Did you ever have a treehouse?

[Rain Man]

My wife and I drove by a house the other day that had a big fancy treehouse in the back. (It was on a corner lot so we saw it from the side, just in case you're wondering.)

It started a conversation about treehouses, and the requirements for one. You basically had to have...

...a kid who wants one, which is an easy requirement if there's a kid since all kids want one.

...a big tree with the right shape that's in an accessible location and not over a road or anything.

...generally a parent who is handy.

...a parent who actually has the time and interest to build a treehouse.

...probably a homeowning family that has the stability to afford a treehouse and live in the home long enough to justify the construction cost and effort.

We decided that this combination is rare, so treehouses are rare. My wife was also skeptical of my claim that nearly all boys want a treehouse growing up, as opposed to nearly all girls wanting a horse. But that's another issue.

Did you have a treehouse as a kid?

Poll coming as soon as I can nail in the boards.

[mr. tegu]

We made our own as best we could though the word “house” would have to be used generously. Usually just nailing boards to trees as a ladder to a few choice spots in the tree where we could either sit on the branches or put in a few shelves to sit on. It’s amazing how much freedom we had to explore and do different things outside. Seems uncommon these days.

[Rain Man]

As for me, I never had one. I would have liked one, but we never had the perfect tree for it, and I also knew that my dad had no interest or experience in building such a thing. So I lived a tame life in my bedroom and concentrated on things like collecting football cards.

[Rain Man]

We made our own as best we could though the word “house” would have to be used generously. Usually just nailing boards to trees as a ladder to a few choice spots in the tree where we could either sit on the branches or put in a few shelves to sit on. It’s amazing how much freedom we had to explore and do different things outside. Seems uncommon these days.

You probably didn't even have to wear a helmet in your treehouse in those days.

[wheeler08]

I never wanted one until I watched TreeHouse Masters

[Buehler445]

There was one at the house I grew up in but it was constructed roughly 480 BCE. I could get up there but it wasn’t much of a tree house.

Now that I’m old and have arthritis in my knees the whole thing seems ludicrous.

[philfree]

Way back in about 1970 there was a tree house that we road to on our mini bikes. It was a nice structure and the older boys left their porno mags their so it was cool. Thinking about those years was a lot like 'The Summer Of 69'. A lifetime ago...

[cdcox]

I had a play house that sat on the ground. Here are my memories of it:
1) I needed to put shingles on it when I was 6. My dad informed be that I was doing it wrong by failing to overlap the shingles. I went out after breakfast to rip them off and do it right. I fell off the chair and broke my arm.
2) When we moved from KC to Endicott, NY the playhouse made the journey.
3). Wasps.

While wandering the woods in Endicott, we came across a magnificent multi story tree house. Though not completed, it was epic. It was a base of operations from which a 9 year old could rule the world.

When my daughter turned five, I built her a tree house of sorts. It was more of a well-built platform off the ground. This was at a rental house. A few years later we bought a house about 3 miles away and I transported the platform from the rental house to the new house. It still stands in our back yard today more than 20 years later. I bet her total time using the tree house in both locations was less than 10x the time it took me to build it. In my early days of bbqing, I would hang out in her tree house with my smoker. I think when I became a father I sought to vicariously live out my dreams of having a ginormous tree house like the one I discovered in Endicott through my daughter.

[Fish]

I had a pretty cool one that my dad built for me. Supported between the trunks of two trees that were about 5' apart. Tree house itself was probably 7' x 10'. About 30' off the ground. Ladder built up the trunk of one tree to a trapdoor in the floor of the tree house. Had windows that could be opened on the sides, that I used to shoot birds with my BB gun. Some chairs and a little table inside. Shelves for comics, books, and porno mags I stole from my dad's stock in the garage. I was also into model cars and airplanes at that age, so I would hang out in there for hours working on models. Hanging the airplanes from the ceiling with fishing line.

Good memories...

[Dartgod]

We had a pretty good one. My dad had a wood shop in our garage, so he was pretty handy and had a lot of scrap wood to help build it with. We even had carpeting, which had to be ripped out when some of the bullies in the neighborhood got up there one night and pissed all over it.

[eDave]

No treehouse but a tree in our backyard had a small natural platform. I spent countless hours up there.

[UK_Chief]

Bart Simpson has one. Not sure if that wrecks your theory?

[Miles]

I’m honestly not sure if I’ve seen one before.

[scho63]

No treehouse but we did build an incredible fort in the woods that we hid so well that it was hard for even us to find!

Had all kinds of stuff in it and it was pretty big for being around 13-14 years old

[GloryDayz]

Mine would be best described as a platform, but yes.

[oldman]

My treehouse years were spent in western Kansas, so there's not a lot of trees big enough to have one. My buddies and I did find one that we could climb and sit on the branches, so we nailed a couple boards to the trunk and that was it.

[tmax63]

Built a treehouse myself when I was a kid and later found an abandoned shed on our farm that I made a nice room in in one end. Used cardboard boxes flattened out for insulation and with a few candles or a very small campfire it would be nice and warm even when there was snow out. Went and looked at it later in life before it collapsed/demo'd and it didn't seem near as "cool" as it did at the time.

