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Big, Bad Treehouse

This past Friday morning, I resumed work on the floor. The first step was to install some perimeter blocking on the ends of the joists so there would be support for the ends of the floor boards. After I installed half of the blocks, I decided to lay some of the floor, partly because I was dying to see how it looked and partly because it would be handy to have some floor as a work space. I like tiptoeing on open beams up in a tree as much as the next guy, but it's nice to have the little conveniences too.

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Sometime Friday night, I pinched a nerve in my neck while sleeping and this became a complication for the rest of the weekend. On Saturday morning, my neck and upper back were on fire. I took a couple of Advil and went up the tree. Things went OK until about midday, when my left arm and hand began to get weak and go numb. We had a dinner party that night, so I knocked off a bit early to get ready.

The pain had gotten quite bad by the time the party rolled around and I wasn't sure I was going to make it through dinner. Conversation was mildly distracting though and it was good to see some people we hadn't seen in a while. Sleep was next to impossible Saturday night and I was bummed that I might not be able to move this forward on Sunday. Our kids have a friend coming to visit in a week and a half and I was hoping to have the main structure safe for them to play in by then.

I was up before dawn Sunday, as I couldn't sleep anyway. After moving around a bit, I found that it wasn't any worse to be active than it was to lie there, so once everyone else was awake, I went out to see what I could accomplish. There were a few cuts to make on the ground, so I started with those. It helped to see what my arm and hand would or wouldn't do. The impingement was bad enough that my left hand wouldn't always do what I told it. It had about a third of its normal strength, no sensation in the ring and pinky fingers and the tricep was randomly twitching in a an alarming way.
 
The main concerns at this point were whether it would be safe to work up in the tree and whether I was going to make anything worse in my spine by doing so. I was pretty sure the symptoms were associated with the cervical spine, so I went inside and lay on my back with a tennis ball on the floor to see what happened when I stimulated various spots along my spine. When I got to the base of the cervical spine, my arm went totally dead.

I had wondered whether this was happening because of the work or if it was unrelated. Based on the fact that it was the neck, it didn't seem that the lifting was responsible. About 15 years ago, I damaged all of the disks in my cervical spine, losing about 80% of the clearance in all of them. A year and a half of chiropractic treatment got them to about 90% of normal, but the injury has been the gift that keeps on giving ever since. This seemed like another one of those instances.

Having convinced myself that I wasn't going to make it worse, I decided to climb the tree.
 
The going was slow, as I could only haul small amounts of material at a time. Being left handed, whenever it was time to hammer a nail there was no telling what I would hit if using my left hand. I decided to hammer with my right hand, figuring that if I hit any of my left hand fingers, at least they were already numb. :laughing

Adapting to the limitations didn't take too long and eventually a workable system emerged for climbing the ladder, hauling tools and material and fastening things together. Finally, by day's end, the floor was done.

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Your deck doesn't look as big up close as it did in the pictures and drawings.

I'm sure it is a big enough deck for two young boys though.

Must be the lighting, or the size of the tree that makes it not look as massive as everyone said it was. Perspective I guess.
 
maxandgrinch said:
Your deck doesn't look as big up close as it did in the pictures and drawings.

I'm sure it is a big enough deck for two young boys though.

Must be the lighting, or the size of the tree that makes it not look as massive as everyone said it was. Perspective I guess.
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Looks like an easy 100 sf based on quick rough guesstimating.
 
Awesome build so far Andy.. :thumbup

Total bummer on the injury coming back to bite while doing something that is obviously a passionate family joy. I hope you bounce back quick.

Indeed.. a cool dad. Good to see one teaching his boys part of what it takes to be a man on enjoying doing it.
 
Eldritch said:
Man, I would be really curious to see HOW you mounted up those diagonal braces.
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The man does climb frozen waterfalls. FOR FUN. :wtf

I would wager that setting the mounts in the tree was child's play. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that one or both of his boys helped him do it. Those kids are like little mini Andys.
 
Bonerov said:
The man does climb frozen waterfalls. FOR FUN. :wtf

I would wager that setting the mounts in the tree was child's play. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that one or both of his boys helped him do it. Those kids are like little mini Andys.
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Sure, I'm just very curious to see how. The rigging I can imagine to do that would still be a nightmare for one guy to manage while bolting it in. Very Interesting.
 
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