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World's Coolest Dad Built a Tree in his Daughter's Bedroom to Make Her Dreams Come True

Modified: by Vanessa Beaty · This post may contain affiliate links · 2 Comments

fairy-girl-bedroomRun an image search for children’s bedrooms to come up with ideas for your own kids’ bedrooms, and you’ll find a lot of cool stuff—but nothing that even begins to compare with this.

This guy actually built a tree in his daughter’s room. As you can see, it has a cozy little reading nook inside complete with a light. She can also climb up in the branches and sit. So stay with us and You will get to see a step-by-step gallery starting with the initial drawing of the tree concept all the way through to completion of the project. What is amazing about this project is that it is so well documented that you could almost imagine reproducing something like this yourself at home. Obviously the craftsmanship required is tremendous, but the supplies and techniques used are for the most part surprisingly simple.

Be sure to scroll through the entire gallery. You’ll not only see how it all came together, but you’ll also be able to check out all the incredible little details: the texture of the bark, the realistic paint job, the little fairy doors, the birds, butterflies, and other ornamentation. You can also see how he painted the walls with a soft, subtle rainbow spectrum, and added lights to the tree branches for an atmospheric glow. The world's most awesome dad award goes to Radamshome (Reddit profile) and check out the project discussion on Reddit I built a tree in my daughter's bedroom.

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Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
My daughter wanted a fairy tree in her room that she could sit inside and read books, climb the branches, and also have a top sitting area. I was kind of un-prepared for the physical realities of this project. I used Disney set-design as my inspiration. Even though it was difficult, I learned a huge amount along the way. It turned out pretty well, and she's so happy in her new room!
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Materials cost for the entire project, including the room renovations was about $4,250. It took about 350 hours of my time -mostly spent on weekends or at night during the past 18 months. I've had a few people ask about fire safety. I consulted with both a private fire protection engineer, and a residential fire prevention specialist from my city's fire department to ensure I didn't create a fire hazard.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
She has her own reading light inside the tree, which is a 12v fixture on its own dimmer switch (located next to her right arm on the carpeted inside wall). My wife suggested the sitting area in the middle. This feature made the whole project more daunting, but in the end, I was glad she thought of it.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
The knot hole fairy windows are on their own 12v circuit, dimmable from a switch near the door. At bedtime these make awesome nightlights.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I'm an artist in the video game industry, and don't usually draw with paper so I'm out of practice. Anyway, this was the last of about a dozen sketches I did before building the model. Most of the earlier drawings looked too scary, and the last thing I wanted was for it to give her nightmares!
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I used Sculpey modeling clay and some plywood cut in the dimensions of her room, including the window and beams in the ceiling. I drew grid lines 1" apart. I put the whole thing in the oven for 25 minutes at 275 degrees to bake it to hardness.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Pretty ho-hum little girl's room. Definitely ready for a make-over! Notice how she's not in the picture. She wasn't very excited about her room at this point.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I knew I'd be working for months at this spot, and needed a solid work surface. A sheet of plywood screwed to saw horses did the trick. Then I screwed the sawhorses right into the sub-floor for added stability.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
1' grid lines to match the model. This made it a lot easier to quickly see where things like branches were supposed to be.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
If I drew the silhouettes of the model on the wall, I could attach the steel rebar straight to these lines. The nice thing about organic shapes is you can get away with eyeballing things. Mistakes were made.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
As soon as the shape was drawn on the walls and floors, I was ready to start welding!
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I mostly used ⅜" rebar and ⅛" steel rod from scraps, or Home Depot. To make the tree climbable, the frame needed to be pretty strong. So I over-engineered it to easily support 3 adults, even though it would only ever be used by little kids. As I worked, I'd hang on the different parts, testing for strength.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
The process was pretty basic: insert one end of the rod in the vice, pull down to add a curve, repeat until I had a full circle.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
This setup ended up working well. At the recommendation of my instructor, I bought a Miller 211 MIG welder for its relative ease of use. The inert shielding gas comes from the wire itself. I also got a 30" industrial fan to suck the smoke out the window as I worked. (I also wore a welding respirator).
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I found my welding teacher on craigslist. She's a professional sculptor named Carla Grahn, and she was offering 1-day private classes at her studio in Seattle for a few hundred bucks. I learned a ton from her and it was well worth the cost.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Amateur welds.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I'm a hopeless perfectionist, and I spent too long making the skeleton look good, as if it would be seen or something. Later, when I was doing the concrete it was painfully obvious I could have made the skeleton more crude, saving lots of time. At this stage I'd spent about 100-120 hours.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
After some frustrating attempts to use ¼" wire screen, I found "expanded metal lathe", which was is much easier to work with! After trying to use wire to fasten the lathe to the skeleton, I opted for zip-ties. These were faster and easier to use than wire.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I thought this part would go fast. Nope.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
The happy customer. Not shown: my bandaged hands and arms. (At this stage I was about 175 hours in.)
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I pre-wired the lights for the fairy windows and door using small fiberglass waterproof 12v landscape lights. I taped over the glass covers with blue painter's tape to protect them from the concrete phase.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
The formula I found worked best was 2 parts portland cement, 1 part water, 1 part polymer fluid. This fluid can be bought from "Something Better Corporation" online. They also have some videos on youtube showing how this is mixed and applied. I added 2oz of 1" fiberglass shreds to the mix. I used a 5-gallon bucket and a heavy-duty drill mixer. The concrete was applied with a trowel just like stucco application. For the texture, I used silicone bark rollers and clay sculpting tools for the smaller details.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
After a few failed attempts to get the concrete to stick to the outer branches, I realized it would have to be paper mache. It's not only very strong when layered several times, but lightweight and easy to apply.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
This was a big milestone in the project and something I was really looking forward to. But I have very little experience painting, other than Warhammer 40K miniatures from when I was about 17. So, I decided to paint it exactly the same way! (At this stage I was about 225 hours in)
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Just like painting my war-gaming miniatures, I started with a very dark coat, then gradually applied lighter colors.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
When I painted miniatures, a tiny bottle of colored ink was 10 bucks. I needed lots more than that. After a couple of depressing trips to art stores, I realized Rit clothing dye might work. For less than 20 dollars, I had several colors and plenty of it! I mixed the dye with a little water and brushed it into the crevices.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I'd take the kids on walks and shoot pics of trees with my phone as reference. I have lots of tree pics.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I used the dark ink washes over the lighter colors, then dry-brushed over that when it dried to get the crusty bark look.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I kept this picture of her in the room to help me through the tough parts.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
It was nice to work on something besides the tree.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Here's the rough blending
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
This technique worked well. You can see videos of how to apply glaze with a "woolie" on youtube.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
My father-in-law helped me install the hardwood floors. We put in some flooring at his house a few years ago, so I cashed in the favor. We used a good insulating underlayment because her room is above a part of the house that doesn't get much heat.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I'd pre-drawn this curve on the sub-floor. Then I used a jigsaw to cut each piece of hardwood before nailing it in, to get this curve shape. The plan was the put squishy green carpet around the tree.

Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.

Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
These retrofit kits allow you to use stem knobs in standard holes. I found the knobs on amazon.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
These retrofit kits allow you to use stem knobs in standard holes. I found the knobs on amazon.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Hot glue gun: the most valuable craft tool ever invented.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I used watercolor paint to add the dirty brown look to the paper. The light would then shine through and make the windows look "old timey".
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I used deep-set receptacle boxes so I could put these transformers right behind the switches, keeping them enclosed. These transformers are wired to the window lights. Each window light has a small landscape light inside.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Dremmel tool to carve the wood details, then wood stain.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
A trip to the local Michael's craft store yielded some good details pieces for the door. I found the doorknob at Anthropologie. I made the big gold hinges from Scupley and painted them with Testors paints.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I found silk branches online for $150 for 128 individual small branches. This was the most economical way to get the base layer of leaves down. I could then add more decorative (and more expensive) branches on top of that.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Most of this was found at Michael's and a nursery called Molbak's.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I clipped plastic ferns apart to make sprigs for the branches.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
There's about 5 bird's nests in the tree. This one's the biggest.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
A detail shot. Hot glue gun was used heavily at this point.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Hand-blown glass. Most of the decorations are cheap but we splurged on a few of them. I made sure to fasten ones like this with heavy wire to steel parts of the branches.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
Hot glue gun strikes again.
Dreamy enchanted forrest girl bedroom project.
I wired 6 series of 50 standard Christmas bulbs in parallel. They're controlled by a dimmer by the door, (I'd pre-wired for these through the branches) and when turned all the way down, look just like stars. In this picture they're turned to about 75%.

Seriously—this may just be the most phenomenally gorgeous child’s bedroom I have ever seen. And my hat is off to this guy; here is a father who loves his daughter and shows it through inspired creative effort. What a way to fuel a child’s dreams and imagination!

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  1. Anitha Stephen

    Excellent ideas

    Reply

  2. Nadia Acosta

    Wow!!! This is amazing. I wish I could do that. I was on pinterest looking for ideas and tutorials, and this is how I found your post. It really is awesome. I am going to renovate my girl's room. Since I don't have too much space to work in (I live in an apartment), I'm gonna' do all the decorations 2D, an paint paint paint. I hope it turns out good. Thank you so much for sharing this, it's inspiring.

    Reply