Yurtle, the yurt in progress

Over a few weeks ago my sweety was slaving away building me the frame for our dream home away from home. Is my man a provider, or what?! :)



Looky here! Even has a sky light. :)



Umm, well...okay, so its not exactly a dream home. But, it's pretty cool to me so far. :) It's called a yurt. And, it's based on traditional portable nomadic dwellings used for hundreds of years. Go look them up. You'll be amazed at what is being done with them.

If you've ever tried roughing it the primitive camping way, sans electricity, etc..., you might understand the important of quality shelter. My man is just over 6 foot tall. And most tents just won't due for him. Plus, the weather here can vary drastically from day to day from extreme heat and humidity to down pours of rain to freezing and the very rare snow fall. Well, this baby has 6 ft walls and an 8+ foot center ceiling. We decided to make our first attempt a decently sized 12 foot diameter. And, these yurts are designed for long term shelter in extreme temperatures. They ventilate very well keeping it warm at night and cool during the day.

Additionally, we camp on grounds that can get pretty crowded and crazy with people on walk-abouts tramping though your site tripping on your neighbors guy lines (drunk traps) and into your tent. Our yurt shouldn't give way to the average-sized drunk. I like that I can hang things from the ceiling (like a chandelier if I wanted) without too much worry of it collapsing. I'm going to find myself a full length mirror for dressing when I can manage it.



I sewed the walls and roof covering myself on my vintage 60's "Carl" heavy duty home sewing machine. It did a fantastic job going through all the layers of canvas without a hiccup. Though it was pretty tricky getting all that fabric through the machine, I was even able to flat feld the roof seams (like you see on jeans) to make them stronger and more water tight. :)

We've got a lot to finish on our yurt still. But I thought I'd show you all the progress pics, anyway. I need to add some grommets to the roof cover, finish the flooring and decorate the interior. I plan to paint the coverings to a more traditional look, I think. The camo print just isn't doing it for me. :) But, it was a bargain and kept us dry in the light showers we experienced, so I can't complain too much. We still need a floor over the ground tarp and an inner lining for the walls would be nice when it gets a little colder.



We camped in it twice so far. The pic above was taken our first trip without a finished roof. The frame all fit easily on the roof of our Jeep Cherokee. So far, we average about 2 hours of setup time. Most of which is spent tinkering on things that didn't get done. It was really comfy to sleep in. Even taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon was comfortable in the Texas heat. It was cool to look up at the repeating pattern of the roof members, too.