Burning Quotations

Wood burning that is. . . Mea and I thought the steps need more than just one interesting quote. So she added a little Tolkien.

While I was adding a little Sir Barrie. By the way Mea will be 19 years old tomorrow, June 1, 2006. Happy Birthday Mea!

Shhhh. . . Quiet Artists At Work

Not! This family is anything but quiet. We borrowed Stacey's wood burning kit and decided that the steps would be "really cool" with just a little mystical touch. Taylor tries her hand at wood burning, and with her creativity she did a wonderful job!

Nick wasn't so bad either, he made wood burning look really easy and he got a lot of the art work done.

Nick just kicked back and wood burned away.

I had to try my hand at it, after all why should the kids have all the fun. Taylor took my picture and by the looks of it she got my best side!

But wait . . . isn't that her little sneakers standing on the steps above me. . .


She takes a pretty good picture and this, of course, is my best side. The glasses look a little funky though...

All in A day's Work

Mea & Royce measure and cut a few more boards before calling it a day. These boards will be the walkway that surrounds the actual treehouse.

Royce nails the boards in place, he's trying to get just a few more completed before the sun goes down.

It's almost time to go in for dinner so Mea sweeps the sawdust and pine needles off the treehouse floor.

While Royce starts putting away the tools for the day.

Here is the view of the beginning of the walkway looking up from ground level. It won't be long now. The work on the flooring is moving along really fast.

This day is done.

Team Sisters

Never underestimate the power of sisters. From Stacey & Stephaney measuring to Mea sawing, to Stacey nailing while Stephaney holds the board in place, working together the floor comes together.

Stephaney meditates while Stacey nails one of the last boards for the day in place.

There's still a lot of boards that need to be nailed but the work for today is done and it's time for a little relaxation.

Job well done girls, just one more daring pose. Notice I'm back on solid flooring taking this picture, I'll leave the open spaces to my kids that seem to have no fear.

Stimulating Creativity

With sawing, there's sawdust. Where's there's sawdust, there's Taylor being creative as usual.

She loves to make things, and almost always those things are unusual.

Here she's attempting to creat sawdust art, but she just hasn't figured out how to make it stay on her canvas, which turns out to be a remnant from the treehouse floor.

Sorry Taylor, the measuring tape won't help, but your art work is unique!

And you did manage to create some Devil horns behind your Mama's head

Whole Lotta Measure N' Go N' On

Stephaney and Stacey are in charge of measuring the floor boards to be certain that they are cut to the right length. But as you can see they were measuring more than just boards.

So who has the longest nose, Stephaney or Stacey?

And then the measuring got more detailed, I refrained from posting some of the parts that got measured because, after all, this is a family blog. I'll leave it to your imagination. . .

Stephaney thought Stacey was getting a little carried away so she decided to try to take control of the situation.

Where was Mea during all this measuring? She was laughing and dancing around on the floor with her measuring tape clipped on her.

After all that carrying on, it was time to get back to measuring the boards.

Treehouse Door Accessories

Isn't this an awesome doorbell. It's an antique manual doorbell that was patented on March 14, 1899. It's brass with cast iron working parts and still works! Only one little catch, when we make the treehouse door has to be up to only 2 1/4 inches thick.

I wanted a skeleton key lock for the door and I found this one on Ebay (of course). I took it to a locksmith to get an extra key and his eyes lit up. He said this lock was from an old plantation and was made back in the 1800s. How do you know this?, I asked. He told me that it had two different size keys that fit it, and that one side of the door had two key holes and the other had only one. One key was given to the house slaves and only the master had both keys. This was to keep the slaves from entering the master's quarters when the master was sleeping. One of those "Just in case" precautions. It made an interesting story. If only this lock and doorbell would talk.

Family Circus

Our UPS Delivery man, Robert, has been delivering a multitude of tree house things. He always does a great job and I show him some of the tree house stuff that he delivers. Today he came in with this Family Circus cartoon. Isn't it adorable!

Putting it All Together

When it comes time for the treehouse floor boards to be put in place, who ya gonna call?

Saturday we started working on nailing the floor together. After a lot of hauling the tools up the stairs, measuring, sawing, and nailing. The floor started coming together.

Forget Charlie! These are Daddy's Angles. (Angels)

By the Way Stacey turns 29 years old on May 11, 2006. Happy Birthday Stacey!

This is how our treehouse looks so far. It's really coming right along.