"Fort Jonas" has a name .. And railings!

Of course I trust my own kids to be careful and agile enough to be safe on this death trap, but we didn't want to take any chances with the rag-tag miscellaneous friends of them. So we decided to adorn the 7ft platform with safety railing.

To add to the effect (and to get some parallel helper working), I pulled out our kids' hammer as well as their great-grandfather Harold's hammer which he bequeathed to me during his lifetime. He was a prolific craftsman, and I thought it was fitting to tie it all together:

First we hauled up all the railing frames built out of 2x4s. Our ten year old pulled out the guns and really helped with this effort:

Meanwhile, the five year old stays out of trouble  with a book:

Ten year old's math helped us chop 13 12' flat boards into 3' pickets. With this load, some 1 1/2" nails, and three hammers, we went to town hammering away!

A job well done!

Next up.. Roof? Maybe a slide or something like that? Or cool gadgets like ringer bell, knocker, or Gatling gun?? :D

Fort Dedication

This Christmas morning, the boys each received a large golden nail as a memento to their hard work which were mounted to the underside of the fort platform. The fort is not complete, necessarily, but let's face it: once Christmas vacation is over, time to tinker will be scarce again..

And on the Fourth Day there was a Ladder!

All hands were on deck for the construction of this 60° pitch ladder. 18" rungs of 2x4s, stringers of 2x6s.

O Good Fortuna!

Deck complete! Boys helped in all ways they could:

With a solid, stable fort structure under us, we got started on the ladder. I got a little ambitious and am making a 60° ladder with 2x6 stringers and 2x4 rungs:

Who needs a pickup truck in Texas?

Planning to work on the ladder again in the morning. Miracle of miracles, the daily forecast threat of storms was sufficient to motivate me to spend just enough time on this construction but has always been pushed back. Tstorms "expected" tomorrow evening only.

Oh Fort Heaven's Sake!

So. After last night's debacle, I surveyed the damaged: both main lag screws were bent and would need to be replaced. On good advice, I also flipped the joists so I was boring new wood instead of trying to reuse the old one:

With great help from Dominic, instructional assistance from Jonas, and with critical help from Milo (the kind of help that can't be photographed because all our hands are busy and both our lives are on the line like Julia would never approve), this came out:

Ready to start flooring with decking, right? Right?? Well... Not without one more trip to the hardware store for an additional ledger to make up for my incorrect measurement:

Shown above: flush on one side, the plank doesn't quite reach the other :( so close...

By the way, all the forecast tstorms have been wrong! But tonight.. Expecting storms.. :D

Forty days and forty nights. New heights, new low.

Well ain't this just something of beauty!

My friend Eric (who has been advising and teaching me all along) came by today and helped me put together the frame you see there. My homework after he left was to run to the hardware store and bring back some more lag screws, add a couple braces, etc.

But.. I thought I'd juuuust add the one more joist hang first. Turns out the nails don't have much grip when nailed straight:

So tonight I returned in the dark to fix my flub but ended up far worse!

Expecting thinderstorms tomorrow. What a sad state in which to leave this humble project for a couple days :(

Fort - gathering materials

Our ten year old has taken a special interest in this project, and our first trip out to the hardware store was so focused, he didn't even ask to see the Christmas decorations there!