Tree Houses/Forts?

[Foofoogal]

Did anyone have a treehouse as a child or has anyone built one for their own children?
I think of them when I think of Summertime along with red rover and lightning bugs and freeze tag and much more.
I wonder if one could find plans for a vintage style treehouse. That would be very cool.
http://www.squidoo.com/treehousetreasury

just found this. I have binoculars. lol Maybe the world would look better from a treehouse. I remember it used to.

 

[Shangas]

My brother and I had a cubby-house in the back yard as kids, but never an actual treehouse.

Didn't stop me from making cubby-houses in my room when I was a kid, though.

 

[dhermann1]

No tree house, but we built some spectacular snow forts.

 

[AmateisGal]

My brother and I each had a treehouse when we were little - we lived on a farm so there were lots of trees! His was named Fort Johnson (name after a character on Tour of Duty) and mine was Fort Whopper (named after a Pound Puppy, I believe!) and of course, we were "at war."

We spent many a summer day out there. Man, I miss those simple days...

 

[carter]

Did anyone have a treehouse as a child or has anyone built one for their own children?
I think of them when I think of Summertime along with red rover and lightning bugs and freeze tag and much more.
I wonder if one could find plans for a vintage style treehouse. That would be very cool.
http://www.squidoo.com/treehousetreasury

just found this. I have binoculars. lol Maybe the world would look better from a treehouse. I remember it used to.

We had treehouses and forts made of all kinds of materials we could scrounge when I was a kid. Lightning Bugs in Mason jars and playing hide & seek and tag until it was too dark to see. Those were the days.

I believe Joan Baez sleeps/slept on a raised platform outdoors at her home.

 

[scottyrocks]

We made a tree house in one of the vacant lots in my immediate neighborhood. Mostly plywood construction, and a bit rickety.

 

[DBLIII]

We had a fort. It even had a tower with a ladder, so we could climb up really high (to us, it was probably only eight feet tall or so) and command the troops or survey our lands or whatever we dreamed up. It was pretty well built, at least I thought.

One day, a neighbor came over and started yelling at my mom about the "shack" in the back yard, it was an eyesore, and on and on. That next weekend, a pickup shows up in the drive. It is full of lumber. Mom and a friend of hers and us kids spent two days building an entire western town (hollywood style, it was just the fronts of the buildings). We had a saloon, a jail, a store, a bunch of other stuff. All plywood and 2 x 4s and painted. It was awesome - and I don't really like to use that word, but it expresses just how I felt as a kid to not only see mom do that after the neighbor's visit but to have such a huge play land. A fort and a western town - and the town was probably 20 or 30 feet long, from what I can recall of the amount of plywood across the front. Never heard from the neighbor again.

Until I noticed this thread, I had completely forgotten that entire event. Mom gets an extra hug next time I see her.

 

[zetwal]

You bet! and the stuff we did there ... Oh my! good times -

 

[AmateisGal]

We had a fort. It even had a tower with a ladder, so we could climb up really high (to us, it was probably only eight feet tall or so) and command the troops or survey our lands or whatever we dreamed up. It was pretty well built, at least I thought.

One day, a neighbor came over and started yelling at my mom about the "shack" in the back yard, it was an eyesore, and on and on. That next weekend, a pickup shows up in the drive. It is full of lumber. Mom and a friend of hers and us kids spent two days building an entire western town (hollywood style, it was just the fronts of the buildings). We had a saloon, a jail, a store, a bunch of other stuff. All plywood and 2 x 4s and painted. It was awesome - and I don't really like to use that word, but it expresses just how I felt as a kid to not only see mom do that after the neighbor's visit but to have such a huge play land. A fort and a western town - and the town was probably 20 or 30 feet long, from what I can recall of the amount of plywood across the front. Never heard from the neighbor again.

Until I noticed this thread, I had completely forgotten that entire event. Mom gets an extra hug next time I see her.

That sounds so incredible! What a great mom.

 

[RebeccaDoll]

No tree house, but we built some spectacular snow forts.

Me too. We used to build massive snow cities in our school yards and up in the plowed snow piles at the dead end on our street. We get alot of snow. A lot, and after an ice storm the structures were as hard as stone, tunnels and all - and surprisingly very little supervision.

 

[Foofoogal]

Mom gets an extra hug next time I see her.

I should say so. That is awesome.
You made me think of my awesome Barbie house I made myself. It had curtains and wallpaper and carpet and everything. I gave it to my sister later and she destroyed it. I only have the bedspread left.

We didn't have snow but did have some unreal tunnels underground. How we did not die I shall never know. lol
I climbed trees like a monkey as a kid and my 8 brothers built many a treehouse. Out of everything scrap they could find.

 

[FinalVestige79]

I lived in suburbia all my life...but I made some really cool forts, one at my grandfathers house, my gramps was carpenter and had about 500 bricks stacked up in one corner...and it took me a week and I made a smallish 2 room fort, the roof was one of those blue tarps, it had gun ports to shoot out of and a ply wood door.

Then at my house we had this mound of dirt left over from the previous owners gardening...I mean it was about7 feet tall and maybe 20 across. And me being the digger in the family, dug tunnels and stuff and I would shore everything up with ply wood from my Gramps...I took Christmas lights and hooked it up to a car battery... and I had electricity. I had one big room that i could stand in and I put carpet to shore up the walls. My moms pom would dig tunnels in there in the summer too to stay cool...no matter how hot it was the dirt was always cooler. It collapsed soon after. I never did anything that elaborate again.

I dug holes tho lots of them with shelving and small ante-chambers to store toys and I would have connecting trench systems and what not...this was back when summer would last 3 months...

 

[High Pockets]

We had treehouses and forts made of all kinds of materials we could scrounge when I was a kid. Lightning Bugs in Mason jars and playing hide & seek and tag until it was too dark to see. Those were the days.

My favorite fort in 1961 was a big hole that had been dug out in the woods, (vacant lot), with a metal bill-board pulled over the top, complete with a stash of "girlie" magazines that we had lifted out of the trash from behind the local "Club".

A few years later Johnny and I stole some plywood, nails and tar-paper from the carpenters that were building a new house down the block and built a killer fort! At the end of a long day of work we were so proud of what we'd done we ran up to the house yelling for Johnny's dad to; "Come look!!"
It sure did break our faces when he ducked down looked inside and said; "Dam, boys,....it looks like an Iron Mary! You be careful in there."
It took me a long time to figure out what he was refering to; I guess all the nails sticking through the plywood on the inside from nailing the tar paper on made it look like one of those ancient torture devices!

 

[MPicciotto]

Ah the memories.

Tree forts,
Snow forts
Tunnels and trenches

As I grew older the tree fort/house was converted into a BB/Pellet gun snipers nest. Then as I got a little older I made a hobby of survival study, made a stick and leaf lean-too that stood for several years. before collapsing do to a piece of twine I used for a lashing finally rotting out. Since you mention it I wonder if those sixties Playboy's we lifted from a dumpster during a community cleanup days event is still wrapped in plastic buried back there...

As a study in backwoods survival other kids would build snow forts and I would mound up the snow, push sticks in three foot all around then excavate the inside to create a potentially livable space. I never camped in my snow cave. Because it was near the road and my parents didn't want the plow truck pushing it while I was in it, but I was in it during the day!

I remember taking a stack of firewood and dividing it into two stacks parallel, that was our "Helicopter" for our mission. Whatever that mission was I don't' remember now.

Matt