It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a Happy Trails. Managing a business and keeping after a very energized 8yo, whose circle of friends and social environment is ever growing, leaves me little time to write a grocery list let alone a column…a regular one at that. However, I’m inspired to write a brief one in this edition because I wanted to tell you about a longstanding project of mine that’s finally (and a little thankfully, if I’m being honest) coming to a close.
It’s called, My Brother’s Treehouse.
Since April, I’ve been building a treehouse at my brother’s house that he claims is for his grandkids and my son. But my entire family and I know that as a new reitree, the treehouse is really for him! Because it’s not a treehouse. A treehouse is a 5×5 platform up in a tree with a trapdoor, ladder, and made of mismatched wood being held together by the prayer that it doesn’t collapse and send the kids falling fifteen feet to the ground!
That’s a treehouse.
What I’ve been building at my brother’s house is another house…just up…in a tree. The platform it stands on is eleven feet off the ground, and is approximately 16×16 that requires climbing not one but two sets of stairs. Once there you’ll find a skillion-roofed house that tops off about fifteen feet from the platform, making its total height nearly thirty feet off the ground, which I was accutely aware of while roofing.
The whole thing is made from cedar pinned together with more than 3,000 nails and screws and about 100 lbs of nuts, bolts, and brackets, and is set to get electric in the next couple weeks.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to build a treehouse, so when my brother proposed the idea, I jumped at it. And at times it has been fun, a lot of fun, especially designing it. While other times, I’ve wanted to burn it to the ground…with my brother inside. The process often had me thinking about something I read in a book about fifteen years ago, where the female protagonist said that it’s often the very things that attract you to a home that later drive you insane trying to manage or upkeep.
In this case, it was the tree.
We have no clue what kind of tree it is but its trunk is about 4 feet in diameter, it pokes through the floor of the tree house in three places, and four places on the roof and walls, and it’s been a constant pain and was ALWAYS in my way. But it’s also really cool. Plus, with suddenly nothing to do with his days, my brother’s wife is sure to kick my brother out of the house soon, so he needs a comfortable place to spend his retirement, proving that you can work your entire adult life, be a success, only to end up living outside.
