[BabyMae09]

Hey all... my Fiancé and I are thinking about buying a yurt to live in on his parent's property. Here's what the situation would be: we're building a brewery in the Willamette Valley on his parent's acreage; it's almost finished. There's going to be a bathroom (with a shower) in the brewery - our yurt would not have indoor plumbing or electricity due to zoning laws (it would 'technically' not be a dwelling without those two things). Anyhow, we'd obviously have access to things like laundry and so forth in his parent's house, which is good, because we have a six year old boy and a baby due this coming May. The yurt itself would be the enclosed wooden kind, about 31' in diameter.

Has anyone attempted this kind of adventure with two young kids before? Does anyone have advice, thoughts, or concerns? I'm most interested in things such as using the bathroom (we've thought about having a porta-potty in a lean-to next to the yurt for night-time potty use) and cloth diapering with no indoor plumbing within the yurt - as mentioned, the laundry would be about 100 yards away, in his parent's house. Also, does anyone have anything to say about privacy issues, such as changing clothing and the adults being

in essentially the same space as the kids?

At first, there will be no walls inside, at the most, there will be two - which will be dividing our 'bedroom' from the main living area.

So? What do you all think?

 

[Jasmine_xoxo]

Hey there,
As a Willamette Valley resident I can think of a few drawbacks, but let me tell you that I too have thought about the Yurt thing on my parent's farm...

Have you considered the amount of rain that falls here? Are you prepared for that? Have you considered the windstorms that we have sometimes? Would a Yurt withstand that?

Could you stand the close quarters during the long winter? When I was married we had a tiny 900 or less sf house. It was cozy and we really were ok with the close quarters...but not everybody can handle that. My fiance (now) would HATE not being able to go into his man-cave...

You could make an awesome solar shower for summer use. We are making one at my parent's farm too.

An outhouse isn't too bad if it is maintained and kept clean. Check out Greenpa's blog for more info on his outhouse adventures. http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/

You could hang sheets on clotheslines for nighttime *privacy*. The *erm* extra activities will be harder to do with an inquisitive 6 yo. I would imagine Grandma could babysit a couple times a week for 30 mins? hehe

It sounds like lots of fun and please keep us posted. I am still thinking about it too. Although my parent's have a 1500 sf 4 bedroom upstairs that is empty...so we would probably use that instead.

Where (roughly - obviously I don't want you to post your address online...) is their farm located? It would be funny if it was near-ish to us.

Cheers,
Heather

 

[BabyMae09]

Hey, yeah we know about the rain and wind - I was born and raised here in the Valley. The yurts we're looking at are totally weather-proof and fine in windy conditions (they start at around $30,000 - super nice). The close quarters wouldn't be a huge deal... we have the brewery next door, which my fiance can take my son to (he'll be working there daily) if I get overwhelmed. Also, we'll have the grandparents close, so my son/baby can go over there sometimes too. We wouldn't be totally without other buildings/babysitters nearby

otherwise I wouldn't do it!

The farm is near Harrisburg, about 25 minutes south of Corvallis. You can check out our brewery's website if you want - we'll be brewing within a month or so! It's ag-ales.com

I'm Ari, my fiance is the brewmaster, Nate

Thanks for writing!

 

[Jasmine_xoxo]

Your brewery looks fantastic! (you have a typo on your front page - He was already well-known ...)

Our farm is near McMinnville-ish so we are kinda close hehe.

Do you have any plans to do any hard ciders or are you just about the ales?

Heather