Finishing Touches

We put the finishing touches on the railing with Theo's branches. Doesn't the cause of Theo's delivery delay look great!

I'm sure he would agree, something good always comes out of something bad. However, maybe his boss wouldn't agree. Anyway . . .

After all those rails I drilled and hammered into place, it was during the final ones I got a little boo-boo. Hit my index finger with the hammer and busted it good. OW!

But that did stop me from acting silly. . . after all we had finished the railing.

FINALLY . . .

FINIS

Tree House Fairy Comes Through

I didn't have my camera with me so you'll have to picture this in your mind. It's lunch time and I'm at work at our store. The phone rings, it's Andy, he had gone home for lunch. He lives just around the corner from the store. He's all excited and his language is quite colorful. Too colorful for this family blog. But the jest of the conversation was that a tractor trailer hit a huge branch on an oak tree that overhangs the road and the truck was hung up.

I jump into my car and drive around the corner to find . . . sure enough . . .the railing branches we need! The truck couldn't go backwards or forwards because the branch had broken off and fallen down between the tractor and the trailer. One of the smaller branches that was only about as big around as my leg was caught between the top of the truck cab and the exhaust stack. The driver, a tall black man, is jumping up and down on the oak branch trying to make it break off. The only thing he succeeded in doing was wedging it down further between the stack while creating a dent in the cab.

To make a long story short: I told Theo (that's the driver's name) that my husband, Royce, has a chain saw at the store and that I would go get him, the chain saw and a pickup truck to haul away the branches. And that's exactly what happened.

Royce cut up the large branches into treehouse railing post size and Theo was grateful that we got him out of a major bind. He helped us load the branches into the truck and drove off towards Orlando to make more deliveries. Hopefully his next delivery won't involve another oak tree. Treehouse fairies come in all shapes and sizes . . . Thanks Theo.

Just A Little More To Go

The final posts go into place. The forever railing is coming to an end as Royce puts the last pieces into place.

Our next challenge is to find more tree branches. . . hey tree branch fairy can you help us out?

We only need a few more to complete our task. Stephaney's board goes into its spot.

The ground looks an awful long way down. . . and this is a man afraid of heights. . . I don't believe it. Maybe once but not anymore.

Next comes Stacey's, last but certainly not least.

There everything is done except for the branch posts. Wonder where we are going to find those. Well I'm not letting it worry me, everything always works itself out . . . some how.

So what do you think? Looks good huh!

The Railing Boards Are Completed!

Take a look at this woodburning. Stephaney completed her board. On one side of it she put her last name in Celtic lettering.

And on the other side she has a kneeling fairy, a tiger, a butterfly in flight, and a Celtic knot. Awesome work, Steph.

Next is Stacey's board, at the top is a lady fairy , a kneeling fairy and a dude fairy. Stacey also put her name on the back side of the board with a heart and the year, 2006. She always tells us she is the artist in the family. . . Looks like we have more than one artist . . . great job on the woodburning everyone!

These are the last two railing boards that we have to put in place. Then we have to find branches for the railing. The ones we have got ruined by bugs from laying on the ground so we have to find so new ones.

Royce is drilling a hole for the bracket so the last railing boards can be attached. Almost done, the railing seems like it has taken a very long time but I think it looks awesome!

Return of Max Headroom

You remember the board that we used as scaffolding that Royce banged his head on. Well. . . while we are waiting for the woodburning of the railing post to be completed we started putting in the floor bracing.

We employed the help of Max Headroom again and turned him into a lever to lift the edge of the flooring to make sure it was level before bolting the wooden braces into place. This time no heads got banged.

As you can see we have the first two braces done, the floor is level on this side and now we are ready to move on the the next area.

Labor Day Weekend Starts

Nelle made her first visit to our treehouse Saturday. She graduated high school with Royce and we are now on the committee working on the next high school reunion together. Hey guys . . . this lovely lady is recently single!

She's not as vertically challenged as I am, I'm only 5' and she's 5' 2". You know what they say good things come in small packages.

It has been threateniing to rain all day so we are planning to work on the treehouse tomorrow. But it looks like rain is expected tomorrow also. . . Well we have Labor Day off too so hopefully we can get something done this weekend. Hey Stephaney and Stacey we're still waiting on those railing boards~