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It’s time to get started.
After months of talking, measuring, drawing, planning and finding the right materials, today is the day to start work in the tree at the Ithaca treehouse site. It’s a beautiful morning, aside from a digital thermometer that reads 23.6 degrees. There’s lots of sun shining off the snow cover and the ice on the pond, and the weather service promises highs in the mid 40s this afternoon. Not exactly the tropics, but we should be able to get some work done.
Late March in the Finger Lakes still means snow, but sunshine and relatively mild temperatures make it a good day to use a water level to set Garnier limb locations.
I’ll be heading out later than I’d like to today. I need to give the sun a chance to get things warmed up – at least enough to keep my water level from freezing. Because of the cold, I’ll keep the tasks light: measure, set and mark the location where the high-tech steel Garnier limbs will be installed.
These special bolts were developed by treehouse pioneer Michael Garnier, and there are eight of them on this project. That should keep me busy for a while. Drilling and installing the GLs will be its own full day, so I’ll wait for a midweek warming that’s due in the days ahead.
There are still some materials and tools to pick up, and rain in the forecast tomorrow makes that the day to finish those tasks. As for now, it’s time to get dirty.
In the spirit of treehouses and Christmas, future pirate ship captain Jack Bond got a treehouse calendar for the holidays. The gift, based on Pete Nelson’s book Treehouses of the World, features an image of a ship/treehouse in France that sparked some ideas at the Bond household.
The incredible Gainza Treehouse in Biarritz was built by a carpenter well versed in ship design, and is far more ambitious than we’re getting on the Horseheads treehouse project. One thing that did catch everyone’s eyes is the second-story bump out in the ship’s cabin, just one of the authentic details in Maxi Gainza’s masterpiece. While we don’t have a second floor here, Ed asked if we could add a similar detail to the cabin in Jack’s pirate ship treehouse. After some thought and a visit to the site to confirm tree details, we came up with a plan.
Toss in two days for redesign and material acquisition, and a multi-windowed bump out was in our future.
