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Tree House Project: Day 10, The Roof
More work on the treehouse project today. I've been dreading doing the roof of the tree house. But finally, its time had come today. The main challenge was those four corner posts. They all end at different heights, since they were buried at slightly different depths. I did a lot of laying board across pairs of them to work out which were the highest and lowest. From that, I figured out which way to have the roof slope. I decided to go for a flat, tilted roof rather than the nice sloping one on the original plans. I figured it would be easier to build. But now I needed to make two corner posts slightly higher. In the end, I cut two 2x4s to the right length for each, screwed them together and then screwed them further into the posts. Being paranoid, I will then surround these with wood above and below the join for further security. You can see the start of this in one of the photos below:
Eventually, I had all the posts to the right height. Then working with my power saw, I cut each to a nice neat diagonal, so the 2x4 framing pieces lay nicely on them. Well, I hacked brutally with the power saw until the board were level enough. Finally, I had everything screwed into place:
And a closer look (sorry it's blurry -- my camera's doing this more and more, so I think something's up with it):
Now see the thin cross pieces? I thought I'd roll the tarpaper (excuse me, the roofing felt -- when I tried to order tarpaper, they had no idea what I was talking about) across several of these. Turns out, it droops. So then I worried water would collect. I had some thicker pieces, so I thought I'd tighten the gaps. And then I thought -- you know, I should totally seal the top with wood, then put down the felt over that. Sigh. More wood will be needed -- and I won't likely get it before I leave on my trip. Plus, now I worry that extra wood means I should do yet more cross bracing of the roof. Still, I'm pressing onward. In addition, I've decided to get more creative. It's hard to see, but I've allowed the branches on one half of the tree house to stay within it. I've decided I'm going to make the side without be all roofed in, then build two little doors leading to the open other side of the top. Trust me -- it's going to be fun. In addition, my oldest son especially loves to do those rock climbing walls, when we come across one. I've got some heavy wood left, so I'm going to make a wall allowing you to climb from the ground up to the second floor. And then I'm going to worry constantly about him or others falling off of it. And then I'm going to tell myself not to worry. By Danny Sullivan on Aug. 10, 2007 | PermalinkSee related posts in: Treehouse
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Danny,
I don't know if you are looking for input here, but your should ask the lumber yard about oriented strand board (OSB). It is current material that is used for roof decking. I an mot sure you would even need to shingle it, as my kids have a skate ramp that is several years made from some scrap OSB and it has held up in the weather even without paint .
The gable roof is a big project, you get into cutting some tricky angles, you were probably better off to go with a shed design. Be sure to leave room for the tree to grow.
BTW -- your tips brought me a lot of success in the late 90's, I owe you!