Treehouse

I don't know how we made it so long, with so many boys, without a treehouse. It finally occurred to us that we must surely be scarring our boys in some monumental way, so we headed to Lowe's and bought some lumber. With half a plan in mind, we picked a tree and got started building. I forgot to take pictures until after the floor was built, and the walls were going up.


Alex really took an interest in this project. He wasn't too excited about the bathroom, but grudgingly helped. He kind of hogged the power tools while building the treehouse. I was a bit bent out of shape at first, but after stepping back and realizing all of the underlying angst he must have because of such a long deprivation, pride swelled up inside of me and nearly brought a tear to my eye. My baby is finally catching the dream...

Hoisting the walls up. I'm so thankful I have strong boys to do the grunt work.

Securing the wall in place.


Testing it out for the first time.

The boys decided that it wasn't private enough, so we went back and filled in all of the open spaces in the walls. We've built a ladder, and a trap door. We're planning to counterweight the door so no little fingers (or heads) get squished. The jury is still out on what we're going to do about a roof. For now, they're able to lie back and enjoy the stars. Maybe we'll put a roof on next summer...or maybe not.

We got our inspiration for the treehouse plan from this book by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. If you know a dad who wants to be even half as good a dad as Shannon is, you MUST get this book. It's chock full of information and just plain good ideas for dads and boys to do together. For around twenty bucks, it's a pretty sound investment.

"Through wisdom a house is build, and by understanding it is established;" Proverbs 24:3