[seclark]

Not as a kid cause we lived in state parks. Not our trees.
Built a shitty one for my sons w a rope ladder.
Few years back helped my son build a real nice one for his kids, then he sold the house to two lesbians.
Sec
The property not just the tree house

[ChiTown]

We didn’t personally have one, but our neighbor behind us did and it was flipping amazing. He was an architect and build this thing to last forever. It was a double-decker, and there were many Summer nights spent inside that tree house as a kid. So many great memories and so much fun....

[CrookedTrump]

My wife found a kit she liked online but instead if ordering the kit (which was expensive) she went to Home Depot and ordered everything through them and planned building to that kits design. I had previously informed her that I wasn't up for at as I do and have done a lot of projects (additions, basement finishing, decks, pool decks, brick patios, retaining walls etc...) Like I said I just wasn't up for it. Anyways she figured she could do it herself and we had well over $1000 of lumber delivered. That was at least 3 years ago and what's left of the pile is out back behind the fence rotting. I did use some of the pressure treated lumber for a raised garden and a retaining wall but the rest just sits there. My youngest daughter is now 14 and isn't interested anymore. I knew when my wife bought the lumber it was never going to happen but is what it is....

[patteeu]

They seemed pretty common in the rural area I grew up in, but most of them were kid-built and probably weren't up to code.

[seclark]

They seemed pretty common in the rural area I grew up in, but most of them were kid-built and probably weren't up to code.
I fell out of a couple.
Sec

[MahiMike]

The nhood kids all got together and built a double-decker mega tree house. I built a little one at home. Both houses were built by kids no older than 14. That would never happen today.

[patteeu]

I fell out of a couple.
Sec

I assume they had faulty railings and defective safety tethers. I saw many of those deathtraps in my youth.

[TimeForWasp]

Two of my sisters and I in our tree house platform. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, so this would be approximately 1966, 1967

[BWillie]

My first girlfriend molested me in my treehouse.

[Rain Man]

The nhood kids all got together and built a double-decker mega tree house. I built a little one at home. Both houses were built by kids no older than 14. That would never happen today.

Did they build it in someone's yard, or did they pick a park or vacant lot?

I knew a guy once who decided that he was going to build a castle. He started hauling small stones around to build the foundation, and then someone mentioned to him that he didn't own the land, so he abandoned it. He was probably 21 at the time and not the clearest thinker.

[seclark]

Bunch of us guys worked on a clubhouse that we were gonna move up in a tree, but that never came to be.
Sec

[MahiMike]

My wife found a kit she liked online but instead if ordering the kit (which was expensive) she went to Home Depot and ordered everything through them and planned building to that kits design. I had previously informed her that I wasn't up for at as I do and have done a lot of projects (additions, basement finishing, decks, pool decks, brick patios, retaining walls etc...) Like I said I just wasn't up for it. Anyways she figured she could do it herself and we had well over $1000 of lumber delivered. That was at least 3 years ago and what's left of the pile is out back behind the fence rotting. I did use some of the pressure treated lumber for a raised garden and a retaining wall but the rest just sits there. My youngest daughter is now 14 and isn't interested anymore. I knew when my wife bought the lumber it was never going to happen but is what it is....

This is a sad story.

[MahiMike]

Did they build it in someone's yard, or did they pick a park or vacant lot?

I knew a guy once who decided that he was going to build a castle. He started hauling small stones around to build the foundation, and then someone mentioned to him that he didn't own the land, so he abandoned it. He was probably 21 at the time and not the clearest thinker.

I meant to add it was out in the middle of the woods. So even the work to get to the spot was impressive.

[Rain Man]

Bunch of us guys worked on a clubhouse that we were gonna move up in a tree, but that never came to be.
Sec

I'm not sure that was a viable plan anyway, if it makes you feel better.

[Rain Man]

Not as a kid cause we lived in state parks. Not our trees.
Built a shitty one for my sons w a rope ladder.
Few years back helped my son build a real nice one for his kids, then he sold the house to two lesbians.
Sec
The property not just the tree house

I bet they immediately took down the "No gurlz allowed" sign off the treehouse door.

[threebag]

We had a multi level multi tree palace with lookouts

[hometeam]

Me and my cousin built it on my grandparents land. years later we would sneak out and use it to smoke pot at thanksgiving. It was a strong platform, with railings, no roof.

[KurtCobain]

I stayed a couple of nights in someone's shitty treehouse.

[Caseykid]

Lived on 5 acres in Wyandotte county. I built a two story walled tree house. You accessed the second story thru a hatch in the roof of the first floor. Spent most of my time chasing other neighborhood kids out of it. Had some valuable "reading" material in it. :thumb:

[Buehler445]

My treehouse years were spent in western Kansas, so there's not a lot of trees big enough to have one. My buddies and I did find one that we could climb and sit on the branches, so we nailed a couple boards to the trunk and that was it.

Where did you grow up old man?

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Now they call them tree stands

[Rain Man]

I'm learning in this thread that there's a strong connection between treehouses and pornography.

[Buehler445]

I'm learning in this thread that there's a strong connection between treehouses and pornography.

Your scope is incorrect. The real correlation is between adolescent boys and pornography.

[threebag]

Yeah we kept our reading material in the fort we had built by the river