Free Standing Treehouse

[buggyman1]

Stairs in, I built these in the shop then hauled them down on a trailer. I'm going to replace the treads, they are made with 2x6's and just don't seem quite wide enough so i'm gonna replace them with 2x8 treads. This is kinda what they'll look like.

 

[buggyman1]

Posts going up for the top floor. I had to cut one tree limb, thought I could work around it but it was too much in the way. I drilled all the counter-sunk holes with my drill press in the shop . I used carriage bolts and nuts to attach them (bottom floor also), they just seem to hold better than lag bolts. I installed all of them from the top deck, leaning over the edge, fun times!

 

[buggyman1]

Spindles, bunches of them. I pre-drilled 4 holes in each one and cut them to length in the shop, this took some time to do, kinda felt like working on an assembly line. Each one of them had a price upc stapled on it, what a giant pita getting all them out.

 

[buggyman1]

Top railing done. Really happy with how it turned out. Most of it was done in the middle of the night. You hear some pretty weird sounds at two o'clock in the morning. I hear coyote's yelping almost every night, talk about making the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The funniest experience I've had so far is: me, on top of the twelve foot ladder installing one of the top beams, 2 o'clock in the morning, I had this weird feeling that someone was watching me, turned around and there was a raccoon sitting in the tree beside me about ten feet away, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Anyway, heres some pics of the top railing mostly done...check out the view.

 

[buggyman1]

Backside, the opening is for a swinging bridge. I decided to make a swinging bridge to attach to a nearby walnut tree about 50 feet away. I going to have to do quite a bit of bracing to the top of the tree house to withstand the load of a cable bridge. Should be fun.

 

[buggyman1]

I'm going to put side braces and back braces on to make it withstand the forces of the swinging bridge. The side braces will be 20' 6x6's bolted to the top beam and anchored to concrete on the bottom. Here are the concrete piers poured, the left one is below grade to keep the angle the same.

 

[buggyman1]

Making the brackets for the bottom braces. I made these out of some six inch channel I had and some plate.

 

[buggyman1]

Side braces in place. I used a chain winch to lift them in place.

 

[buggyman1]

Bracket I came up with for the main anchor for the cable and braces for two more 6x6's. This thing is heavy! I didn't weigh it but I bet it weighs 150lbs. The cables for the bridge will connect to the eyebolts and the 6x6's will bolt into the angled channel. It kinda looks like it belongs on one of the Mad Max's trucks.

 

[buggyman1]

Here's Mad Max in place all bolted up along with two more 20' 6x6's for the back brace. I dug out a hole with my backhoe 6 feet deep and about four feet wide for the anchor of the 6x6's, poured 118 bags of concrete for the pad to set and bolt them to, then formed-up and poured 34 more bags on top of the pad to encase the bottom of the 6x6's and brackets. I then covered it all up with backfill. I don't think it's going anywhere.