tree house! phase two

Almost a year has passed since we started the tree house. As of my last post, I had put the floor on half of the structure but didn't have a photo of it yet. In the meantime, I put up rails around the outside edge and put a floor on what I have been referring to as the "back porch" -- the other side of the tree from the one you can see in the previous photo. Next I need to add a rope ladder, and once that's done I will consider it complete until probably next summer.

I decided to put up rails instead of full-blown walls and roof because, duh, it's easier. I'm not going to be able to do that much work on it for a while, so I just want to make it safe enough for the boys to go up by themselves or maybe with a friend or two. The rails I tacked on are not supposed to be permanent, though, so they are not as structurally integral (i.e. safe) as they could be. The boys are aware that they are not to sit on, play on or lean over the rails; they're just there to keep anyone from tripping and falling over the edge. I did want them to look halfway decent, though, so I stole an idea from another dad building a tree house in his back yard. I wove manila rope between the top and bottom rungs in a loose pattern (see photo). Unfortunately I didn't hang on to his link, so I can't credit him. If you're cruising around looking at tree-house-building pages, and you see someone with a similar idea, it was his, not mine.

Rope railings

The floors have been a challenge in a couple of different ways. As I mentioned, I put two layers of 3/8" thick plywood down on the "front", trimmed to the edges of the frame, and screwed it down. I planned on doing the same to the "back" when I got a chance. Well, that chance didn't come for a while, and the tree house went through some rainy weather in the meantime. I had painted the floor with leftover exterior latex, so I wasn't too worried about it, and I was expecting it to warp a little bit (it's plywood, after all), but the two layers warped separately from each other and have been a little more difficult to fix than one piece would have been. So, for the back porch I went with the slightly more difficult but exactly twice as thick 3/4" plywood. The back porch was a bigger challenge to cut because more of the surface had to wrap around the shape of the tree trunk. It took me a while to figure out how to trace the shape that I needed to cut in the plywood without too much trial-and error. I measured as many of the dimensions as I could, then I got a couple of large pieces of foam insulation and did the trial-and-error cutting on that, then traced the shape onto the plywood. I purposely erred on the side of caution so that I didn't cut away too much plywood on the first try. I figured it would be harder to put it back than shave it down when doing the final fitting, eh?

The back porch

Next I need to create a rope ladder. While I was poking around online I happened across this site and realized my rope ladder needs to go from above the deck to the ground in order to be useful. In that case, the only place I have to attach the top of the ladder is on the side of the trunk over the remaining open edge, so my ladder will need to be about 14 feet long. I looked around for one I could buy, but it's kind of expensive to buy custom lengths. Pre-made rope ladders tend to be 6 ft or shorter. I ended up getting a bunch more 3/4" manila rope and some Georgia red oak for rungs. I took a cue from the same site and bought some pet tie-downs to anchor the bottom for ease of climbing. All that remains is assembly; I am planning to just cut the oak planking to 2 ft lengths, sand down the sharp corners, drill 3/4" holes in each end, and settle the rungs on knots in the rope at 1 ft intervals. I'll update this post with my progress and pictures when I get a chance.

*Update*The rope ladder worked out pretty much the way I planned, though I didn't need quite as much ladder as I thought. However, that worked out OK since I didn't buy quite enough rope for a 14 foot ladder anyway! Rule of thumb, for anyone trying to build a rope ladder using 3/4" manila rope: each knot uses roughly 6 inches of rope all by itself. So, on my job, I ended up with 11 rungs, but used almost 17 feet of rope per side to do it. Also give yourself lots of extra rope to tie the top and bottom knots. Photo below: