1 post tagged “concrete”
Last Saturday started out with what has become somewhat of a tradition at our house - pancakes. If you happened to follow our friends the Nelsons' trip to Kazakhstan to adopt Aliya, you may recall a photo of "Pancake Man" that showed how the tradition was even continued on the corner of Abai & Mira. But I digress.
This most recent time we had a visitor with us, Elena's friend Emma. After breakfast we headed out, in what has also become a common occurrence, to Home Depot. The van is a big blessing because we can carry 3 kids and
still have room to cram in a bunch of building materials. One of the interesting purchases that day was an 80 lb bag of pre-mixed concrete. Granted, that's not the first thing that comes to mind when ticking off things one might need for a tree house, but there is a good reason.
Once the door went in, I realized that we needed a small landing in front of the door that I hadn't planned for. Put that together with an 8 ft 4x4 of pressure-treated lumber that had been left at the house, and you have the beginnings of a plan. The 4x4 would serve as the primary support under the front corner of the landing, and thus we needed a concrete footing to support the post.
I had never before constructed a concrete form, built a footing or even poured concrete (unlike Sandi!). But how hard could it be, right? I've decided that one of the themes of this project is: "Let's try something new! When we make mistakes, that's cool; it's just a tree house". One thing I learned is that an 80 lb bag of concrete, as hard as it was to lug up the hill, does not go very far. The picture shows how relatively small the footing
was, and it used up the entire bag. But that was all we needed and as a bonus I had some great help getting the concrete mixed and poured.
Something that has become obvious in the last month is that kids of all sizes and ages are really enjoying the tree house, even in a partially finished state. Maybe this summer we'll be ready for an off-the-ground slumber party...
