Triplets Oliver, Abigail and Meghan Creswick, have not slept in their beds since June.
They prefer to sleep perched high above their home, in a treehouse shaped like a pirate ship.
It took their father, Brian, three years to build it.
“Usually when I’m building things I draw up plans, but this came together somewhat organically,” says Brian. “But it is kind of hard to build according to a plan when you’re hanging from a tree.”
Brian says he knew from the beginning that he wanted to build a treehouse based on the concept of a ship.
“My main concern was to build something that was structurally sound, and something that the kids could enter and exit quite easily,” he says.
The fact that the tree that the house is connected to is dead made the job of building somewhat easier.
“If you’re building on a live tree, of course, you have to worry about the possible damage you might inflict on it,” says Brian.
“But you also have to keep in mind that the tree will grow and change and move. Even this dead tree shifts and sways a bit in the wind. However, before I built this I had an arborist come and look at it. He told me the tree should stand for about 50 years, especially now that we’ve got a roof over it.”
His main piece of advice to anyone interested in undertaking the challenge of building a treehouse for kids is to balance safety with risk.
“Of course you have to be safety conscious, and try to imagine the stupid things that your kids will do up there, and try to mitigate those actions,” he says.
“But you also have to embrace the danger a little bit too, or else your tree house won’t actually be fun for them.”
