It's been a while since I featured a tree house on this channel.
And I figure it's about time.
So in today's video you're going to meet the owners who decided to build this
awesome tree house in their backyard and learn why they are sharing it on
Airbnb.
And this tour is really special because I actually got to stay in this tree
house last night with Nabil.
And you'll get to see a few of the unique experiences that we had during our stay.
Hi, I'm Kim. Hi, I'm Scott. Welcome to the Emerald forest tree house.
Why did we decide to build a tree house? Look at this.
And it is a perfect spot for a tree house. 150 feet from our house,
far enough away where we can feel like we're getting away from everything.
But close enough where it's
like right there. And Scott always wanted a tree house.
We had one at our old house. Well it's more of a tree Fort for the little kids,
for the kids. So he's always wanted one.
So we made a trip to tree house point and that was it. We were on an adventure
and Kim bought me a night to stay there as a surprise.
I think for our anniversary.
That's when I got introduced to big boy tree houses and once I got introduced to
big boy tree houses, there's no going back a little kid tree houses.
It was fascinating to be a viewer of a TV show and then to be in the middle of it.
Pete Nelson actually came out and did all the drawings and did all the
architecture for it was about a two week process, but it was really busy.
We had people coming and going and production and food and building and noise
that they papered up our windows so we couldn't see what they were doing
progress wise from the house and I took everything I could not to peak when they
revealed it, it was amazing.
We could not believe the craftsmanship and how beautiful everything was and
man, it smelled good.
Like any good house,
all of the really difficult work is in the foundation.
The tree house is one thing,
but to watch what they did to create the foundation for this extraordinarily
large and heavy Treehouse was something,
especially for somebody who loves building like I do.
It was a fascinating experience to watch them do.
Pete came out when he came out here and we decided what trees we're going to put
the tree house in. Um, it was this maple in that maple and then over the,
about a month later,
a windstorm came along and about a third of this tree snapped off
this direction it was a last minute call on whether to use this tree or not and we
decided to do it.
But then a year later when another wind storm came along,
it snapped off right there underneath the deck. Pete's crew, Nelson
Treehouse and supply came out and they had to put in this post off to the left
to support the Treehouse.
The tree house is also supported by this fake tree that they put here on the
foreground on the right.
The heart of the support system is in this, on this very large maple tree.
A lot of the weight is on the side of the tree house,
so they put in this very large yolk up here that's in the shape of a oval and
that is attached on both sides of the tree to fully support the weight of the
tree house and then there are these large beams that they ran from that yolk
over to that tree and to this post over here.
When I was first introduced to Pete and how he builds tree houses,
I was absolutely just amazed at how he's able to attach these very significant
structures to trees without killing them.
These large supports are attached to bolts that go into the side of the tree and
the trees just seem to thrive they, yes, it's a wound,
but the tree has a natural mechanism to just seal the wound and actually sort of
lock in the hardware.
Since we can't stay out there every night.
We opened it up for Airbnb last June.
It's been fascinating to meet so many people who are all tree house fans.
You have that one thing in common. Follow me,
come on in.
The tree house is 199.9 square feet of floor space.
200 square feet does not sound like a lot of space.
It's more than enough space for two, three,
four people to stay in there and be very, very comfortable for a night or two.
And it's great being able to just put the bed up.
We actually have a family game night out here.
We bring a larger table out here and the entire family will come over and do
game nights. Oh, maybe we'll have a dance out here. Who knows.
Lots of floor space when the beds up.
My favorite kind of guest is a family with smaller kids because you get to see
this entire space from their point of view. And kids love the tree house.
They love the loft. You can, you can imagine, they love bunk beds. So for them,
this is the trifecta. So they get to come up the ladder,
hang out in the bunk beds, and when you wake up,
all you see is just this beautiful woodwork up here.
And you obviously can't smell it on video but it's got that new tree house smell
so most everything in the tree house is controlled by echo or Alexa echo turn on
projector.
So we have a hundred inch screen that drops down here.
Here we have a bathroom.
We have a sink with some little bit of hot water coming from the little hot
water heater up here. And when we put the tree house in,
Pete put in a composting toilet for us.
We love having the porch out here cause you can see the deck looks out over the
pond.
This zip line here goes from the Treehouse deck over to the zip line platforms
and from there we can zip line over to the Emerald forest,
which is right over there.
Another unique experience also having to do with zip lines is that they deliver
breakfast in the morning via zip line.
You just tell them what time you want it to arrive and boom it's there.
It's pretty cool.
We decided we needed to have a shower and when you're in a tree house you have
to be outdoors, right?
Nice hot water.
