Here is a screen capture of the plan for the remainder of our tree fort.
I’ve been using SketchUp, Google’s vector drawing program, to draw up my plans. It’s very intuitive and fun to play with. But like all vector drawing programs, it can be maddening at times. Once you learn how to do things the SketchUp way, it’s a satisfying and powerful tool. Google offers the software free for non-business use. If you look closely, you can see Kennedy has used SketchUp to add furniture to our plans. A bit more obvious is her decision to apply bit map textures to the walls and rails.
In the real world, we put up the other two legs, the remaining 2×8 crossbeams, added joist supports, and screwed down the floorboards since our last update. We have the hole for the secret trap door, but still need to assemble the lid and the rope ladder.
My right arm has become the limiting factor. I’ve developed some sort of repetitive stress injury, where doing even an hour of screwing with the drill can become very painful. It sucks to get old.
Present Tense 