Treehouses.

Everyone who has ever had me for a teacher knows that I have an obsession for treehouses. Why not? They are a great place to get away, fun to build, an exciting place to spend a thunderstorm, and an extension of those blanket forts we used to make in grandma's living room when we were little kids. I have two pieces of advice in regards to treehouses. First, build one for your kids (and then another one with your kids) - there is no better way to spend time with them. We've built two and both have been well used and the birthplace of a ton of great memories. Second, don't underdesign your floor structure (or over build your tree house). I am guilty of both on our most recent treehouse. As a result, for the past two years, I have had to endure the ridicule of being a PE with a poorly designed tree house. I bring all this up, because today I fixed (I hope) my design problem by supporting the two outside 2x6x16 floor joists with 2x12x16 floor joists. Now if you are a real engineer geek, you are calculating in your head the increase in area moment of inertia of this solution and if you are a real smart engineer geek you came up with an increase of a factor of 8. If so, I'm proud of you!

TBL: Build your kids a treehouse.... and design it right the first time.