Tree house designs from Treehouse Guides

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Plans for houses and decks in one or two trees

Construction tutorial - Framing and building

Framing the structure | Walls | Roof | Doors and windows | Finishing touches

Finishing touches

Carpet transforms the inside of a treehouse, as does a coat of paint. Use soft carpet for sitting on, and light colours of paint so that the treehouse is not dark inside. If you find that the treehouse is cold, you could panel the inside of the frame, filling the gap with insulation (eg, glass wool). Many treehouse builders who stay overnight in their buildings like to add a woodburning stove. These can be very safe if fitted with care - you need to ensure the stove is solidly bolted to the floor and that you surround the base with fire resisting materials in case embers fall onto the floor. I fitted a fireplace in my treehouse and had a small tiled area in front to catch any sparks. As with a fire in a ground house, you should keep either a fire extingusher or bucket of water handy at all times.

It is now relatively inexpensive to purchase solar panel kits that come with a battery and light for garden use. If you wire a few of these together you could easily collect enough electricity to illuminate the house at night time. A more serious approach would use a car or truck battery and large panels or even a small wind generator with a charging regulator. This will provide plenty of energy for light and music and could even be wired to a transformer to convert the supply to mains voltage. Devices to do this are quite cheap, but bear in mind that a standard lead acid car battery will drain fast when used with appliances more used to an unlimited mains supply.

After that, it's up to you what else you want to include to make your treehouse into a home. I have heard about everything from loft beds, cookers and fitted bathrooms to zip lines, rope ladders and relaxation nets being built into treehouses!

Further reading