The Derb Tree House

[April-May, 2004]   After much importuning by my kids, and as part of the never-ending quest to find something that holds more interest for them than computer games and TV, I agreed to build a tree house in my back yard.  I kept a record of construction progress on these pages. 

Progress was slow.  I have a living to make, and couldn't give this a lot of time.  I promised the kids they'd have a tree house "for the summer," which my legalistically-minded little Americans decided to interpret as "by Memorial Day."  I met the deadline.

I must say, the project was very absorbing.  It brought out the inner engineer lurking in my soul (and, I suspect, every other guy's).  I am not actually much good at the handiwork aspect of the thing.  I made a lot of mistakes — things didn't line up, my judgments about material strength turned out to be faulty, and so on.  What took over my life was the planning and design.  How can I get this piece up there?  What's going to support that?  Can I make this fit?  I spent more time thinking about things like that than I did actually sawing and nailing.  It was fascinating, fascinating.  I should have been a civil engineer.  (One of my great-grandfathers was, and one of my nephews is.)

Each of the pages listed below gives a progress report, with pictures.

Phase 1:  Getting a basic support framework in place.

Phase 2:  Making the floor.

Phase 3:  Building walls.

Phase 4:  Putting the roof on.

Phase 5:  Finishing up.

Phase 6:  Grand opening.

Here is a summary of what I used and how much it cost:

The total comes to $932.04.  (I have not included local sales taxes, which take the figure over $1,000.) 

The biggest single item is lumber; and within that, the biggest item is the 4'x8' sheets of treated ½-inch ply, which go for $31.97 a sheet.  I used 11 of the suckers.  That's 35 percent of my expenses right there.  There was, of course, a lot of waste here.  I have enough off-cuts of ply to build a second storey, I think.  I was more efficient with the 2x4s and 2x6s, though.  I think I used 99 percent of them – I have only scraps left.

In the "connectors" category, the biggest item was all the brackets, handles, trusses, tie plates, hooks, hinges and so on:  $67.11 altogether.  Still, I see I managed to spend $12.53 just on nails.  Ye gods.

The "other components" includes anything else that ended up in the structure, together with, e.g., a can of Rustoleum (for the main ¾-inch bolt through the tree, which didn't come in a galvanized variety) and a can of black sticky stuff for treating wounds and insults to the tree.

You always end up needing new tools (or ancillary stuff like shims, sandpaper, drill bits) for a job like this, though I try to make do with what I have.  Biggest item here:  drill bits, at $28.10.

The "miscellaneous" category is things whose product description I couldn't figure out on the store receipts (most from The Home Depot) that I used to compile this table.  What on earth is "11/2BKFLHNGZ"?  I have no clue; but it was only $3.97, so I'm not going to worry about it.*

My first store receipt is dated April 2; my last, May 31.  So the whole thing took an even two months of spare time, of which I don't have much.  I'd estimate construction time at very roughly 100 hours.

*Someone e-mailed in to tell me it's a hinge.