Essential Tips: How to Build a Tree House Your Kids Will Love for Years

I had a tree house as a kid. I remember the day of its building, despite the fact that I was very young.

I’m sure that it was actually built over a couple days and many of my remembrances about it are skewed by time, but the thing I remember most was the feeling of awe: ‘This is MY tree house!’ The idea that I was going to get a space to call my own was all that mattered. (Bedrooms don’t count, you have to clean them and ask permission to put posters up).

This tree house was my kid-only-space and I wanted that for our kids too.  And nothing I have every made has elicited so many sincere and joyful ‘Thank-you, Daddy’s!’.tree house

 And who doesn’t love tree houses? There are now DIY shows about their construction and Pinterest boards full of ideas so incredible that the kid in all of us screams, ‘I want that!’.

I wanted to put one in our back yard, but we lacked decent trees to make it happen. Now that we have the Mobile Home Makeover weekend property, though, the dream of being a tree house owner once again seems doable.

Here’s what we did…