Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build

Grandson & great grandson will have a lot of fun with this book

I was blown away by the practical instruction and designs in this book. I built the hobbit style playhouse in three weekends with very little woodworking experience. I had made small furniture here and there for a few years but had no carpentry skills. I especially appreciated the planning tips - down to which type of toolbox to buy and how to label your toolbox trays for fast building. While there were no plans for the door, by the time I got to that part I felt confident enough to use the pics in the book and improvise a little!Only downside was that this particular playhouse design plan did not include instructions for attaching the foundation to the built playhouse frame. No matter. I emailed the author and she quickly gave me some great ideas for securing foundation to frame. My kids love the playhouse and believe me, it gets used!This is definitely the book to buy for a beginner who wants to build a cool playhouse! My plan is to move on to the tree house/fort, next! Happy building!

This is the latest installment in a long string of wonderful books from David and Jeanie Stiles. Inside you won't find glossy, double page spreads of extravagant treehouses ... this is not a coffee table book. Rather, it is a how-to book, and the best one available for those that want to build their own whimsical play structure. Inside you will find excellent line drawings and readable explanations of intelligent, creative, and well though-out designs.David starts with the basics: tools. From there you follow a complete and logical progression to completed treehouse. In between you'll get solid building advice. David has built his designs. He knows how to make life easier for you by using common materials and minimizing cuts. The building advice is spot on throughout.The huge, huge, huge problem with this book is the 20 or so options David gives you for connecting lumber to tree. They are almost all bad. Never girdle a growing limb with rope or cable. Never use nails. This leaves you with only lag bolting. To be sure, there are other ways. But the only safe and tree-friendly way presented in this book (and any of his other works) is to use lags.This is the by far the best book to give to a young builder and is probably a treasure to any 8 or 9 year old lucky enough to have a copy. It will get their mind working. The crazy schemes they come up with will amaze you.The ideas inside this book are great. Fun, imaginative, unique. If you know a young boy (or girl) with a tree, get him this book. And when it comes time to actually build their creation, call an arborist and he'll set you straight about properly attaching it to a tree.

This review is one star for bad structural advice. Let me provide one example. In the section about chain, page 57: "5/16 inch chain (actually 5/8 inch when you add the other side of the link) has a working load of only 1,900 pounds, whereas 5/8 inch Dacron rope has a breaking strength of 8,910 pounds, more than four times the strength of chain."NO! WRONG!5/16 inch chain has a cross sectional area of .153 inches squared. (Each side of the link has a cross sectional area of .0767 inches squared). 5/8 inch rope has a cross sectional area of 0.306 inches squared. That is twice as much area as the chain.Second, they compare WORKING load of chain to BREAKING strength of rope. That is incorrect. 5/8 Dacron rope has a WORKING load of 1100 pounds. (http://www.boatsafe.com/marlinespike/safeload.htm). Thus one can see that the chain is stronger. In basic terms, the difference between working load and breaking strength is a factor of safety. Do not confuse them. Someone may die.Finally, not all 5/16 chain has a working load of 1,900 pounds. Chain is available in various grades. The grade is a measure of the strength of the steel. Grade 30 5/16 chain is commonly available with a working load of 1,900 pounds; however, it is also readily available in higher strengths (e.g. grade 43 has a working load of 3,900 pounds).In another entry in the book, they mention 3/4" Dacron rope has a breaking strength of 11,000 pounds. A safe working load might actually be as low as 1375 pounds.These are just two examples of incorrect use of capacities. There are a lot of good ideas in the book and I appreciate the authors' efforts to economize. I am usually not an alarmist. However, their knowledge of material strengths leaves enough room for error that this review had to be posted before someone gets hurt. Please do your own calculations after sufficient research to understand what you are actually calculating or hire a competent professional if you are uncomfortable doing them yourself. At a minimum, never use breaking strength for your calculations-- when the load approaches or meets the breaking load, someone will get hurt.

I bought this for our grandkids. They wanted to build a tree house but had nothing specific in mind. They just knew they wanted swings and stuff. For Christmas, we gave them money for supplies at Home Depot. I sent this book along with the money. My daughter says they love the book. All four kids have been through it cover to cover and are now drawing up plans. Since they live in Tennessee and we live in Utah, we will have to wait for our next visit to see what they come up with.

I bought three different books on building tree houses. I have absolutely ZERO experience in building anything. I simple used the plans in this book for a basic tree house and just modified it a little bit. If I had only bought the other two books I would have probably given up on the idea. This book made it so easy that now my kids have the coolest tree house in the neighborhood. In fact, if I took a picture of this thing and sent it to the author he would probably include the picture in the next edition. The only advice I can give you is, buy this book and plan on spending double whatever you are planning to spend and you will be the coolest dad in the world.

I had hoped for some simpler projects to get started - felt these projects were too complicated for me. Probably had unreasonable expectations for the content of this book. Not for me but would be good for the more capable 'DIYer'

Excellent on time as stated in their brief and delivered to the door without a hassle or a worry well done. Cheers

Brilliant book. Full of information and Great illustrations!