Toad in the Tree

Today is a big day.  OK, maybe that’s overstating things a little but it’s a big day in the life of a small person and a small house.

Today Luca is having friends round for lunch at the tree house for the first time.

I haven’t posted very much about matters tree-housey lately. I had hoped to get re-started with the spring, but spring did a pretty good impersonation of winter and it pushed everything back a good month.

However I’ve been hard at work on the interior.  First job was to get some of the lining of the ceiling in place.  I decided to insulate the tree house as well as could be done.  I’d quite like it to be useable in winter, at least when it’s not nine below zero, and if I’m going to put a little halogen heater in there then I don’t want the warmth to be pouring straight out through the walls and ceiling.  I used rockwool in the walls and celotex for the ceiling.  Later in the summer I’ll also insulate under the floor.

There are a couple of ceiling panels left to do but my priority once I’d done the gable in was to put in the ‘mezzanine’ for Luca’s mattress.

That went remarkably smoothly as did making a big ladder to get up there.

What’s been more problematic was sanding the floor.  I used old scaffold planks for the flooring and a domestic sander wasn’t going to do the job.  In the event I hired a 4” Makita sander.  I used one to sand the floors of our London flat. What I’d forgotten was that I used an upright floor sander first.  Even though the tree house is only 8’x12’ or thereabouts it took about four or five hours. The sander kept overloading the circuit and I was constantly rushing up to the house to reset the fuse box.  The place was foul with dust. It’s probably the worst single job to date – and while perching precariously on the roof nailing in the oak shakes was rather more nerve-wracking it wasn’t as much of an ordeal.

However it’s almost there.  I’ll need to finish off the floor with some finer sandpaper and give it a few coats of finish, but the end is in sight.

So today is a landmark day.  Luca and Diana and Martina will be having toad in the hole with potatoes and peas followed by apple and quince pie.  One might as well start as one intends to go on – and I reckon Luca is more or less on the right path.