Treehouse

Treehouse with slide, trapdoor, winch & mud kitchen with running water!

As a kid I always wanted a treehouse and at the back of my mind I was always going to build one for my own kids, the perfect opportunity came for me to start this project when all of a sudden I had the opportunity for a pile of wood available to me free of charge from a number of extremely large work tables that were no longer needed and were to be scrapped by HFE Signs.

The plastic table tops were also perfect for the slide I had in mind!

First I had to work out the height of the base, this was calculated based upon the ladders I would use for access and also the angle of the slide. I then started to attach the wooden frame to the tree.

The frame provides the main strength, I used 6x2" timbers for the horizontal strength and bolted these in place using M10 threaded bar. The vertical supports are 5x5"

The floor sections were filled in using plywood from the old table, I had to cut and piece together various sizes to efficiently utilize the wood available. The slide was constructed with the smooth top made from scrap material that was donated from HFE Signs, this material is used for Printed Signs. The safety rail was constructed using roof tile lath.

I wanted to keep the roof as light as possible but also waterproof, I constructed the frame and then used PVC Banner material from HFE Signs. HFE specialise in Printed Banners and supply them any sizes and with or without eyelets, the material is waterproof so made the perfect choice and I had a print applied to make it look like wooden tiles :)

I constructed the mud kitchen, this has a water tub which collects rainwater from the banner roof, the water is connected to the tap via a length of hosepipe

The winch was salvaged from an old boat trailer, this was ideal because it has a ratchet lock in both directions and also has mechanical advantage so the kids can lift a heavy weight but not too heavy (I don't want then to lift each other!)