chill out, girl scout

- unknown (via quotelounge)

Peter Bahouth :D.C, USA :2000

  TREE HOUSE BUILDING: What actually happens…

Tree houses are perhaps one of the most exciting forms of micro houses on the planet. I absolutely love them. The main image above is one of my favourites.. ever. It makes me drool every time I look at it! Therefore to keep myself positive about not having an amazing tree house of my own right now, I have focussed on planning myself a tree house for the future. 

Therefore I present this to you: ’HOW DO YOU EVEN BUILD A TREEHOUSE?’ I thought this would be a simple way for people to get a feel of the processes involved in making one of these bad boys.

Step one:

Pick a good old solid tree, a little like this one, and plan the height of your tree house. Too high and it’ll get wobbly, too low and it’ll be boring.

Step two:

Draw your plans, load up on your power tools, nails and hammer then go get heaps of wood and building materials to accomodate your design.  I think a good place to start would be the local revolve, as the timer tends to be cheaper, look funkier and be recycled (the earth will thank you). The instruction website recommends this much wood in these sizes, plus other equipment they used:

2 x 10’ lengths of 2 x 10 pressure treated (PT) lumber. 6 x 12’ lengths of 1 x 6 PT decking material. 6 x 8’ lengths of 2 x 6 PT lumber. 3 x 10’ lengths of 2 x 4 PT lumber. 4 x 6" long, ½" diameter galvanized lag screws and washers 1 x 8" long, ½" diameter galvanized lag screw and washer 8 galvanized joist hangers 8 galvanized rafter ties Nails, deck screws, pulley for ¼" rope Camouflage tarp

Step three:

Next thing you gotta do is nail in some strong, levelled beam supports into the side of the tree. These beams are your building blocks for the rest of the project.These beams are really tricky so it is best to refer to an exact instruction… INSTRUCTABLES

STEP FOUR:

Lay out the platform materials, build the platform, finish the platform, attach platform to supports annnnnd brace the platform. I think pictures can explain better than my words for this one.

Step five:

Lay the deck and cut around the trunk of the tree.

Step six:

For the finishing touches you need to add an entranceway

some railing

then some sides

a ladder (very important)

and last but not least a roof! Here’s where the trusty tarp comes in handy

Pretty cool design huh! Well it taught me that building a tree house wasn't as easy as I first assumed… Damn… Anyway here is a link to the actual complete instructions

As well as teaching me about construction these instructions also taught me how to use material under Creative Commons!

I was lucky enough to be able to use this work done by  makendo because he had uploaded his images and text into Instructables. Instructables makes it easy for people who post their work to choose and display what the works copyright is. In this case  makendo’s work was labelled as Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)  . This means that others can:

remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature. 

Creative Commons Link

Ecocapsule

Dwelling With The Spirit Of Freedom

Ecocapsule is a portable house offering an unmatched dwelling experience. With its immense off-grid life span, worldwide portability and flexibility it is suitable for a wide range of applications: from an independent research station or a tourist lodge to an emergency housing or a humanitarian-action unit.

Designers: Nice Architects