How to Build a Treehouse

This HouseCall took Ron to one of America's most famous cities, Beverly Hills. Located right in the center of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills is more well known for it's rich and famous residents than for those parts of the city that have the feel of a quaint, small town neighborhood where everybody knows everyone else. That's how Andy and Lisa Licht describe where they live. Ron was asked to come to help Andy and his son Danny and next-door neighbors Jim and Jason Friedberg with a very special project. These two best friends would like a meeting place in the tree between their two houses. This sounded like a fun and rewarding project and Ron didn't want to turn it down!

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1. Tree house design and location:

• Jim and Jason came over from next door and they helped Andy and Danny decide on the exact location for the tree house. Danny and Jason chose a tree that straddled the borderline between their backyards and they asked Ron to design a house that would be accessible from both yards with two entrances and two matching ladders. In designing the tree house, Ron took two things into consideration. He wanted it to be safe and he wanted to avoid damaging the tree.

• Ron designed a platform….

• …supported by four legs or posts.

• One of these posts would actually be the tree itself.

2. Build platform:

• They began by positioning the first frame board in the crotch of the tree. This would help them to determine where to install the other three posts.

• They placed the second frame board in position and supported it with a temporary brace to hold things firmly in place.
• They clamped the frame board and the temporary brace together and then dropped a weighted line or plumb bob to the ground below. This allowed them to transfer the mark where they wanted the post to attach to the frame straight down to the ground so they would know exactly where to dig their first postholes.
  

• Jim drove in a stake to mark the spot and Ron circled it with chalk. Andy used a posthole digger to dig the hole.

• They poured three inches of gravel into the bottom of the hole to provide drainage and then dropped in a pressure treated 4 x 4 post into the hole.

• They used a post level and moved the post gently back and forth until the bubble rested exactly between the lines indicating that the post was perfectly vertical.

• Andy clamped the post to the frame board to keep it from moving.

• They used dry mix concrete, which they poured directly into the hole filling it to about three inches from the top.

• They added water directly into the hole. This rapid setting concrete required very little mixing and hardened in about 20 minutes but Ron recommended waiting at least a couple of hours before putting any weight on the post.

• While they were waiting for the first post to set, they went around to Jim's backyard to set the other two posts in place. Ron reminded them that they were creating a four-sided frame up in the tree. They had already completed the first two sides, but it was time to attach the second two sides.

• Ron held the frame board in place while Andy and Jim attached it to the first two boards with rust resistant screws.