instructables

TreeHouse

by ClenseYourPallet

TreeHouse: Page 1
The Tree House. What could be cooler to a young
boy or girl than a tree house? There is just something
about having a structure in a tree that is really
alluring. I remember dreaming about my perfect tree
house when I was young. I came up with all sorts of
things that would be included in my tree house like a
rope ladder, a pulley for pulling up various treasures,
a secrete door that no one knew about but me, and
the list goes on and on.
When I did finally build my tree house I was not quite
what I had imagined. It was 3, 8 foot boards nailed
into two horizontal branches. I LOVED IT! It didn't
matter that it wasn't much to look at and it didn't have
all of the bells and whistles that I had imagined. It
was mine and I spent quite a lot of time in it.
So when I had my son 5 years ago, one of the first
father son actives I wanted to do with him was build a
tree house. I started to plan and slowly but surely I
started on our tree house.
One thing that I really wanted to do is use reclaimed
material to make the majority of the tree house. I use
reclaimed wood in a lot of my project so I thought I
would be cool to see if I could use the same materials
to make a tree house. Also to be honest, by finding
this material or buying it used I saved a ton of money
on this build. In my plans the main frame had to be
new treated wood for safety reasons but the rest I
wanted to make out of reclaimed stuff. I got pretty
close except for the siding, that was a headache I’ll
explain later.
This has been a labor of love and I am very excited to
share it with you. I hope that you enjoy my project
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and that it may inspire you to make one of your own. I
plan on having many adventures with my son and
daughter in our tree house. It’s a little bit more than 3-
8 foot boards and so far my kids love it. Thanks for
reading and I hope you enjoy our tree house.
What I used
Treated 2x10s
Treated 2x8s
Treated 2x6s
A plethora of saws, I used circular saw, table saw, jig
saw, miter saw
Drills and a lot of different screws, deck screw, self
tapping tin screws, small drywall screws
a ton of reclaimed stuff, deck boards, conduit, wood
posts,2x4s, plywood, tin, windows
A few new things, tarpaper, cedar siding, roofing nails
Time and patients
In this spot I usually put "What You Need" but not this
time. Every tree house is so different I don't think I
could make a list that would adequately describe
what "you" need. If you plan on making a tree house,
plan well and make it to fit your space. Every tree
house is different and every one is awesome!
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Step 1: The Trees and Frame
I am surrounded by walnut trees. English and black
walnut to be exact. They are beautiful trees but if you
have had the experience of one or two of them in your
lawn, you know that they are terrible to clean up after.
I have 26 walnut trees on my property. I don’t know
why that I relevant to my ible, I guess I needed to
love to complain about them but they are beautiful
and hundreds of years old so I do not want to give
them up. But how to stop all these people from
hassling me to cut down and buy my trees? I know,
put a tree house in three of the most desirable trees.
It worked.
I have these three trees in a triangle in the very back
corner of our yard that worked perfect. They are
14x14x12 feet apart in an isosceles triangle. Perfect
trees, perfect spot, start the tree house.
Like I said before, I wanted the tree house to be made
primarily out of reclaimed material, but I wanted it to
be very safe and sturdy as well. So I used new
treated 2x10 for the outside frame to make sure that I
would hold up for my kids. I used 4-10” lag bolts per
board end to secure the 2x10 to the tree. I know they
are better ways to do this but I did not have those
kinds of resources at that time. I used new 2x8 as
floor joists and I ran them parallel with the “bottom” of
the triangle
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complain just a little.
Aside from being messy, Walnut is also a very sought
after and valuable tree. So sought after in fact that I
have had many many people stop by and offer to buy
my trees. Here’s the thing. They are messy and I do
After the main frame was complete, it was time for the
first of many reclaimed materials. I found someone on
craigslist that was selling the wood from an old deck
that they took down. They were asking $200 for all of
the decking which I though was a lot. I tried in vain to
trade for an air compressor that I had no use for but
he wasn’t having it. I haggled for a while and
eventually settled on $120 for the pile. It was still
more than I wanted to pay but it was a lot of wood
and it was in decent shape so I was happy. . I don’t
have a ton of pictures of this step. I’m embarrassed to
say but I didn’t even know about instructables when I
started this tree house.
I started in the middle and worked out towards the
edges and I used 3” deck screws and attached to
each of the floor joists. Although this is hand me
down deck wood, it is still very sturdy.
Step 2: The First Structure

