Who Wouldn’t Want to Live in a Treehouse?

One of my childhood dreams was to live in a tree house. Of course, this may be because I didn’t have a tree house growing up as a kid. I was lacking a tree house not because I didn’t have any trees that could support the weight or structure, but my parents were quite cautious.  My stepfather was a firefighter and sort of felt it was unsafe; *think broken arms, legs, head, etc.

Climbing up into a little house in a huge, luscious tree sounds fairytale like in some ways. So many childhood novels are based around adventures that take place in a tree house, and this seems to be the inspiration behind some current tree house designs.  To indulge my inner child, I’ve been reading ThisTinyHouse.com.  Hillary writes about tree houses every Monday morning. Here are some of my favorites from her blog:

• This tree house was built in 3 days for a photo shoot. I’m not sure if the family decided to live in it after the magazine was finished with it, but it could definitely be used for summer camping.
• This German tree house also could be used as a weekend retreat.
• Here is a tree house I think you are able to rent out (it’s a little unclear if you can only visit it, or actually rent it for a night or two). The owner of the property turned his 20 acres into a nature preserve and built a couple of tree houses.

While browsing another one of my favorite blogs, Inhabitat.com,  for new prefab models, they too had an incredible post about a tree house. This particular tree house was donated to a children’s camp. Not only does the water slide look really fun, but the tree house was also built to be “environmentally sensitive.”

Looking at some of the interior images, it reminds me of Robinson Crusoe’s tree house at Disneyland, another famous novel that incorporated tree house living. Perhaps this new interest in tree houses will grow into an alternative housing movement, especially as land becomes less available to people  in land-locked areas. If tree houses started popping up as an alternative in my area, I would definitely check it out.

Actually, if the home market continues to rise and becomes too expensive by next year, I may have to look at alternatives to owning my own little house, like purchasing land.  I might need to begin investigating land with really strong, large trees!