Member Yurts

[hussyvelma]

Mel and Vikki decided to buy a Yurt in 2013 when they were at a festival in Kent. At that time Vikki was living and working in London and Mel was living and working in Wiltshire. Vikki said she always wanted a Yurt (she says that about a lot about things!) and Mel had a garden with a view, so it seemed like a good idea! The Yurt was transported from Kent to Wiltshire and put up the 1st time by a big team of 10 willing people; it took 7 hours the first time! Originally the Yurt was put on a groundsheet and as this is not good for the air-flow for the Yurt and the ground was not level, the Yurt was not water-tight and there was a few leaks. We left the Yurt up for 2 weeks and then took it down again for the winter. It was at this time we noticed that the Yurt had woodworm so we treated the wood numerous times and thankfully the woodworm has now vacated the Yurt! Storing the Yurt was no mean feat, the lattice woodwork and the central poles took up our living room and the silk inner lining and outside canvas took up 2 bedrooms in our house. We decided that we wanted the Yurt up all year around so we could use it in wintertime too - for this to happen we had to have a Yurt base built. In February, Vikki moved to Wiltshire and we sought advice from local craftsmen and builders with regards to the type of base we should build for the Yurt. We decided upon using reclaimed wood, which is in keeping with the style of the Yurt and so Simon was entrusted to do the work; we had the reclaimed scaffolding boards delivered from Devon and work commenced in March 2014 with freezing fog the whole week! It took 5 days to build the base, with the additional help of Mel’s son Rory. Lots of teas and bacon sandwiches later, the base was fully custom-built and insulated with straw. The following weekend was spent varnishing and treating the wood and once again we set about putting the Yurt up. This is where we got it wrong again, 5 people put the Yurt up in around 4 hours. Everyone had his or her own idea of how the Yurt should go up and whilst it did sit on the base, it was put up too tall and it wobbled! So…. We took the Yurt down again! We called our special friend Clinton, who came riding in on his motorcycle like an easy rider into the village all the way from Bedford, we enlisted Mel’s son Rory & a friend and we put the Yurt up AGAIN! This time, we did it to precision, we watched untold Youtube videos and we measured as we went. Within 3.5 hours we had a perfectly built Yurt, sitting on it’s perfectly built base! Hoorah.In April and May we built the Toilet Shed and had electricity installed to the Yurt. We had to dig out a trench from the house to the shed so we could have running water and the electricity installed. Mel’s brother Dave came and helped to get that all working for us. We then set about decorating the inside of the Yurt, we wanted to invest in a big comfortable bed with luxurious bedding, enamel plates and kettle, table & chairs, a chesterfield sofa etc…Hopefully, like us, you will think the Yurt speaks for itself, we didn’t want to ‘glam’ it up too much for this reason.