Is There a Bathroom in Your Yurt?

Yeah, it's a good question.
Technically, no. It's not in the yurt, it's on the deck.

By the end of 2009, we had dug more holes, added more support structure under the deck, and built a bath house. Build it right on the deck, Mom decided. Just fine, we said. We'd made plans to temporarily move into the yurt while we began construction on the barn, so a bath house sounded like a good idea.

But first, we decided to take a road trip to Oregon, backcountry ski in Yosemite, sail our way down the interior coast of Baja in our outrigger sail-canoe, and climb the Middle Teton.

When we were done, we ended up back at the yurt.

First we built the "pergola"

Then the bath house framing took shape.

Recognize that flooring? Extra planks became our custom bamboo counter top.

We covered the bath house with polycarbonate sheeting.

Walkway to the bath house got covered too - good idea!

Custom-built redwood door with polycarbonate panels - see through!

Trial run for the door.

We found a bitchin sink at Urban Ore in Berkeley.

Details, details.

Gross cabinet we found somewhere (?) for bathroom shelves. Don't worry, I fixed 'er up.

Custom door track made from an aluminum bar and skateboard wheels.

Door in action.

Sexy.

Our bath house siding (and all lumber for the pergola) came from Anderson's Alternatives, our local reclaimed lumber business. Nate Anderson is a great guy, does business all over California, and has a deaf dog named Guiness.

Come together.... right now....

Over me.

Shower walls are see-through polycarbonate sheets. Because we obviously do not value our privacy.

Old double-hung window reclaimed for the bath house

And this is the corner for the composting toilet ....

We have compiled a small list of things we'd do differently if we had to do it over again which, thankfully, we don't:

1. Don't use wood counter tops in an un-weatherproofed building unless you varnish and re-varnish the crap out of them.
2. Speaking of un-weatherproofed, Erin spent 80,000,000 hours, give or take a few, that first rainy winter trying to weatherproof this building. We were cheap and bought the 8 foot sheets of polycarbonate. They are impossible to tie together in a rain-proof way, so our advise is to buy the sheets exactly as long as the area you need to cover, and buy the U-channel for butting them together.
3. DO NOT BUY AN ENVIROLET/SANCOR COMPOSTING TOILET! I wish we had seen this page of negative reviews before purchasing ours, but you do not want me to get into that right now. Hundreds of people with nothing but bad things to say.

That is all.