Treehouse Part I

As one of my offspring is averse to reading my longer posts, I'm breaking this treehouse story into multiple parts. Of course, that works well, as this is a multi-day exercise. With help from various good folks, I'm building a treehouse (actually a house on posts, as there is no tree available for the purpose) for Henry and Clara and another child to be named later. Below are pictures of the work done on Wednesday and early Thursday morning. Rain may slow us down today.

We managed to get the postholes dug early using a power auger. The machine really speeded things up, but it gave Pete and me a real strength test. The ground was pretty wet, and at one point it threatened to screw itself into the ground, which would have made pulling it back out pretty difficult. Fortunately, we outwrestled it. No pictures of that exercise, unfortunately, but you can see that we did the final digging the old fashioned way.

Some gravel went into the bottom of each hole.

Then the 6x6 posts were dropped in.

Forms for the concrete were added.

Bracing was added to square up each post and to insure that each one was vertically true as well as properly distanced one from another.

Finally, we mixed bags of concrete with water and filled each posthole. Our backs asked for a break after two holes, so we finished up the last two just this morning. As soon as the concrete sets up, we'll get started on the actual construction of the deck and the little house that will sit atop it.