Branching Out....

 

The Bare Bones... 

It is that time of year, Dear Readers, when the Skeletal shapes of Trees reveal themselves once more as the clothing of summer drifts and falls away leaving the stark and lonely branches to sweep the wintry sky. And I must admit that The Tree House project has always required a great deal of imagination from the viewers to even recognize the "someday" tree shape as it has slowly, slowly... yes very slowly grown beside The Folly Dollhouse. After all, it has stood as an incomplete but tall ungainly "stump" at the back corner of The Folly Dollhouse property for so many years that you could be forgiven for assuming it was never going to acquire any branches at all! And even then... the scale of the project asks for such a volume of "Tree Top" if ever it were to grow so tall... how could this possibly be realistic? Well, I have known some grand trees in my life and can imagine a variety of possible tree-tops if there were "world enough and time" (to miss-quote an ancient poet) to achieve such feats of valor... but I have a little better understanding of my own abilities and the limitations of the World of my Tiny house, so I have always intended that the Tree House would be a "truncated" tree in the end. Being a Willow tree, it has been "pruned into submission" time and time again, but never quits and always sends out more new branches whenever a grand limb has been severed. And so I hope you can imagine that it has grown into a rather ugly shape, covered in scars and bumps and knotted burls.... but that is for another day... for now we are simply finally beginning to see the emergence of branches from the main Trunk of the Tree! Did you spot it there in the first picture... the first branch to the left on the back corner of the Tree?

 

Here you can see it from a better angle... up close and personal!

 

And here it is again with the bunk-beds wall in place.

 

And once again from the front. 

The idea is that when the big branch was removed, 

the new branch emerged from the cut off spot

 and just started over from the same place. 

 

And then another branch.... 

the first branch to the right, by the Nanny's Room...

 

Here you can see it better from the front view.

 Because these branches stick off from the trunk 

in awkward angles from vulnerable corners, 

I felt they needed to be securely attached with screws, not just glue.

 

And since the attachment methods seemed to be working

 I added a few more branches... 

here you can see there are now four stubs 

sticking out awkwardly in very carefully calculated directions.

 

I needed to be careful in the placement of the branches

 so they would not interfere with the eventual functioning

 of the doors when the branches have their leaves, 

and yet they must supply adequate leafy coverage in the end.

 

And yes, now there are five incipient branches.... 

and it becomes difficult to see them all at once 

and they begin to need identifying names...

 we have a long way to go.

And just in case you are having a hard time 

imagining these little stubs as "branches", Dear Readers,

 I will enlighten you because I do have a plan!

 

This is just the testing of the beginning of

 the construction of the eventual branches... 

so you really have to use your imaginations 

to envision the possibilities... 

and I hope you are not disappointed at the 

stunted nature of the upper portions of The Tree House!

 

 Here you can see it from a little farther back,

 more in relation to The Folly and its roof....

 because you must remember that those branches

 have been "pruned" again and again.... 

and the branches will have their own branches and twigs...

 looong graceful branches because it is a Willow tree after all.

 

And here you can see it from even further back

 so you can see all the way down to the roots in the rocks.

 And look! I am even testing the top floor 

attic structure in the upper branches...! 

Yes there will actually be another whole level to explore

 once the Nursery and Nanny's Room are done.

 

Well, Dear Readers, I hope you are not disappointed

 by these meager bare bones, 

but that you are as Excited as I am that

 The Tree House is finally Branching Out!