Building a Treehouse: Part 4 - Windows, Door, and Roof
Topic: Kids' Stuff
Posted: Thu, Jul 13, 2006 
The windows were purchased new from Menards. Three are 30x24 and one is 42x24. The small windows are in each of the short walls (short because the deck cuts them off). The largest window is in the (full) East wall. The North wall has no windows out of respect to our neighbors whose back yard and pool would be in full view from the treehouse.
(if you haven't read Part 3, go back now and read it.)
The framing around the windows consists of doubled up 2x4's and whatever linkage seemed appropriate to shore the frame up the surrounding studs.
Here's a shot of the largest window looking out from the treehouse:
Here's a view from the ground looking from West to East:
The door came from a remodel project the previous owners of our house performed. It was a full height, 32 inch wide, solid core wooden door. SInce the walls of the treehouse are shorter than the walls in the house, I shortened the door. To keep from cutting into the decorative panels, I took a little off the top and bottom the get the right height.
Since the door was frameless, I had to build a frame for the door. I have hung a couple doors in the past, but they came pre-hung in a frame. Creating a basic frame was easy enough. Notching the frame for the hinges was more of a challenge. Check out my handy work:
Being the first time I have chiseled out a notch for hinges, the best I could muster were square notches (don't mind the rounded hinges).
Notice the two peep-holes? One for big kids and one for small kids.
The roof was a challenge. The job requires you to work bent over on an uneven surface and if you screw up, there is a +20 foot drop to the ground. The roof decking consists of 6 pieces of shortened 5/8 inch particle board. These panels were secured by screwing them into the rafters.
Roofing materials were generously donated by Bone Dry Roofing. Thanks to Gene, Randy, and Brad for the donation and thanks also goes to Al Katzman for facilitating the donation.
Much of the work involved in building the treehouse has been enjoyable. Shingling the roof was not one of those jobs. It was a hot, dirty job. I nearly fell off the roof a 1/2 dozen times. Regardless, a beautiful roof was the result of the effort:
In the next and last article in this series, we will cover the siding and some of the interior detail work.
(Read Part 5 of the story.)
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Comments
1. Jul 14, 06 01:28 PM | Brad said:
Once you're done, here's another timely father/son project for you:
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/%7Egmilburn/ac/geoff_ac.html
Of course knowing you Brent, I expect a solar powered water pump and dry ice in a larger water bath as the cooling source.
B
2. Jul 17, 06 07:56 AM | bmundy said:
Brad, interesting that you bring this up. I just had a conversation with another friend about installing a closed-loop system like this to cool his entire house. From what he told me, a 30,000 gallon tank is a sufficient reservoir for an entire house (the same size tank used for gas stations). The stat he gave me is that if you can get the liquid in the tank down to 30 degrees, you could use that cold-store to cool your house for an entire summer.
Like you suggest, I'm wondering if we could do something similar with the treehouse. Maybe a 55 gallon drum buried in the back yard. Not sure if that would be big enough to use as a geo-thermal heat-sink/cooling reservoir?
3. Jul 26, 06 07:37 AM | bmundy said:
Thanks to Josh and Andy for pointing out this USA Today article on treehouses. The article showcases a treehouse recently built for Val Kilmer.
Here's a link to the article:
- http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-07-25-treehouses_x.htm
Here's a link to some treehouse builders mentioned in the article:
- http://romerostudios.com/i-tree.html
- http://www.barbarabutler.com/
- http://www.treehouseworkshop.com/
4. Aug 4, 06 02:17 PM | diong said:
I got here via ConsumingIndy ... Awesome site guys!
5. Sep 1, 06 04:11 PM | Ed George said:
Hello,
I am building a one-tree house, 8x8 with 6 foot walls and windows. I am now trying to do the roof and having a very hard time fiuguring out how to do it. I started by setting up supports from the four courners which neet at the tree about 8 and a half feet up, however, getting all the other supports to line up has been hard. Is there a better way to to it? It looks like you used premade roof trusses.
Struggling in Chicago,
Ed
6. Sep 4, 06 06:58 PM | bmundy said:
Ed,
The roof was the hardest for me to build. I did not use pre-made trusses because I needed the trusses to be a specific size to match up with the treehouse. It took about three hours to make the first rafter (getting the angles just right). The others came together much more quickly.
Here's how I got it all up in the tree... I built out each truss, but used a scrap piece of wood as a placeholder for the top ridge. After I brought each truss up in the tree, I would pull out the scrap piece of wood and drop in the ridge line to form the apex of the truss assembly. I built out the roof in halves. With each half up in the tree and assembled, I connected them to one another.
The biggest help for me during this process was purchasing a builder's square. The square not only helped with the angles, but it also came with very detailed directions for constructing the trusses. The square was 7 or 8 bucks.
7. Sep 22, 06 03:06 PM | baylee brake said:
that is asome i am going to build one!!!
personly baylee