Scattered

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how many treehouses there are all over town, given how damn cool they are. I found this one in Magnolia in Seattle and I've seen a couple since.

On other news, I've been e-mailing with a realtor about property to build my treehouse. He works at Greenworks Realty, they specialize in "green" properties (solar, greenhouses and the like). Treehouses, too, maybe then?

Hidden Aerie

It was a crisp, bluebird day here in Seattle yesterday, a fine patina of frost clinging to every shaded leaf and blade of grass well into the afternoon. I took advantage of the sunny weather to take a nice long bike ride, up out of Wallingford through Wedgewood and up towards Shoreline. Typically, when I take these rides, I don't take any of the major bike trails like the Burke Gilman or Lake Washington Blvd. Instead, I prefer to cruise the the little neighborhood roads, left here, right there, checking out the kids playing in the street, the yuppies tending their yards. Seattle's great for such meandering, as it's chock full of pockets of garden art and other oddities.

Case in point, I'm riding yesterday, take a little detour through one of the greenspaces past a dead end, haul my bike over a few tree stumps and across a stream and what do I find? Well, this isn't the Rusting Cars blog or the Junkie in Woods blog, it's the Treehouse blog, so, shouldn't be too hard to guess that I found myself a treehouse. Just a little one, for sure, but still this delightful aerie was nestled above a bubbling little brook, a hidden piece of serenity amidst the hecticness. A couple of the rungs bolted into the tree spun like windmills when I climbed up, but it was still mighty, mighty peaceful up there.

Now, if I could just fit a bed, a potbellied stove and some lounging furniture up there, I'd be done.

Treehouse Guide

I found another great resource for Treehouses on the net: The Treehouse Guide. It's generally well designed and has a great trove of building advice, book reviews and links, but most promising is a list of treehouses that people have built. Unfortunately, the list is mostly just short text descriptions, no photos in-line and few links to external sites describing the treehouses. Those sites that do have links are almost all dead now.

I was struck, as I looked through the list of treehouses that the site provides, that what I want out of a treehouse is really more tree than house. There are a number of treehouses listed that look on the inside like any old cabin that happen to be located in or near a tree (for example). Let me be 100% clear: this is not what I want. If I wanted painted sheetrock and linoleum floors and cheap oak cabinets, I'd buy a trailer and hoist into the air. I want to sleep in the arms of the tree and frolick in her branches. The house should be almost part of the tree.

I've been thinking that it would be fun to put together a Google Maps interface that would let you browse treehouses by location. It will take some work, but I've got time.

Romero Studios

Apparently, little did I know it, Seattle is a beehive of treehouse activity! Not only is the aforementioned Treehouse Workshop here in Seattle, but Durin let me know that Romero Studios is also in Seattle. Apparently, Roderick Romero, lead singer for the ambient, neo-psychedelic Sky Cries Mary, designs and builds treehouses and other structures out of salvaged materials.

There are some beautiful pieces pictured on their web site, but I think my favorite is the one shown here. It's a little nest perched in a tree. Much smaller than what I envisage my treehouse will eventually look like, but it exactly captures the mood I want.

Tin Roof

Treehouse Workshop, Inc. specializes in building tree houses. They are based in sunny Seattle, Washington. This post will continue after I change my underwear.

Anyway, they've got a good list of books, other resources on the web, etc. I'll explore these and post here as appropriate and I've signed up for for their workshop mailing list, so more should come in the future.

They've got a beautiful gallery of treehouses they've built. They've got some great examples of what I don't want (i.e., houses built on platforms that happen to be in between trees) as well as exactly what I do want (e.g., houses built around the trunks of trees high in the air).

This one perplexes me. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it. It looks kind of like someone built a house and then dropped it into a tree.

Oh, here's one cool idea I found on their site that I want to add to my requirements list: tin roof so I can hear the rain. Mmmm...pitter pat.

Australian Arboreal Living

Treehugger posted this one this morning:

The Sydney Morning Herald recently featured a tree house built by Andrea Wilson and with her husband, Rod Simpson. Their tree house has windows covered with two types of materials: one of sail cloth, the other of polycarbonate. When open, they provide not only views down to the jetty at Wollstonecraft, but plenty of natural ventilation.

Across the open-plan space on a diagonal, the kitchen area can also be opened up by removing individual panels of recycled corrugated polycarbonate, each one fastened in place with a primitive catch featuring long wooden rods.

The materials in the house are recycled. The decking in the kitchen courtyard is second-hand jarrah, the kitchen drawers, built by the architect Drew Heath, are ironbark with leather thongs as handles. Other storage units, including a credenza in the kitchen and surfaces in Wilson's office area, are made of plywood, as are the unpainted walls and ceilings.


:: Sydney Morning Herald via Land+Living via Treehugger

Inaugural Entry

I'm going to build a treehouse, damn it. Not a couple of planks nailed to a dead oak in my parent's backyard, nor a regular house on stilts, but a full-on friggin' treehouse that has a circular staircase curling around the trunk to the front door, limbs growing in the midst of the living room, a zip-line to bedroom, a balcony overlooking the forest floor below, a fireman's pole for quick escapes, a rope swing from the deck to river, a pot-bellied stove huffing and puffing its way to warmth in the winter, cozy little nooks carved and twisted into the arms of nature. A real TREEHOUSE just like I always dreamed of, except now I'm really going to do it.

This blog will initially be collecting links to interesting treehouse and treehouse related things I find on the web and elsewhere, to give me ideas. Later, it will document the construction of my treehouse. Later still, I will post pictures of my treehouse and you will be jealous because you will want treehouses of your own. Well, you can have one of your own, or you can come visit mine. I promise not to post a "No Girls Allowed" sign on my treehouse.