and secured by two one metre-long 18mm bolts .
When these bolts are tightened, they will clamp tightly to the tree trunk and provide the perfect foundation base for your treehouse. If every thing is correctly aligned and fully tightened there will be no requirement to nail or drill into any part of the tree trunk.
Build your floor
Don't raise the base more than 2.5 metres of the ground for safety reasons. Lay some old or reclaimed planks across the base beams at right angles, then screw them down to the beams to create a good solid floor, and you are away with your treehouse!
Walls and Roof
You can use almost anything to create you walls or roof , it is great to use random design than a purpose buid design as children will love it. old fencing can be used as well as recycled shed parts, but any materials can be used. Wood can be treated with a freindly preservative and roofing felt is cheap enough and creates excellent waterproof finish.
The Ladder
You will need to get to your trreehouse and a lot of people are not comfortable with a straight ladder , but kids love to scramble up the v-shaped net bridges similar to the ones used on assault courses and if they fall you will get a soft landing on the net below.Great if you can get one cheap.
Simple Furnishings
Any old, or unused furniture can be used to decorate and furnish the treehouse. Beanbags and a wind-up radio would be great for myself.
I hope this article may inspire some people to build a treehouse, and like I have said this not an expert guide, so if you need help, seek an expert.
