Chapter 8: The Final Push

It wasn’t until the end of May, when the snow had subsided, that we could start moving materials. Within a few weeks, Heidi and I had hiked more than a hundred loads of materials up to the treehouse. With the materials on-site and ready to go, the cost was no longer an issue. It was now just a race against time.

Heidi and I kept surprising ourselves by how fast we could get things done. With a surfeit of materials at our fingertips, there were no more hour-long trips to the building center. Before we knew it, the front door was hung, the glass for the windows was cut and installed, and we had a beautiful sliding glass door onto the deck. The treehouse was taking shape and I was thrilled with the way it looked.

I couldn’t wait to get the siding on. I had salvaged over a thousand board feet of clear cedar, that had been ripped out of an indoor sauna. All the tongue and groove edges were destroyed, so we re-milled every board, which took a few evenings, after work. With a new battery-powered skill saw on site, the siding went up quickly. It was a thrill to see the pod transforming from skeletal platform, to a cozy indoor living space.

Heidi and I were working like a pair of electrons. In the past, I had spent much time and money rebuilding things when I didn’t like the placement or the proportions. Having Heidi as a sounding board for new ideas eliminated the trial and error. I’d float and idea, we’d refine it on paper, and when we built it, it would come out just as we had imagined.

By the end of June, we were making rapid progress on the treehouse, and were on pace to finish! In the spring, Heidi had joined me on Sven’s house, and we were working as a team there on siding, drywall, tile, decks, flooring, finishing, and pretty much everything we bid on. With the treehouse taking up most of our weekends, it felt like we were doing binge carpentry. However, we kept life balanced with hikes, camping trips, and plenty of great cooking with fresh ingredients from our garden at home. Looking back, those were magical days.

The finishing of Sven’s house and the HemLoft coincided perfectly at the end of July. The only problem was, it was time for us to leave town. Our lease was up on the suite we were renting, and we had to book it out to the Canadian Rockies for a four day camping trip. However, we did plan to return later that summer and spend a week in the treehouse, before our departure for Nova Scotia.

Chapter 9: Living in the HemLoft