Tree House vs. Dog House

I hope I'm not disappointing anyone as I inform you -regretfully, no doubt- that this post is not about miniature, battling robotic houses. If it was though, I think we all know tree house would win.

Monday's post was actually written Sunday, so today's post is really Monday's (and today's). Got it? Good. Monday, after waving the "building wand" -like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia- at the wreckage of lumber in our yard and producing three chicken coops, I decided to clean up. I didn't have an army of dancing mops and buckets, so I took Georgie out and told him his job was to pick up all the little pieces, load up the wheel barrow and dump it "in the fire"; which is the fire ring where we set off monster bonfires from time to time. He was good for maybe 2 half-loaded trips before determining his skills would be better put to use as the designated "guy who does awesome stuff to improve work site morale". This consisted of one task (why fix something if it isn't broken, right?); yelling, "Daddy, watch this one!" before hurling a duct taped frisbee sideways into the air. I didn't know there were so many ways to awesomely throw a duct taped frisbee into the air, but now I do.
Taking a cue from Georgie, I decided to ditch the clean up effort as well and make a rad doghouse. There seemed to be enough wood left to do something cool, so I just started cutting. I can show you the end result, but there are no progress pictures because I did it all in one stint while Brinn was inside. Anyway, there's the dog house.

I'm proudest of the handmade doggie bone up top.

That's what you call a board and batten roof. Oak boards with walnut battens.

Georgie thought it was pretty cool that I whipped up a doghouse out of the left over chicken coop lumber, which must have started his wheels cranking. At the end of the evening, when we were putting Georgie to bed, he started talking about making a tree house. No self-respecting Dad misses a chance to build a sweet tree house with his bright-eyed son, so I told him the next day we would do it. We told him to quiet down and think in bed about what he wanted the tree house to look like. If he would do that, he and I would draw a picture of the tree house in the morning and get started building it. Sure enough, Georgie was bouncing on the bed at 7am, "Daddy, Daddy, let's make a tree house!!!" Maybe if I were more of an upstanding gentleman, I would have succumbed to this child's wishes; but, I must not be because I sent him straight back to bed with instructions to keep thinking the plans over.
Eventually we did sit down, I drew out the basic idea and Georgie drew in all the sweet details, like where the big rope would go and the "place for playing"; which, on paper was just a giant 8 foot blob. We can flesh that one out later on. I did do some cleaning up during Georgie's nap and managed to take inventory of what's left of the lumber pile after 3 coops and a doghouse; as it turns out, there should be enough boards left to make a sweet tree house for Georgie. I don't have pictures of the initial building phase tonight, but Brinn did manage to snap one of Georgie drawing up the blueprints.

I swiped this off the camera, Brinn usually gets upset if I even look at a picture she hasn't edited yet. She's just gonna have to find it in her heart to forgive me this time.

Sure, I might be "unemployed" at the moment, if you adhere to the strictest definition of the term (like, not having a job); but seriously, I'm building a treehouse with my 4 1/2 year old son, it's all good.

-F.W.