Bamboo Tree House - an Architectural Model

My sister is a Doctor. She has been working relentlessly and tirelessly looking after everyone possible during the Covid-19 pandemic at the community, family, relatives and all levels, just as all other front-line workers. A big salute and a huge gratitude to all the Doctors, Nurses and other frontline workers because of these folks we are all alive and safe today.

She and I love all the Architectural models in every place we spot and we admire it always. This 'Bamboo Tree-House - An Architectural Model' is a special gift for her to have a relaxing time when things get back to normal so that she enjoys some 'peace' and 'self' time soon!

One such favorite place to visit for free is the 'Autodesk' centre at SF. Every time I stop by the city, I make sure to visit this exhibition without fail. Pandemic has pushed my plans out for now and I will continue to pay visit when we return to normalcy and hope that's soon.

Join me in this exciting project with good amounts of patience needed to built this tiny and cute model!

1. Bamboo skewers (A pack of 100)

2. Craft sticks (A pack of 60)

3. Dowels (A pack of 10)

4. A small handsaw or scissors

6. Wood or any good quality craft glue

7. A bunch of green scrubs (for the grass)

8. Brown card paper

9. 2 cardboard boxes

10. Jute rope (3-5 meters)

11. Artificial cut birds

12. Twigs (3-5)

13. Green color paper

14. Tape

15. Craft scissors

16. A box of tooth-picks

17. Ruler

18. Pen/Pencil

I'm an Architect at heart and always love to have my plans ready before I kick-off my work. This was one such wonderful must-have requirement for this project and that was my happy moments in the entire project :-) Image 1 shows a simple picture of the house and image 2 is a plan or top-view of the actual house.

I bought this packed of 100 skewers and chose to soak these in water for nearly 6 hours. Drained-off all the water and then let it dry completely. This removes the brittleness of the skewers making it stronger and easy to work with.

For the base of tree house, I choose an empty Oats cardboard box. This has nothing to do with oats :-) I cut sheet of 8.5 in X 6.5 in. Then, I took the craft sticks and cut the rounded ends and checked for the placement on the cardboard sheet. Keeping in mind this doesn't have to be perfectly aligned or look very much leveled-up as this a tree house made in the forests with all the existing materials. I then added craft glue on the sheet and placed all the sticks in the best possible way on top and the bottom sides. With this my foundation base for the house was ready.

This is a crucial step and I wanted to get everything ready per the Architectural Plans for the actual Tree-House. I first decided to have the walls 4.5 in X 4.5 in. This would fit comfortably on the base of 8.5 in X 6.5 in leaving good amount of space on all the three sides and slightly more on the front porch.

To start with I cut the 4 corner pillars 4.5 inches in length using the small hack-saw (image 1 & 2). This handy hacksaw is my new purchase and I love it totally. I then cut the skewers to 4.5 in length and put them into small batches to check the length of each of the 4 sided tree house (image 3). In addition to this, I also cut 2 inches and smaller length sticks to adjust at the door and windows.

Then on the brown paper I added glue and started placing these bamboo sticks in an ordered fashion (image 4). Slowing I built a complete pattern of walls, door (only on the front site) and windows (on the remaining 3 sides) of the structure (image 4-11) In addition to give it good support and firmness, I added another flat stick on the back side (image 13). As a last step I carefully cut the brown paper at the door and windows with the use of a crafters knife (image 14). I also cut the main doors (image 15) and smaller windows (image 16) cut from the popsicle or craft sticks.

Glued the roof (front and back - triangles) to the based and then placed the base to check if it correctly fits on the base (images 17-18)

Later I decided to set it side for sometime for drying and getting firmly glued on the brown paper. By now, I have the base and the walls ready.

In this step, I cut two 6 in X 3 inches strips for the roof. My idea here was to have the roof appear to be thatched and so I tried a couple of options and the one I chose looks perfectly so. I place the tooth-picks end to end and then cut small to adjust or fill on the empty spaces. It takes a good amount of time place these neatly and arrange in a nice looking fashion. The roof is ready by now (images 1 -5)

I also added the front and the back triangular side of the roof. This was cut from the last step into a triangular shape.

Typically I have these twigs falling on my patio during fall every year. I take time to clean and clear the patio. While I was just doing this in the last couple of weeks, I decided to gather these to pick and choose the best possible. This is a somewhat difficult stage to get the twigs which may not come in a standard shape or size. If you can see in image 1, as I pick these twigs, I cut these into to make it flat so that it stands straight.

In this project the twigs represent the trees in real life. I then decided to have a cardboard box and make 4 holes based on the thickness of each of the twigs and arranged the twigs in a way such that they appear as the trees for the foundation of the structure to rest on. These had to be setup carefully with the right precision on the distance, the height and balancing the weight of everything that rests on the foundation. Images 1 & 2 show how the twigs and picked and arranged to build the base for the building. Image 3 shows how neatly the foundation is arranged. I was comfortable keeping everything on the floor so that I could take good images and work with peace of mind.

Obviously the tree house has to have a railing for safety. Without that in place what if you happen to fall down and just then a Tiger or Lion passes by, thus becoming a great feast for such beasts :-) For the railings, I cut the dowels into 2 inches length and then along the length added the bamboo skewer with 9 inches length. Tied up all the dowels with the help of jute strings (image 1-4). Created all the 4 railings and then finally added these along the border or edges of the base. In between the dowels, I glued the 2 inches skewers along the length (image 9)

With this most of the major work on the building is done.

Now comes the most important step and that's the steps (or Ladders). With the tree house being on the tree, it is important to have a way to climb up there. Obviously climbing via the tree could be an option, but the idea is to build a strong, straight and reliable choice. For that I picked up 2 foot long dowels and added 2 inches steps along the length. Finally now there is a way to climb the house with the help of the ladders.

At this point I decided to have a table and benches to decorate. I decided to have a table. For this I took two 2 inches length craft (popsicle) sticks. Made a small cut on the second one (image 1) and then slit one into the other. Finally I glue this to the top. This becomes the table.

Next I added 4 small tooth-picks as the legs for the bench,. Finally I made sure to let it stand straight. You can see these images (4-8) right on the porch in image 9.

Glued green color paper to show up greenery. To make this a grass on the ground, I added the green color scrubber on the grounds. I also added some fragrance dry flowers to have some of these for decorations along the green grass. Lastly added some small readymade cut and cute birds to show how rural, close to nature and in the woods is the tree house created and completed.

Thank you for staying with me all along the entire construction of the Tree House.

I am waiting for my sister to love this peaceful and restful place to relax. Only waiting for a good time though :-)