The second rule is, the kids should be involved. The building of a treehouse was an important selling point when we told our boys we were moving out of the big, exciting city to a sleepy rural town. I still have our older son’s hand-drawn plans for what he wanted it to look like. (It’s close.) And they both drove some nails and screws and found some cool branches that we incorporated into the design. They participated. The last rule is, it’s not gonna end up the way you think it’s gonna end up. Meaning: Cool Minecraft Tree Houses The plan will change as you go. New ideas will form once you’re up in that tree. And other ideas will prove undoable. Branches will get in the way, and things will generally look different from the air. Even a few feet up. So improvise. Adapt. Make it yours. Or, to be more precise: Make it your kids’.
Why to Build This Treehouse
• The build requires a minimal number of nails or screws to be driven into the trees (six total, to be exact).
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• Various sizes and shapes of tree branches scavenged from the wild helps liven up the finished design.
• Using a double-trunk tree to support the treehouse adds much needed strength and stability.
How To Build It
1. Suspend the floor joists.
I chose a tree with two trunks and measured 10 feet up from the ground on each trunk. For the floor joists, I used three pressure-treated 2 x 12 boards and fanned them out from the 10-foot mark on each trunk: Cool Japanese Minecraft Imperial Palace one joist on the outside edges of the trees, and one threaded through the V in the middle.
Steel tie rods
Cole WIlson
I supported the outer ends of the joists with vertical pressure-treated 4 x 4 posts and clamps to hold them steady. Next, then I drilled 5/16-inch-diameter holes through the joists and ran ¼-inch-diameter x 3-foot-long galvanized-steel threaded rods through all three joists—but not through the tree trunks. I secured the 2 x 12s snugly to the trunks by adding nuts and washers to the ends of the rods and tightening them with a wrench. So, at this point, the three big floor joists were splayed out into the air. The joists were tightly secured to the trunks at one end by the threaded rods, and propped up on the other by vertical
4 x 4s.
2. Fasten the base and build the floor. The 4 x 4 posts on the outer ends of the joists became permanent supports, strengthened by diagonal pressure-treated 2 x 4 struts. Using a cordless impact driver, I screwed the joists to the upper ends of the 4 x 4s with an exterior-grade fastener: GRK 3 1/8-inch structural screws. (Pre-boring the joists with screw-shank clearance holes makes the screws go in a whole lot easier.) Then I used 3-inch-long galvanized decking screws to attach the 2 x 4 struts to the posts, as pictured. The struts add rigidity to the frame and help prevent swaying and wobbling.
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