Leo the “Working Guy”

Today the guys took a short break from the treehouse to fix up Leo’s Pirate Ship bed for his bedroom at the lake. Leo got to do some construction and help out (in between chasing the dog and throwing rocks in the water!)

The Greatest Erection

Well ladies and gentlemen, it took four long, grueling, 10 hour days but it is finally up!!

I present to you, one beam:

Anticlimactic right?

Yeah. We though so too. 

Unfortunately things took much longer than expected and we learned first hand that Murphy’s law is a real thing. 

Everything that could have gone wrong absolutely did, but we learned a lot. Like there is a lot of editing and movie magic that goes into one episode of tree house masters (spoiler alert: those houses aren’t built in a day!)

In reality we really did learn a lot and think the second side will go up much faster. Much to Ma’s dismay it is back to work this week so it will have to stay just like it is for now. Us guys who did it don’t mind. We were so worn out and frustrated by the end of it that when we finally got it up we had a Kate And Leopold moment and all stood back admiring our “Great Erection”. 

We will spend tomorrow finishing up a few other projects, making pizzas, and spending time as a family enjoying the lake in all it’s beauty. 

Here are a few pictures of the last few days work:

Leo didn't want to leave the construction area!

They couldn't pick the triangle up because it was too heavy, so they tried to prop it up and use other logs to lean it up!

Murphy’s Law

Day 1 - Bacon Grease to the Rescue!

Treehouse attachment bolts are going in! BTM Manufacturing in Kansas City custom made these for me. They are stronger and larger than anything you can buy online, coming in at 12lbs a piece! Holes were pre-drilled in the trees and have a glimpse of the gorgeous wood inside. The tricky part was trying to get them to go smoothly into the tree. We needed something natural and non-toxic to use as lubricant. We just ran several ideas, but ended up going with bacon grease that was left over from this morning‘s breakfast. Talk about “waste not, want not!” 

The hoisting system was set up with two 1/2" aircraft cables (over kill I know but that's what I do) the aircraft cables were connect to four 4000lb towing straps. Focusing on redundant systems to avoid breaking a leg. 

There were a few times today we worried we may have been in way over our heads. The initial steps and getting all the heavy lifting done is time consuming, but we are excited to get moving on the rest of the project. Our goal is to get at least half of the platform up tomorrow! 

   

It’s time to break ground... er, tree!

 
And it begins! Leo is so excited he wants to be right there with his dad. He chose a rock to sit on and is waiting patiently for his tree house to be built!

I finally convinced him to go inside for nap time and we apent a few mins just laying in our bed watching daddy working out the window! The guys worked for a few hours in the drizzly rain setting up safety lines but by the time nap time was over the rain really started to come down and they had to call it a day! 

-Jamie

I’m a nut for WALNUT!

Walnut for the end log wood floors in the treehouse has arrived! Pa drove down to the lake to meet the delivery truck and unload the wood. It must have taken a long time because there are hundreds of pieces. The real challenge was finding room in the garage to store it so it remains nice and dry. Not to long ago the two car garage house a few jet skis, kayaks, lake toys and some tools. It is now so full of wood and tree house building materials we can hardly get to anything else. Thank goodness my parents are as excited for this project as Cole is or else they may start to get a little annoyed! I am using the jet skis in the back of the garage as my motivators for Cole to keep up the hard work- if we don’t get the wood out we won’t be able to use the water toys... and you know what they say: WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER!

Can’t wait to see this come together! The plan is 1” thick slabs ranging in diameter from 1” to 8”, filled in with smaller branches of walnut, and then black epoxy to fill in all gaps. They will sand it level and top it off with a few coats of poly. Should be one sweet custom floor that you will not have seen anywhere else!

-Jamie

Boys Weekend!

Time to take our plans from the page to the tree. My construction team and I are off for a guys weekend to break ground (or tree?) on the tree house. Hoping those fisher price tools hold up! 🚧🌳🔨 

We didn’t get a whole lot of tree house work done but did get a lot of chores around the lake house done. We worked on moving dirt mountian and leveling out the yard so it would be ready for the swarms of kids to play on this summer. After we left Pa seeded and is working on getting some grass to grow!

- Cole 

The Real Slim Shady

Second load of treehouse wood was delivered today. Apparently the guys over at Menards misheard our name over the phone, so we got a load of wood delivered to “Cole Slims”. We will now be referring to Cole as “The Real Slim Shady” for the rest of the day. One more load left and this treehouse palace can start going up. 

If you are excited for this tree house please stand up, please stand up, please stand up! (Cheesy Mom rap pun 😂)

We aren’t MONKEY-ing around when it comes to this treehouse!

You can’t make this stuff up! We had some gorgeous live edge cedar delivered from a local couple who cuts the wood themselves. When they pulled up I heard Cole yell “JAMIE! Get up here! They’ve got a monkey!”   I grabbed the kids and we ran outside, low and behold they actually had a monkey. A real, live monkey. I can’t tell you much more about the wood or the loading/unloading from this point because I only had eyes for the monkey. 

He was sitting up in the dashboard eating a McGriddle (yes. I am serious.) of course Leo took one look and was off collecting sticks and throwing rocks. Peppy, my moms dog hopped right up into their car and it reaches out and starts petting him. At one point we actually saw the monkey drink soda through a straw it of a McDonalds cup. It was pretty crazy!

Oh yeah... and we got some wood. 

Tiny Home Village

It’s not a tree house, it will do for now! This weekend Pa and Ma bought this cute little play house off craigslist and brought it down to the lake. The men set it up and Leo is in HEAVEN. 

Two years old and he already has his own vacation home. Cole and Pa put together the play house and now Leo his very own lake house. It has a great waterfront view, a full (play) kitchen, and an outdoor lemonade bar. Needless to say the 24 degree weather and snow flurries did not keep Leo from playing in his new house! I can only imagine how he will react when he sees the final project on the tree house. We are going to have a tiny house village right here at the lake! ❤️🏠

-Jamie