How to Design a Tree House

Designing a tree house can be both fun and challenging. If you allow your imagination and your children to guide you, it can lead to a surprisingly good effect. While it does take an hour or two for a proper design to take place, the finished tree house will be one that will create memories for many years to come.

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pencil
• Tape measure
• Tree
• Ladder
• Camera

Instructions

Scouting a Site

1. Have the kids help pick out the best tree for the tree house. This will be what you design around.

2. Take your digital camera and snap a few pictures of where the tree house will be. You will use these later as a reference for your design.

3. Put the ladders up against the tree, climb up and begin to take measurements of the branches and the distances between the branches.

4. Estimate where the strongest branches are for tree house support. Check to see if you may need braces in between branches,

5. Get more pictures of specific areas where tree house supports will be placed to help with the design.

Planning

1. Estimate how many kids will be in the tree house at one time, and how big the children are in weight and height. This will help determine the height of the tree house and the thickness of the lumber needed.

2. Design the tree house across multiple branches if possible. This provides even weight distribution.

3. Draw a sketch design of the tree house on paper. This will be your blueprint

4. Add the measurements of the tree house to the paper design. Check the paper tree house design with the pictures to see if they match up.

5. Decide if the tree house will use a rope ladder or regular ladder and where the opening in the tree house will be. Let the kids plan this part of the design.

6. Have the kids design where the windows will be in the tree house.

7. Write up a lumber and materials list using the tree house design as a guide.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember to design a slope into the roof of the tree house to allow rain and snow to run off.

• Do not design the tree house to be too close to any roadways, homes, fences or over hazards.