I had this really cool idea for the house portion of the
tree house. Because the platform was a triangle I
decided to make the structure a triangle too. Not only
that but I wanted the walls to angle out to give it an
original look. This all sounded really good in my head
but when I started to build… it didn’t work. The walls
were angled out at a 15 degree angle and it was a
nightmare to do everything. I was sheeting the roof
when I finally decided that this was a stupid idea. I
took the structure down and started over from
scratch.
This step was not really necessary but I think it is
important to share successes as well as failures.
Hopeful someone can learn something from my
mistake.

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Step 3: The New Frame
So I had to start over. It was a pain at the time but I’m
really glad that I did. I started with a square floor
frame made from treated 2x6’s. Again the frame was
new treated wood but the decking was reused. Pretty
standard floor framing. Because the frame was
already sitting partially on another frame, I went with
two foot centers to save the cost of a board. I
toenailed the top frame into the bottom one in various
places. At the two corners that were sticking out I
used two 4x4s to support the corners. I dug the holes,
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leveled the post and poured cement into the hole.
This might not have been to code but I think it will
serve its purpose well. I used 3” screws to secure the
frame and used them to screw down the deck boards
as well.
With a completed floor I was able to get to work on
the main structure. This one went up much better
than the first one.
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Step 4: Frame Up
Reclaimed 2x4’s. actually not too hard to find. I had to
do a quick search on Craigslist and I found someone
that was redoing a basement and had a bunch of
2x4’s that they had replaced. Perfect! I can’t
remember exactly what I paid for these but it wasn’t
too much. I used them to make the first unsuccessful
building and then I reused them to make the second.
I framed up the walls and made them 5 feet tall. I
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wanted it to seem like a good scale for my kids. I
really like how it turned out. The windows were sitting
in my parent barn. They are awesome and save all
sorts of cool stuff so I was able to find some great
windows. I framed up the windows and they really
gave it a great look. I went with a pretty good pitch on
the roof and started to sheet.
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Step 5: Sheet the Roof
What’s really fun about reclaimed wood is that it has
a story. It has been somewhere else so there is a
story to tell. My plywood has an interesting story.
About a year before I started on the tree house we
has a fire in our machine shed. Our dewalt drills were
charging in the shop and one of the batteries super
heating and exploded. We know this because it just
so happens we had a security camera pointed at the
bench it recorded the whole thing. Please don’t leave
your drill batteries pugged in.
Anyway, our shed was broken up into 3 bays. The
first bay is the shop and that was completely
destroyed. The next bay was tractors and that only
had heat damage, any plastic parts melted on the
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tractors. The third bay had some heat but mostly
smoke damage and that is where this plywood was
kept. As you can see the board was black because of
the smoke but still in pretty good shape. The plywood
was in a pile so the bottom pieces didn’t look as bad.
I sheeted the roof and covered it in tar paper. For the
roof I found this super awesome rusted tin. We use it
for all sorts of projects and it worked great as a roof
again. I screwed them down with self tapping tin
screws and they looks and work fantastic. I filled in
any additional holes with clear silicone. I have had
the roof on for quite a while now and I haven’t found
any leaks yet.
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Step 6: The Dreaded Siding
So the siding was supposed to be the coolest
reclaimed part of this whole build. I had all sorts of
awesome ideas of what the siding was going to be,
but what I really wanted was barn wood. I love barn
wood. Not only does it look really cool but I think it
has a really great story. I grew up playing in barns,
making forts in barns, and working in barns. But the
problem is, barn wood is super sought after right now
and crazy expensive. So I went to craigslist again. I
wrote up an ad looking for old barns. I explained in
the ad what I was going to do with the wood and how
I wanted to pay for it. I purposed exchanging my work
cleaning up a fallen barn, or sorting the wood in
exchange for keeping some or paying for it by the
truckload.
The ad was up for a short time when I was contacted
by Al the troll. Al seemed quite angry that I was
asking for barn wood and claiming it was for my kid’s
tree house. He said that it seems like I’m looking for a
lot of wood and deceiving the craigslist community
with this ad. You see in my area there are ads selling
wood by the board ft and I was intruding on their turf. I
can only guess but I bet Al was one of those people. I
