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Adventure Fort

January, 2012 - April, 2012

I had a few forts and hideaways as a kid, but I never really had a proper treehouse. I wanted to build a treehouse for our kids where they could play, hang out and have sleep overs.

I tried several different designs and settled on loosely basing the design on the Disneyland Jungle Cruise. While looking for reference photos, I discovered that I was not the only one with this idea.

We cleared the hillside where the structure would go and set piers into the hill. Because of the tree's root structure, some of the piers needed to move from their optimal location, which also slightly changed the eventual design. The hillside dirt is very hard, and I also did not want to damage the roots of the tree, so the piers were set fairly shallow into the ground with a wide concrete footing. Some of these have started to wash out over the years and are probably due to be repaired.

Our backyard has a fairly steep hill in the corner where I planned to build the structure and I incorporated the slope into the design to raise the fort high off the ground. It's not technically a treehouse. In reality it's a deck with a structure on top.