Build Your Tree House Inexpensively and Simply- EASY TIPS

Check out my book in the description down below. What's up guys? DekeRelaxax.com. Also my other channel Streets Shall Provide. Check that out. And my transforming A-frame cabin plans, which have gone more than worldwide in the description below. Today, no razzle dazzle. I'm kind of losing my voice here. I'm like the DIY Lemmy from Motorhead. Want to show you a simple kind of redneck ish money-saving cradle that allows for movement that I use sometimes while building tree houses. And I do a lot of tree houses. So let me show, let me explain. All right. So here it is always made out of pressure treated wood. And a lot of times I have these leftover four by fours PT again that I use to assemble these cradles for tree houses, not gigantic tree houses, but you know, small to midsize ones. They work pretty well. What I also do is I'm going to run one of the carrying boards, one of the girders here. We've painted this tree just once with a big old lag sprue with a cut slot allowing for movement. I won't tighten it all the way. So when this tree shakes or blows, it's an old, this thing will move because you don't want it tearing apart. Otherwise the metal on top allows for slippage. It encourages it because otherwise if it's just, and this will be tacked out, it's just in the wood. There's a lot of friction there. You could be grinding wood against wood and over time it will wear it out, chip it away. Not good. So I'll tack this down lightly. Sometimes I've oiled them or greased them. If I don't have the metal, I've used beer cans cut apart for tree houses. We did one with tiny house listings, Stephen Harrell at a workshop with beer cans that worked pretty well. Still holding up to this day, five years later. These, it's a variety of toe screwing, triangulating pieces, and there's a big old lag that goes through here and one upward here to tie the initial T together. 45 cut in the bottom to somewhat sexily blend it back into the tree. This will be painted afterwards. It's not going to look this, heinous and it kind of protects it as well. But by having this cap here and the two by six atop the two by four or the four by four, excuse me, you have almost this somewhat of a drip edge, a drip edge. So the rain doesn't run down as much as this and doesn't prematurely rot it out. Again, it's pressure treated. These are just tacked to high heaven, but while being careful not to overdo it or you kind of ruin the structural integrity of the wood. And then I pin it into the tree with some other timber locks. I love these things. They're super strong, easy to drive with my Milwaukee driver over there, making sure you have the top of this nice and level with a four foot level. I piloted some holes to sink these just a little bit so they'd go further into the tree. And, uh, here they're kind of staggered as I go down. Reason being, I try to avoid putting too many holes straight in the line and the tree because it promotes damage and growth over time. Uh, I wish I could stagger them more, but in this case I really can't. And that will have to do. Uh, you later can putty these up if you don't want, uh, by that, I mean, silicone sealant, uh, you know, dab or dap, excuse me, caulking. Uh, so water doesn't get in here and ride out some of the area inside that might not be as pressure treated as the rest. So just the overview again, no razzle dazzle here. There's a simple cradle. This tree, the supporting boards will be permanently affixed to with a backup cleat underneath them. So if one fails, the other will prevail. We'll hold up and it rides atop this one. As I mentioned, by building this little cradle or brace here, I can put the beams on top of it, thus freeing my hand. So I can level the beams and attach them at the tree over on the other side with minimal effort. Here's a quick shot. With some of the beams in, I usually don't use four by fours, but this tree house won't be that big. I can beef them up and they're taken from a salvage pile from a deconstructed fort. Another video on streets that shall provide that the client wanted used to save some money. So it's going to take a little more time to use these, but they won't be wasted. You can already hear the tree not creaking, but these sliding. So even with the metal flashing in there to promote sliding, you still hear that because there is some wind. There's no leaves in the tree just yet, but it's blowing and moving. So I'm going to make sure I keep ample space for growth. There you go. A little more than that in either side of the tree. And this will be tied to this firmly. So they sway and move as one. Oftentimes, not that I want to overpin the trees, but trees are very resilient. I will put a supportive backup cleat here as well. So if this ever failed, you're held up here, here. And sometimes we can even, you know, way up high, depending on the size of the tree, chain it as well. So you have like three lines of defense of insurance from this sucker falling down. I will put cleats on the other side. That's the side that will be firmly affixed to that tree. I am going to be filming this entire tree house build. I have some other entire tree house builds we're editing right now to put on the channel. Please subscribe. Bear with me. We're all over the map sometimes, but the root of all of it's tiny houses and tree houses. So if once in a while we deviate, please stay with us. I appreciate your sponsorship, your support and all that. So thank you for watching and we'll see you around.