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sent Al a picture of the progress I had made with the
tree house but that didn’t seem to convince him.
A few days later I stumbled on an ad selling some
barn wood for $4.50 a board ft! The funny thing is the
ad had my town and my phone number on it even
though I had not posted it. So my original ad got
flagged a few times and eventually I gave up my
search. I couldn’t beat the barn wood cartel.
The tree house sat naked for quite a while until I
finally broke down and bought cedar siding. It was
expensive and not as cool as reclaimed siding would
have been but it does look very nice. I put it up with
splitless nails. I did have a small amout of barn wood
at my disposal that I could use for the trim. Not
enough for the whole thing but that’s ok. I ripped the
wood into 3” strips and sanded them with a orbital
sander. Just a little sanding really brought the wood
back to life.
Sorry about the long story… darn Al
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Step 7: The Railing
Because the platform of this tree house is 10 feet
high I wanted to have a really sturdy railing but it also
had to match the rest of the design. We have an
apple orchard so there is an abundance of great
material to choose from. First the posts. They are line
post from the apple trees. Apple trees need support
so in the older plantings in the orchard, each one is
supported by a 8 foot post pounded into the ground.
When we replace a block of trees we pull out the tree
and the post and save the posts. We have a lot of
these on hand.
The lower railings are made of old conduit that was
also a support system for the trees. Same deal here,
when we take out a block of trees we pull the conduit
to the side and when we have enough we send it to
our local metal company to be recycled.
I took the posts and cut them into 4 foot sections. I
drilled 4- 7/8" holes 8" apart. I wanted to make sure
that the holes were straight down one side of the post
so I took 2 pieces if scrap wood and brad nailed them
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to the sides of the post. This way the post couldn't roll
from side to side. I put it on the drill press and drilled
the 4 holes about half way through the post. The
holes were different depths depending on the size of
the post.
I cut the conduit to have about an inch extra in the
posts. The posts were not exactly straight so I wanted
a little wiggle room. The holes were big enough to let
the conduit slide in easily.
The top railing is this really awesome true cedar 2x4
that had a ton of square nails in it. I have no idea
where it came from but I found it in one of our barns
and it's great. I pulled all the nails with a crowbar and
sanded it down with 60 grit sandpaper. When
everything was sliver free, I ran my router over it to
give it a nice edge and plopped it on top of the post.
I’m really happy with how the railing turned out. All
reclaimed and still matches the rest of the tree house.
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Step 8: The Door
I really wanted the door to stand out and be the focal
point of the front of the house. So I chose to go with
bin wood. All of our apples are picked and then put
into 18 or 20 bushel bins. We use all plastic bins now
but in the not so distant past they were all wood. Oak
to be precise. When these bins can no longer serve
there purpose of holding apples safely, we cut them
up and safe the wood for projects. I really like working
with bin wood.
I cut off both ends because I didn’t want to pound out
nails for two days. I ran them over the joiner and lined
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them up on two pieces of scrap plywood I had laying
around. I went with a different pattern because I really
wanted it to look interesting. I ran all the board
through the planer to expose the beautiful wood
underneath and to make the boards the same
thickness. I then glued and nailed the boards to the
plywood.
I sealed it with a deck sealer and the wood really
popped. I really think that that little door ties the whole
tree house together. Its all about the little details.
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Step 9: Adventure Awaits
This tree house has taken me a really long time to
complete. There were times when I was excited about
it, times when nothing would go right and times I
wanted to tear the whole thing down and forget I tried.
It was frustrating finding and working with used
materials and trying to make it fit like it was new.
But yesterday, I was playing in our tree house with
both of my kids… My daughter was pretending to
cook me food and bring it to me on the deck and my
son was acting like one of his 50 favorite super hero’s
and pretending the tree house was his secret hideout.
I just sat there and smiled. So all of the challenges
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that went along with this build were totally worth it. If
we only got to play in it for one day, I would build it
again. But we don’t have one day, we have years,
and I cant wait to see what kinds of adventures my
family has in their very own tree house.
This one means a lot to me and I hope you have
enjoyed reading it. If you have any questions please
feel free to ask and thank you so much for reading
about our tree house.
Andy