After working exhaustively with the building department, plans were approved and I started to get to work. Actually, I started spending gross amounts of money to have other people start work. Although I was the official general contractor, I worked very closely with my framer who helped me understand the steps along the way and I took care of all the babysitting/haranguing of subcontractors. Whenever I could, I would do it myself, but unfortunately, that wasn’t until much later in the process.

My first fatal move was my framer told me I couldn’t pour a round foundation so I had to raise everything up on a framed foundation. Bad idea - if I were to do this again (which I doubt) then I would definitely put this on a poured foundation at ground level.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I needed to bring in all the utilities to the building site. And I don’t care whether you’re building a yurt or mansion, this all has to be done, and it’s expensive. This consisted of water lines up from the well, upgraded electric service, running electric up from the pole, sewer going back to the tank. And while we were at it, it turns out my septic tank wasn’t up to code because it was never permitted. I had to have part of it dug up and re-done to today’s code. What’s another few grand down the, uh, drain.

Colorado doesn’t allow gray water systems and this is really unfortunate. Given that we have very little rainfall it would be really nice to use gray water for gardening but no such luck.

Since I was going down the path of a raised foundation, I had to post posts in for the framing. Then I decided since I have to get to each of the windows, I needed a deck to go around each yurt. I got carried away and designed such a deck, with a little outdoor styling. As it turns out, I never open the windows, I open the doors and skylight if I need it cooler. And besides from fastening the windows (See Yurt Tips on Wind), I haven’t needed to get around to all of the windows. So having this extravagant deck wasn’t necessary nor in the budget. However, I didn’t realize all of this at the time, so I planned for it, and had 72 piers put in for the foundation. Why so many? Because the yurts needed to be on separate levels from the decking.

I also learned that you should have your property leveled first before paying several thousand for the survey markers. Another oops, and wow, I’m learning a lot and paying for it too!

It gave the framers a headache, but they made it. All the beams were cantilevered off of a octagonal (hexagonal for the yurtlet) base. The octagon/hexagon was then closed in with plywood. I had only the yurt foundations framed to start and built a much smaller deck later.

After some more plywood, to round out the edge and create the floor, we put radiant tubing down and called for the concrete truck.

I had the concrete coming on Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. I was going to tile the floor over the long weekend then the following weekend I had several friends lined up for the yurt raising.

The day the concrete truck was to show, I spoke to my contact at the company and he happened to mention that my “finishing crew” should be there as soon as the truck arrived. I had no idea what a finishing crew was. I thought they were going to spread it around and level it! Because I had so many things lined up to be done before my yurt raising, I had to have the concrete poured that day. In a panic, I called my builder and he didn’t know anyone. I must’ve sounded pathetic because he called me back and said he, his son, and other builder would come up and do it. We worked until 10:30 that night knee-deep in concrete to get it finished!

Finally something I could do! I tiled day and night all labor day weekend to be ready for the following weekend’s yurt raising. My fingers bled from placing the tiles and my knees were ruined, but it was ready! I grouted the edges where the lattice would go but had to leave the rest of the grouting until after the yurt was up.

Ready for yurt raising

Now having to move in to my 16′ yurt (yurtlet) over Christmas holiday, and be out of my house before the New Year, I called upon some friends for an old-fashioned yurt raising. These are true friends too, it was cold and the shortest day of the year. We ended up working under lights because naturally, it took longer than expected.

I had my friend pickup the yurt with his large trailer from a shipping company that brought it from Oregon. I put the drip edge up that morning and cut the slots for the doors.

Some specs on the yurt:

• 16 foot
• Tall walls
• One standard door
• One french door (opposite standard door)
• 3 windows on each side (making it pretty much all windows)
• Snow & wind kit
• Tinted dome

As we all discovered, the snow & wind kit requires a LOT of extra time as you have to drill/screw all the braces to the studs (top & bottom) and cut them to length. That absorbed much more time than we expected. I believe they tell you that you can setup a yurt in 4 hours on their website - that might be true, if you don’t have the snow & wind kit. Not to mention several chiefs and few indians to direct (if you know what I mean).

What I didn’t realize until we were unfurling the side canvas in the dark was that they sent me the wrong canvas - built for a 16 footer, but only one window and one door. Luckily, they did send one of the sides as well, so the bad side we just cut to length and it worked fine. It turns out this was a gift in disquise because the windows are the weakest point for wind. And the window flaps are utterly useless. They block nothing except maybe your privacy and flap incessantly in the wind, no matter how much you try to tighten them down.

And, as I did years later, if you have big clamps, use these to secure the canvas to the door frame to make it really tight. No matter how many people we had struggling to hold it tight, the clamps worked much better.

The slideshow:

After selling my house, it was time to to find a place to live. I decided to build a platform for a small 16′ yurt which I could live in while I decided to and/or officially built the large yurt. Unfortunately, that meant building the platform in days where temps got to a high of 5 degrees (F).

I pretty much followed the platform plans provided by Pacific Yurts. I was fortunate to have a small barn to work out of that had electricity. I know people have built platforms without electricity, but it sure is easier with power tools! I did it by myself in 5 days - if you have help, I’m sure it’s faster. I’m not the best carpenter/builder either, but I manage to get it done eventually. Working in subzero windchills doesn’t help much either!

Day 1 & 2:
Setting the pre-cast concrete piers and attaching the posts. After clearing a foot of fresh snow!

Day 3:
Setting the beams and the outside bracing.

Day 4:
Cross-bracing and insulation. I used the Reflectix underneath because I was worried about critters - I would stick with a standard insulation because the Reflectix sure didn’t seem to do much and I ended up surrounding the platform with straw bales a month or two after I moved in.

Day 5:
Attaching the plywood floor and cutting it to the radius.

And we’re ready for the yurt!

Before Yurt

My yurt idea came about when I was still living in my 2500 sq ft home that I didn’t like to clean in a subdivision that I didn’t like. I had heard about yurts years before but never really knew much about them. After doing some research online, I was really sold. I’ve always liked the unusual homes you see on the diy network but it was hard to find people who actually lived year-round in their yurts, especially in a climate like that in Colorado.

I found 10 acres of property for sale in a great spot next to the national forest. It was a beautiful piece of property with well and electric already on it and a few months later, I bought it. Now with two mortgages on my hands, I really needed to sell my house before I could do anything on the vacant land.

My beautiful 10 acres

I finally found a couple who was living in their yurt outside of Fairplay, CO. I drove out to see their yurt to see if it would really work for me. Their yurt was pretty crowded but still very appealing to me. Another weekend I drove all the way out to Montrose, CO to check the yurts of the Colorado Yurt Company.

When my house was finally under contract, it was mid November. I had less than two months to figure out where to live. My property had water and electric, but it was further back on the property where a mobile home had been, not where I would be building. Still unsure about the yurt decision, I decided to buy a 16′ yurt and live in that for however long it took to decide if living in a yurt was really something I wanted to do. I thought if I can live in a 16′ yurt, I can certainly live in a 30′ yurt.

I had the electric run up to the barn and I started building a platform for the hence-named yurtlet. It would be without plumbing, and I’d have to go down the drive about 40 yards to fetch fresh water. This would certainly simplify my living style by drastic measures. I packed up a few things, and stuffed what I could in a POD storage container and gave away the rest.

Let the yurtlet building begin!