If you "Like" us on Facebook, you may know that my son, Cru, was born yesterday afternoon and we couldn't be happier!  He is big, healthy, and perfect....and finally asleep so I have a few minutes sitting here in the hospital to do some blogging. It's appropriate since his big sister will have to share said tree house with him!

Where to start? As I said in the last post, we are insulated and drywalled but we are also wired.  We have lights, plugs, and a 4 circuit breaker box.  Everything is basically wired up like an RV and the entire house can be "plugged in" and powered up. I plan on going solar in the future but, for now, it can be run off a generator or plugged into an RV outlet.

After the drywall and one layer of tape, we trimmed everything out inside.  Usually trim comes last but with a really thick hand texture, I figured it would be much easier to just texture to the trim.  For the window casing, we ripped down cedar fence pickets from a gate we had to remove.  The window trim is mostly the siding ripped down with some of the junk pile mixed in where applicable and the base board is the cedar siding ripped down with a decorative top cut by way of router.

  Also after a layer of tape came the loft.  It was framed using left over material from the deck framing.  The beam was attached to the walls with angle brackets that took some customizing.  I had to cut about an inch out of each one and drill new holes for the lags, no big deal, something we come across every day, making stuff work.  

The hand texture came out AWESOME! We slopped it on everywhere, scraped it off the trim, and painted everything Navajo White(I had a bunch in my garage leftover from another project).  I am hoping to put the redwood down on the deck on Friday(if we are out of here), build the handrail, build the steps, and find a slide.  After that, it's some finishing touches, landscaping, and decorating.  Enjoy the pictures and I will keep you posted!

     We have made some great progress in the past few days of working on the tree house.  I really need to update the blog more often so I can remember what we've done.... Let's see, where did we last part? It is completely dried in, roof is done, windows/doors are done, siding and trim are done, the deck is framed, it's completely insulated(better than my house) the ceiling is done in the same salvaged cedar siding, and the drywall is hung on all the walls.

     The roof went as expected....a pain!  An 11 in 12 pitch on a roof is gnarly, I realize it doesn't look that steep in the pictures but I assure you it is!  We put ourselves in some pretty hairy predicaments often in this line of work but this roof was bad.  

     The windows and door all went as expected...easy!  As long as your framing is good, windows and doors are easy!  Our framing is always perfect so these went like a breeze.  The toughest part was building a door frame for the full light door panel from Habitat for Humanity.  The windows all look great, I especially like the two funky shaped ones on the front wall seen in the picture.  I can't believe I got these brand new, high end windows for $200 total! That includes a 7-0x4-0 wood framed, crank out, the two funky ones on the front, a 3-0x3-0 on the other side, and two more of the funky ones that I will be donating back to Habitat still brand new.(Just couldn't fit them)

     Siding and trim was really fun, this is where it really starts looking sweet!  Siding goes quick, even using old, dirty, mangled lap siding.  Along with the siding came a pile of janky randomness, it consisted of some mis-cuts from mills and just your basic scrap pile finds.  We broke out the table saw and went to town cleaning it up.  All of the trim around the windows and door came from this pile and ended up looking nice.  Some of the "mis-cuts" were pretty crazy with a thickness range of 1"-2.5" in an 8' board....if that doesn't make sense to you....it's weird and hard to work with.  As for the corner trim, we ripped the fascia board cutoffs in half and had just enough....(well we ended up about 4' short but were able to fill that piece in with something from our scrap pile)

    We framed up the deck, it wraps around two sides and has a tree growing up through it.  I am currently on the hunt for some sort of salvaged or reclaimed decking but I am thinking I may just buy some redwood so it's done. Framing this deck took about two minutes, we are the best in the business when it comes to decks and it is where we truly shine.  I am not trying to "toot" my crew's horn or anything, just stating facts! :)  When completed, there will be a slide built into the handrail on the right side by the two funky windows and a set of stairs on the left side that tie into a flagstone landing and natural stone steps.

On to the interior, ceiling and walls are completely insulated and covered up.  We used the cedar lap on the ceiling and drywall on the walls.  We will be doing a thick, old-world swirl hand texture on the walls and ripping down cedar lap siding for interior trim......Interior pictures to follow.

Thanks for reading, I will try to be more diligent with the updates even when we aren't working on it!