Tell me about your tree houses, or forts
 

I just did brakes and an inspection on my good childhood friends BMW, and I asked him if he could remember our tree fort.
He was 4 years older than I , and I am thinking I was about 10/11 ish. We hauled a ton of lumber and materials way back in the woods , and built this killer double decker tree house . We had a window on both floors, and a working fireplace. The roof was a lookout/tree stand. We had a pulley system for bringing water and supplies up . It was a pretty big undertaking for us. I remember struggling to haul all the sheets of plywood up the tree .
It was in a massive old oak tree that sat by a really nice creek. I think I smoked my first cigar up in that old fort. I have great memories from those days.
Kids today have no idea . We learned so much from doing stuff like this .

I made about four tree forts, but they were mostly simple platforms The fanciest they got was a covering of linoleum. I did dig a couple of underground forts with tunnels and a couple of rooms. My mother always made me stop & fill them up, because she was afraid they would cave in on me. My dad got mad at me once when he brought a guy in with a tractor to level out the lot next to our house. The tractor caved in my underground fort with it's wheels on one side and had to be pulled out. A grade school friend & I would hike up into the mountains where there was an old mining camp and cart tracks with cross ties. We made a fort out of cross ties and would go up to it periodically.

In the early 90's I lived on the then new far south side of Naperville. My subdivision was under construction as were dozens around us. We would raid the dumpsters and scrap piles of houses under construction and built forts in the woods. I remember building one with a real shingled roof.

We always had to make very crude tree houses. We could bike down to TG&Y or OTASCO and get some nails, but no way we could afford any real lumber. We found scraps and used a lot of branches. It had a cool pulley system to bring stuff up and down. It was a couple of miles from home in a wooded area we called the forest.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1240198419.jpg

Built this one for my kids, 20 years ago, with light weight steel studs inside and a rolled asphalt roof.

In the woods, not far from our house, was the "dump" from when they made the neighborhood. A little bit past was "The sand dunes" where I guess they dumped sand excavated from the basements. We used to dig pits and make forts in the sand dunes with materials scavenged from "the dump". Sometimes we'd then cover them with dirt and plant plants on top, to camouflage the forts.

One distinct memory was us catching garter snakes, but also some sort of "orange" snake. We had a fairly sizeable pit dug and would put the snakes in. They would slither up the walls and escape, so someone had to be "in the pit" keeping the snakes in...

We were probably about 9...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1493667185.jpg




I figure I'm about ten years away from having grandkids. There's a tree in the back yard. Think something like this shouldn't be that hard.

My tree forts were just pallets roped to the tree. However I did some nice above ground forts and play structures in my teens. I did underground forts before that ages 8-11, I ate my Holloween candy in them so I did not have to share.

I've built several.
One behind my parents house in a willow tree when I was around 10.
I was nailing a board up high with a claw hammer and on the back swing I managed to drive the claws into my head. Bled like a stuck pig. Mom turn white as a ghost when I walked into the house with blood pouring down my face.

Built another one in a maple tree behind my grandparents farm. Had a great view down the valley from it. The stump of that tree is still visible from the living room window of the log cabin I built beside it over 50 years later.

Buddies and I spent 3 days filling sandbags to build a bunker/tunnel complex.

I built one as a kid in an 100 y/o house my parents owned in Boston. Doing some remodeling, my parents said I could have "those" doors in the garage, I was 10 or 12, I didn't know better and also took a couple of Teak doors from a different stack in the garage. My Dad was not happy when he found that I'd taken the Teak Doors, man where those things tough to drive nails into!

Building one now in my mind.....found a farm to move to in Ramona CA.

I lived in Phoenix in the first grade, my buddies and I built a fort in the back yard but the neighbor girls wanted to come in. We didn't want girls in our manly fort and told them they could come in if they took their pants of cause we knew they wouldn't. They went home and told the mamas who talked to my mom and I got into a lot of trouble. We didn't even think of it as sexual, just a way to keep them out. We even had to tear the fort down. If the girls can't come in you can't have a fort. BS.

OK, now that I'm not on the phone and I can actually type...

About 45 minutes south of me, there was a subdivision that failed in the mid/late 80s early 90s. 18,000 acres, roads, stop signs, cleared lots, drainage ponds, and 6 houses off in one corner. We used to go camping, shooting, rappelling (old lime rock quarries), hunting, etc. down there. Was great.

So this one spot we liked was nicely forested wtih the old granddaddy oak trees, and had an old lime rock quarry in it, with a big mound of red clay growing up in the middle of it. Kudzu growing everywhere, someone who had been there said it reminded him of parts of SE Asia he had been stomping around in the late 60s...

So we dug in a fire position up top of that big mountain of red clay dirt.. down into dirt 5 feet, 4 foot wide "corridors" zig zagging across it, sandbagged up top to give total depth of 7 feet to as much as 10 feet. Even managed to dig windows out and brace with more sandbags. Nice crapper built (w/ bucket and plastic bags) well away from camp area, fire pit, BBQ grill/pit zone, etc.

Checking google maps there are now more houses in the area, but all of my favorite places have houses on them.

Wonder what the construction/survey crews thought when they found it? Wonder what they thought about the TONS of steel case 762x39 empties there were all over the whole darn place?

Reminds me of whossisname in "My Side of the Mountain" (good reading btw, no matter age) who lived in the hollow of a massive old tree

had a platform in a huge avocado tree in the back yard

but the neighborhood kids build several tree forts that had a Ma Deuce
we had a 50 cal nose gun from a B-25 or the barrel and frame no guts
but a great center piece for a kid fort

Just thought I would mention that Craigslist has a "free" section in it.

Many tree houses, play structures and even trees (like walnut needing to be cut down) in it.

You can have that tree house you always wanted, and it can be for free, you just need a pickup truck and a good cover story.;)

My last one was my favorite. It was not a tree house.

There was an old lady who lived a few doors down from my best friend.

She no longer drove so did not own a car.

Had a huge 2 car detached garage with a second floor enclosed space complete with electricity.

She gave it to us to use as our "clubhouse"

My parents had recently bought all new home furnishings so we got the old stuff.

We had a TV, kick ass stereo, carpet, beds, couches, chairs, end tables and even electric space heaters for winter and a window AC for summer.

Pretty much the only things missing were kitchen and bathroom which was not a big deal since there were enough fast food joints a block away.

We pretty much lived in the place. I'd tell my mom I was sleeping at his house, he'd tell his mom he'd be at another friends down the block who would tell his mom he'd be at my place.

We'd be gone all weekend.

Sometimes we'd catch the train into NYC and go bar hopping till 4 am and just be regular hooligans.

We were 14.

Good times.

Our parents never found out.