The shower is one of our guest's favorite features.
Did you really think I was going to be the one to show you the after shower
experience?
Come on
Another 20 feet above the tree house deck here is the crow's nest,
which gives another incredibly awesome view and it is a wonderful place that's
come up here, have a cup of coffee,
absolutely beautiful.
Echo turn on hot tub heater.
Guests can sit here in the hot tub and look at the stars.
There's a little bit of adventure and a little bit of luxury all in one package.
One of the greatest things about the Treehouse is it's a wonderful conversation
starter,
so you can be in a mixed crowd in Costco and you can say Treehouse out loud and
people come in
Our original property was five acres and we built our house on here 20 years ago
for our family. About four years ago,
I had the opportunity to buy the surrounding 25 acres,
which is where the Emerald forest is.
We have two ways to get in. Scott's favorite way is to zip line in.
Pretty much everything that is over there goes over on the zip line.
The other option is to take a 10 minute walk around the pond, but I mean,
come on when you get the opportunity to zip-line who says no?
What'd you think? The ride over is incredible.
and we weren't the only ones who were interested in ziplining.
If I make the mistake of saying zip line in the house,
he goes and runs down to the base of the zip line tree and tries to get into his
little carrier.
How was your ride bud?
And he loves it. It's like going for a ride in the car. So Jackson,
we'll go for a ride.
This is probably my favorite part of this forest.
I've got a lot of Irish in me.
I've been to Ireland several times and to me this is Ireland.
This is natural. I didn't, I didn't do that. I didn't, I didn't make this,
this is the way I found it.
The truly genuine,
authentic reaction from people about how uniquely beautiful it is.
Really sort of put a lot of wind in my sails to let's start thinking a little
bit bigger back here and get some more people back here to enjoy nature and
enjoy the forest. And then a year later, Pete called me and goes Scott Scott,
I got an idea. We want to do another project. Can we use the Emerald forest?
I'm sure. Pete, what do you got in mind? Oh, we're going to do a theater.
So this is the Emerald forest theater.
The Treehouse masters folks came out here in August of 2017 and they built this
beautiful structure for us being a child of the 60s I just fell in love with
that forest moon avendor on a return of the Jedi.
So they built this in that vision.
It was only after that point when Pete told me that two out of three Treehouse
customers, when they talk to them, they all want an E wok's village.
I thought I had this wonderfully unique concept in my head and it turned out
very pedestrian. Everybody wants an Ewok's village. I've got Ewok's village.
This all came over on the zip line in big huge chunks one of Pete's favorite
parts of this project.
The part that when we were meeting to discuss it that he was just jazzed about,
he loved the idea of sort of spanning,
I think it's about 35 feet between these trees.
Took all these two by sixes and they sort of sandwich them together.
It came over in about three sections and then they installed it here and then
once the arch was built, then the rest of it just sort of built itself.
It's all supported by this arch.
Building a tree house is a unique proposition in that trees move tree houses
can change position even within the trees,
so so much of this allows for the tree house and the trees to move
If you're want some supplies from the concession stand and you have a willing
partner down there willing to hook it on, there are three kadoma
zones.
That's a trade name for these bubble like metal structures that we get into and
with a winch lift people up,
up above the deck so that they can get even a better view of the screen.
Jackson, and I come over here in the summer, we take naps in there.
Aw, does he go up? Yeah, we go way up there and he just cuddles with me.
There's a ropes climbing thing that the kids just love every time we take kids
over there,
that's where they immediately head let's climb up the ropes up and up under the
theater. There's swings, there's swings and there's a small stage.
Scott wants to have Irish dancers.
There are two dream nets billed by Sarah J who does that professionally and she
was out doing a beautiful job on those dream nets.
it took her probably two weeks.
Each level to crochet all is fine detail between,
between these trees.
This place brings out your inner child.
It's a off the grid solar system with
uh, several big batteries to store everything.
And then I've got a generator to top things off.
Everything you see now was powered by the sun.
What are some of the movies that you've shown? Ground hog day,
animal house, gremlins, gremlins. Blair witch project, that was a good one.
That was not a good one. That was a great one. The shining
there's the hardy souls is like Blair witch project. Give me more.
It's like not in a million years am I going out in that forest and then walking
out on a trail at night. That was me. Yeah.
It's been really a nice way to mix parts of our life.
I've seen some of the people I haven't seen in a long time. Sorority sisters,
old roommates, and it's really an experience nobody else can give you.
I've never seen anything like it. So
we took the concept of movies in the park and the movies in the up in
the forest for a lot of our friends.
Thanks for watching.
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see more tree house tours.