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 
Wow, very cool! I’ll have to try that program and see how it works. I love that you’re doing this with your kids – they’re going to have so much fun in that fort 🙂
Kennedy takes this tree fort project so seriously. She can’t wait until it is time to do the next step, even if it isn’t glamorous. Yesterday, Tim asked her to help stuff tree branches that they’d trimmed into the yard waste bin, which is akin to asking her to clean up any mess (read: a complete waste of time). This time, though, she agreed with nary a fuss, and actually helped pick up the debris until it was cleared. Now if Tim can somehow convince her that cleaning her room will help move the fort project along faster…
Hah! Too funny 🙂 Maybe you should hinge the next part of the project on her cleaning her room first…