To most kids, the idea of having their own treehouse is too cool for words.
Adventurous kids love being able to climb above the trees to a private hideout they can call their own. Unfortunately, most kids don’t have a big enough tree in their garden for a treehouse – or parents who are willing to build it.
Actually, though, building a treehouse is much easier than it seems.
As long as you have a strong, sturdy tree and some basic DIY skills, you can make something pretty impressive.
You’ve got to be as keen as your kids for the project, however, as treehouses don’t often come cheap.
Even if you build from scratch, you’ll probably spend $9,000 minimum on a proper job.
But it’s all worth it to see your kids’ smiles and excitement when you present the finished result to them!
One grandma and granddad definitely won the “grandparents of the year” award with the treehouse they built in their backyard.
This is no ordinary treehouse – it’s like a treehouse on steroids.
When Stephen and Jeri Wakefield moved into their home over a decade ago, there was already a playhouse floor built into the tree.
The floor was old and rotten, so the couple tore it down – but when one of their friends said they should replace it with a fully-fledged treehouse, it got them thinking.
These grandparents clearly don’t do anything by halves.
If they were going to build a treehouse, they wanted to make it much more exciting than a simple shed in the sky.
The treehouse itself is more like a miniature gothic mansion, and was built based on a clay model produced by the designer.
He asked Jeri to stand in different parts of the tree, and used her height to measure where the tree’s limbs were.
He had to make sure that the design was totally unique, but also that the tree could continue to grow safely.
There are so many interesting design features coming off the treehouse that a kid wouldn’t know where to start.
There’s the crow’s nest, which is attached to the tree by a wooden walkway, a tunnel slide that comes off one side of the house, and a zipline off the other.
As well as that, there are ropes to climb everywhere, gymnastic rings to hang off, and even a sloped climbing wall.
If you were a kid here, you’d never want to leave!
It’s better than most public playgrounds, and even the inside of the treehouse is fully decked out with unique furnishings that you wouldn’t find anywhere else.
It must be pretty entertaining for the grandparents to sit back and watch the kids having fun, too – especially knowing that you’re responsible for something that everyone loves so much.
Architect James Curvan, who designed the house, said the treehouse was a “dream come true” for Jeri.
He added:
“We all have our dreams when we’re kids about some things that we’d want to happen in our lives, and it’s created a lot of opportunities for her to be not just a grandmother to her grandkids, but to be a mom and a grandmother to a bunch of other people’s kids as well.”
If you’ve always loved treehouses too, you have to check out the video below, where you can learn more about this incredible project!
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