Lawrence resident Holly Hangauer, right, holds 20-month-old son Micah as daughter Amara, 6, plays in the family's treehouse on a recent March morning.

With spring arriving, the sounds of hammers and saws building a new addition onto a home or a new deck in the backyard are plentiful. But there’s another home improvement project that has gained some popularity with the young and young at-heart: treehouses.

In neighborhoods throughout Lawrence, there’s usually a treehouse that adults and kids alike will point you toward if you ask. With Lawrence residents ending their winter hibernations, the Journal-World went on a search for some of the more elaborate or unique treehouses in the city. We are sure there are some we didn’t find, but here’s a sample of treehouses across the city.

• In west Lawrence, neighbors will direct you to an unconventional treehouse at 4500 Winged Foot Court. Tom Williams built the two-story treehouse last summer for his five grandchildren. The house rests on the ground, with the tree intersecting it. That unique design was partly due to his granddaughter’s request for a two-story treehouse, and part invention, Williams said.

“The design came out of my head — I just made it up as I went along,” he said.

• In North Lawrence, when Patrick and Holly Hangauer and their two children recently moved into the house at 544 N. Third St., the treehouse out front had been there about a decade. Patrick Hangauer said it had piecemeal expansions in that time, acquiring a deck and decorative additions, and neighbors will walk by and tell him they helped with this part or the other.

The tree itself has begun to die, many of its branches sheared from the trunk, but even so, the treehouse has been reinforced, Hangauer said.

“Funny enough, it’s not really resting on the tree at all,” he said. “It’s really built around the tree rather than built on the tree.” The Hangauers have yet to add to the treehouse themselves, though they did hang a set of curtains.

• Down the street from the Hangauers’, the treehouse built by Juan Gonzalez at 725 Locust St. is more rustic. The railings of the treehouse are made of actual tree limbs. There are no curtains hung; there isn’t even a roof over most of it. Instead, ramps and bridges connect different parts of the house, offering a place for his kids to run around.

“I just built it for my kids,” Gonzalez said. “I always wanted to build one since I was kid, and never had the chance to.”

• In the Barker neighborhood, Matthew Stephens spent about a year building a bright teal treehouse with wrap-around deck, glass-paned windows and rope hoist for his daughter, Goldy. Inside, Christmas lights hang from the ceiling and braided rugs cover the floor. Goldy, 8, said her and her friends like to play house or spies in the treehouse. Stephens said Goldy had wanted a treehouse for some time, and he made modifications to a basic treehouse design from a book he checked out from the library.

“I had one when I was a kid that was really cool,” he said. “And I kind of wanted to build one, secretly.”

• In the Pinckney neighborhood, the white treehouse at 500 Indiana St. is not much bigger than a phone booth. It’s wedged between three forking branches, and its only adornment is a blue-trimmed, portal window on one side. A boat ladder hangs from the floor to the tree’s slanting trunk.

The little house started several years ago when Jason Klinknnett built a platform in the tree. Since then, he used repurposed or recycled materials to construct the puzzle-piece-looking walls of wood and corrugated steel before adding the roof.

The Klinknnetts have lived in the house more than 40 years, and Klinknnett said the treehouse was intended for his nephew. But his mother, Carol, said that recently the treehouse has a steady resident of a different sort, a squirrel that will “go wild” if you try to enter it.

“It’s kind of a strange little place,” she said. “But the squirrels like it, I think.”