Our Family Treehouse: May 2008

Woodland Expressions

Royce and I went to Lowe's to get some electrical supplies and I found some hanging baskets and a unique woodland face to add personality around the tree house.

I planted some vines and wandering jew plants in the baskets and hung them off the sides of the tree house.

The woodland face was a nice touch to a Maple tree growing near by.

Tomorrow is Mea's 21st Birthday, Happy Birthday Mea!!

Electric Boxes

There is a lot of electric boxes to be installed in the tree house. Royce stacked them by the front door so he could get them organized.

The canister for the front door light fixture that will shine on the door has been installed in the porch ceiling.

Our friend Steve stops by for a visit to see the progress of the tree house and gives Royce a few tips about the telephone wiring.

Telephone Wire Fun!

While Royce was running the water pipe up to the tree house, Mea and I were inside wrapping aluminum tape around the telephone wire.

This is supposed to stop static interference from invading your telephone conversations.

So for more than 3 hours Mea and I sat on the floor in the hallway wrapping this sticky aluminum tape around over 120 continuous feet of telephone wire.

If that wasn't fun I don't know what is.

Outdoor Plumbing

Royce ran the water from the faucet that was on the side of our house. He installed a tee so we would still have a water faucet on the house, then ran the pipe from the tee underground to the tree house.

We have a faucet under the tree house and another one installed up on the outside wall of the tree house.

Woot Woot!! We have water up here!

Water pipes are working great. . . . No leaks so far. We have outdoor plumbing!

Where's the Water?

Just when we thought (and I emphasize the word thought) we were finished jetting the conduit under the driveway we remembered we had not ran the water pipe yet.

Half a day later Royce got the water pipe in place (the white pipe in the trench) and a faucet attached to the pole underneath the tree house.

Now all we have to do is run the pipe up the pole. Well atleast we don't have to fish wires through this pipe. We only have to make sure the water pipe don't leak.

Modern Conveniences

It has taken quite awhile, but we finally got the trench dug and the PVC pipes jetted under the driveway for the electric, phone and cable lines to the tree house.

These pipes will carry electricity, cable and telephone lines.

Royce fastens the PVC to the braces underneath the tree house.

He has drilled a hole in the bottom of the treehouse floor so the wiring will go up through and into the tree house wall.

As you can see he measured it perfectly and the PVC pipe is up inside the front wall of the tree house. Now comes the "easy" part? Fishing all those wires through the twists and turns of the pipe. Doesn't that sound like fun . . . more like challenging. Who's up for the challenge. . . Any volunteers?

Getting Rid of the Shakes

Despite all our efforts, our family tree house still moves a bit too much when we are walking around up there.

Royce decided that a few more braces would help stabilize it. So during the first half of May that's exactly what he did.

Chimes in the Breeze

It's Mother's Day and I got some beautiful purple flowers, perfumed bath oil, confetti, bubbles & lotion gift package and a few more wind chimes to hang in the Maple trees around our family tree house. We went to the Japanese Steak House for a family Mother's Day Dinner and we also celebrated Stacey's Birthday. Every few years her birthday actually falls on the same day as Mother's Day.