Passion: Tree Houses

As I was cleaning up my store this evening I stumbled upon this amazing book in one of the home sections. It's called Treehouse Living and it brought up emotions in me that I haven't felt since I was a kid!
Naturally I stopped what I was doing and started flipping through it, and guys, this is one of the most gorgeous books I have ever seen! Perhaps it's just me, but I can't think of anything more amazing that being so.. intertwined with nature as a treehouse! Ever since I was a child I've wanted a treehouse, unfortunately living here in New Mexico makes it rather difficult to build one. I have seen a couple pretty neat ones around town, but it's almost impossible to find the proper tree for the designs I have floating in my head, it's just too dry! In any case this book made me think about them again and god damn I swear here and now that when I'm older and richer I will build myself one. I know what you're thinking, "Ryan you're the most not carpentry/building manly man ever" and it's true, but I will do whatever it takes to full fill this dream. I'll even overcome my mild fear of heights and dangle from a tree to build this. I know I'm probably going to need someone there who actually knows what the hell their doing, but I think it would be really gratifying to build my own! I suck at drawing so I haven't tried to draw one in a really long time, but maybe I'll start playing with sketches--hahaha doodles more likely--look at a few books like the one above and try and get an idea of what I want.

Like I said I've always loved the idea of treehouses even now I don't know why exactly. They've always seemed magical to me probably because my favorite mythical creature is the elf and in every amazing fantasy the elves live in forests and have cities in the trees. From Tolkiens Lothlórien to Feists Elvandor, fantasy has always blown my imagination away with it's elven cities.. the peacefulness, the calmness, the pure magic of it all has always captured my heart. Granted realistically I can't really expect to have a treehouse even comparable to those of Lothlórien or Elvandor, I think I can make something really cool!

Lothlórien

So naturally I came home and got online to check out what cool designs I could find and sadly there aren't any very good pictures out there. I did find a few that are really pretty, but I may just have to purchase that book at some point and upload the pics, or maybe I'll take some shots with my phone next time I'm working. For now, here's some cool treehouses I found! If you know of any please link them for me!

This one is the same as on the front of the book, except in winter obviously

This one I absolutely adore!

The same as above, from the front! Tell me that isn't AMAZING! Gah!

This one is kinda rickety, but it's still gorgeous

Another amazing one, I think I want mine higher though!

This is another really cool design!

Another thing I can say without a doubt is that I want it to have a spiral staircase up and around the trunk like the first one! This is more than likely because of the fantasy visuals I have in my head, but I also think it looks so freaking cool! I'll have to see what I can do about finding pics of some of the ones in that book. More than likely I'm already breaking some sort of copyright so whatever ya know? Not like I'm making money off 'em!