I’m converting some of my old website into proper blog entries.  Below is some text that I wrote back in 1992 when I was 14 years old and made my first website. All phrases and spelling is original; I really did think the term was “boon-dogs” and not “boondocks”.  It’s funny how you hear things as a kid.

I learned a lot from building my first treehouse. It was fun to have my own place to escape to. If you look closely, you can see my NES in one of the small pictures.

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This first picture is what you see from the side of the road. If you look carefully, you can see the stainedglass windows in the door. Also, the walkway bridge from the ground out to the trees is apparent.

And now (while the ton of pictures below are loading) here is the story of the treehouse for you to read:

Once upon a time there was this tree. It wasn’t just any tree. In fact, it was several redwoods. Four or five, to be exact. They lie on a hill in sunny Corralitos. The boon-dogs of Santa Cruz in California. Any ways, about ten years ago my dad made a little platform in some trees for me to play on when I was a kid. Four score (actually not four score, but four years I just wanted to say that) ago me and my friend Chris Howland decided to start making a treehouse at his house. The tree that we were building it on sucked, and the property that it was on wasn’t ours so I figured why don’t we do it at my house since it is already started. We worked on it with a little help from my dad and eventually we had the floor finished. The walls were then added and the roof was then stuck on top. (more pictures will come soon of the actual construction) We got an old door which had old plain glass windows in it. We took the glass out and replaced it with cool looking stained glass from Chris’s house. Chris’s dad got us some carpet for free (pink, but it still looks cool.) I had an old futon which eventually got replaced by a bed because it rained inside the treehouse for a while this had caused some mushrooms and grass to grow on the floor, but they are all gone now. The well for my parent’s house isn’t too far from the treehouse so I ran a thick extension cord from it over to the treehouse allowing me to have electricity. It also has running water (which I did all myself, thank you.) and a cool sink that we bought at a garage sale for 15 bucks.

All together, we spent about a hundred bucks on the plywood for the sides and roof. All the rest of the wood was scrounged up from a woodpile that was leftover from when my parent’s big real house was built (sixteen years ago or so). I have a small fridge in it and some cupboards thanks to Mr. Randy Smith who was doing some remodeling a while back. Mr. Smith was my calculus teacher during my senior year of high school and he is a great teacher. In fact, I got a 5 on the AP Calculus exam. If you are still reading this send me e-mail and tell me what you think. As for the interior decorating, the wood paneling on one half of the treehouse was acquired for free. The sheet rock on the other half I bought and did myself. I encourage anyone who comes into the treehouse to add a painting to the drywall side and now it is a huge mural of color and paint. I hope to get more pictures up on the net for everyone to see sometime. Oh OH, there are all kinds of windows in it, and they all open thanks to Doug Davis my neighbor, who donated them to me. When I was finished I ended up with a cool room that occasionally leaks in the winter. As for a tip to building a treehouse, be sure to include enough of a slant on the roof so that the water will run off. I didn’t, and I am paying the price! If you want this story for some reason, here it is in a text file to download: treehouse.txt

Below are some way old pictures which I scanned.

This is a picture of the fridge
This is the “NGK” Window. All the windows are on hinges and open up

The fridge now resides in my dorm room at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and contains such wonderful things like soy milk for my Cinnamon toast crunch or O.J. for smoothies that Tom and I enjoy after or before some weight lifting. It also houses the frozen berries (i love raspberries….and mangos) that we use to make the smoothies. On top of it is the blender that used to be in my treehouse. They are being used quite frequently now and in a little while they will be returned to home for the summer.
Below you can see the processes that I went through of adding to the treehouse

This is before I had the stuff on the walls to make it look pretty…as you can see I used multiple materials for building the wall, thus saving money.

my dog is in this picture back when I had the futon around. When it got wet it smelled really bad…it took a trip to the dump

a view from the door…notice there isn’t a rug yet.

Some quick treehouse stats and questions that I get asked a lot:

Maximum Height (on the far end): 25 feet
Age of Treehouse: 5 years (UPDATE: Date when this was written was probably 1997)
Age when I built it: 14-15 years
Type of trees: Redwoods
Do I have floor plans: No!
Do I live in it: yes, i do right now (during the summer of 97)
Who else has lived in it: Keoni + his lizards, Greg ‘Grumpy’ Nitzel, and corbin
This is the oldest real treehouse site on the net! (and one of the few)
How do you make a treehouse?: With common sense and a lot of nails.
Send me email with any questions that you might have. If you have a treehouse, let me know because I want to start a treehouse collection on the web. I have a scanner and I can scan pictures of your treehouse and write a description about it and stuff. Just let me know!!! laters, corbin

Please link to my page: http://www.cruzio.com/~seaweb/corbin/ (update: site is totally dead).

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My First Treehouse (pt2) 1997