I have no carpentry skills but would like to learn, how should I go about?

All my life I am been pretty useless with building things. I couldn't even build a good dog house at this point. I'd love learn, but I really don't know where to start. Ultimatly, I'd like to build a nice tree house for my son, where should I start?

Answers:
There's plenty of resources online. I personally like home depot or lowe's and bet they may even be able to give you some guidelines on how to build it, as you'll be more likely to buy the material there.

http://dmoz.org/Home/Home_Improvement/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=building+a+tree+house&btnG=Search
http://www.illumirate.com/categories.cfm?cat_id=439680
http://www.illumirate.com/categories.cfm?cat_id=413254
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:How-tos_bookshelf#Carpentry_and_woodworking

Other answers:
I would consider books - attending the free classes at lowes or home depot. If you are really serious you can attend courses at your local college
I would consider books - attending the free classes at lowes or home depot. If you are really serious you can attend courses at your local college
Books are a great way to start. There are all kinds of books at the library you can get to help you with building all kinds of projects. Another way is to watch someone else for a day. Some people will allow you to go on the job with them and learn all kinds of things, you may pick up quite a few pointers. Also if you have a Lowes home improvement center near you they offer free classes on home projects.
Find someone that knows carpentry and watch, if he or she is a good friend or family member they will help you
Check if your local Vo-Tech or Community College has a woodshop that you can use. It's always easier to learn carpentry when you have the right tools. I'm guessing that if you're not that good at it, you probably haven't invested lots of money in good tools. So learn the ropes at the school; they might even have a continuing ed class which will provide much more useful information than a home center course which usually focusses on a specific project.

Also, this might seem obvious, but start with simpler projects - not necessarily smaller ones. Yes, it's easier to build a birdhouse than a built in entertainment center, but don't start so small that you're focussing on detail work. Remember your goal: to build a treehouse. This means you want to learn about frameing and roofing and flooring. You might even want to consider volunteering for habitat for humanity to get some hands on experience under an actual professional contractor's eye.
I'm a pretty fair carpenter. I have to some extend used all of the suggestions listed above. They all can give you knowledge, then you need to try building some simple things like a book shelf or a bird house of maybe a dog house.
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