‘Home in Tree’ or The Tree House
There’s something about the cosiness one can enjoy in the shade of trees. The deep green, the fresh air and the oasis they are on a hot, summer day or the protection they offer during breezy or drizzly ones.
The Idea
We’ve always had a soft spot for trees, mountains and adventure so wherever we would travel to we looked for a spot with old, grown trees, a swing hanging from them or a house in them. Still children at heart looking for that sense of adventure, yet with a serene and cosy touch to it.
When we visited the plot our new house is on, we spotted the perfect trees within the first 10 minutes of the introduction. There were two Eucalyptuses and one Grevillea tree that would perfectly engulf a little getaway, a place for sleepovers, romantic retreats or for a spontaneous whim of getting out of the house and withdrawing somewhere where the trees would hug us and the fire, warm us.
The Inspiration
Apart from the childhood dream of having a tree house, the place that left a print on our hearts was a romantic trip we took to the French Dordogne region. I surprised my husband by booking one night deep in a forest in a Tree House two storeys up in the air. The tree house was anchored to one huge tree and, to reach it, we had to drive about 5 minutes in the forest, cross a creek on a hanging bridge and climb two sets of stairs. It had an ecological toilet on the first floor (a toilet where one doesn’t flush, but uses two big cups of pine sawdust to cover whatever there is to cover and discard the plastic bag (which is very nicely tucked in the frame of a toilet) the next day to a specially assigned place :). Then came a second floor with a terrace , a king-size bedroom with a panoramic view of the trees and a spacious bathtub right next to the window. Breakfast came in a basket on a pulley driven rope at 8 am.
The Style
Our Tree House is built in a circular building style - a style focusing on environmental preservation and limiting climate change through smart design and resource efficiency.
Thinking about the life span of a building and the impact it will have on the long term begins at the design stage and focuses on two central words - reuse and recycle. We wondered which materials left over from our construction site could be used in order to avoid dumping them somewhere. Our house was already built with local materials so with the tree house we tried to take the ‘environmental friendly, lower carbon footprint’ idea one step further. The materials we still had left from the main building project were metal and glass from the windows , blockboards from the attic floors, pieces of Meru oak from our doors, cypress wood beams from the roof structure and unused or left over metal roof sheets.
Reuse of Materials
We incorporated the left over metal and glass in the Tree House windows and terrace doors, the blockboards into the walls, floors and kitchen as well as bathroom cabinets and counters, the left over cypress and oak into the bar table chair tops and loft railing and clothed the whole ‘Home in Tree’ with metal sheets (see pic above). In our endeavor to preserve the trees we even hugged one of them by building the edge of the roof and gutter around it.
Next to repurposing materials we also tried to tackle a second question that comes with a circular building style - can something have a second life in a new location? To answer this question we looked around us for items we already had in our home that could be reused or incorporated in the tree house and not have to buy something new. So we found some things that carried our story in them, used items ready to be part of a new story.
The guest room bed we had bought for our AirBNB space back in Rotterdam was quite old and shabby, so we kept the frame of the bed and only replaced the mattress.
The cute sofa bed we had bought for a little corner in our house in Rotterdam needed some reupholstry and now serves as the living area sofa in the tree house. The best thing about it is that it can also be used as a bed!
For the curtains we used some we’ve had in previous homes, but were not fitting the main house windows anymore and a roll of fabric I had bought years ago and never used.
The living room table is another piece of blockboard we attached left over metal legs to.
The Lighting
My favourite part of this project was letting creativity go loose and the Tree House was the cute, cosy, little getaway to make some items myself or give a personal twist to something.
With craft paper I had bought from the bookstore I made a French ‘Abajour en Papier’ hanging lamp. It took a couple of evenings to fold and add the metal thread details and about one hour to hang. Et Voila!
I bought these really original lamps made from Baobab dry fruit pods from Seedling Designs, a local company based in Kilifi, a resort on the Kenyan coast. We made three of the pendants longer by adding cable to work for the very high ceiling and hung them around the bar area. Other two got a cable with a socket at the end so instead of having them fixed in the wall, which we would need a sconce provision for, we could just hang them on a hook in the wall and plug them in the socket to serve as a night stand lamp.
The bed side cable lamps and the sconce we used on the ceiling
Then there was this lonesome sconce from the same brand which we bought before we started building, but didn’t really know where I would use it since we filled all our rooms and spaces with pendants and barely any wall lights. But the more I walked with that sconce in my hands the more I noticed the slanted ceiling followed the angle of the sconce making it a perfect ceiling lamp. Perfect for above the Tree House loft bed.
More left over blockboard and small pieces of oak made the perfect raw material for the clothing hanger at the entrance.
Practical Space Use
We love a bit of practical thinking (a lot actually :) which welcomed an effective use of the space under the stairs leading to the loft. If guests from close and far were to visit, where would they put their suitcase, hang shirts or trousers? Where would they find a handy extra lamp or some candles in case electricity goes out (the fun, never-take-it-for-granted luxury we would never lack back in our other home countries)?
Under the stairs of course by adding some more….Yes! Bloackboard! And a-carved-in-the-wall door, a rod and a small drawer cupboard!
For more storage we added two plastic bins under the bed upstairs which would replace the idea of a rail with hangers, to maximize on the walking area as much as possible and, we now have the wardrobe under the stairs - the pure joy of practical happiness!
Our Love For Trees
Last but not least, since we have a knack for tree preservation and environment we saved a tree that was meant to be cut because it was in the way of the Tree House eaves. When we heard we might need to remove a tree we immediately said no and tried to find another way. We decided to carve into the eave so that it actually embraces the tree and introduce two side gutters instead of one. We smile every time we pass by.
