The Joys of Bathing Outside
When Sam and I built our tiny house, we decided to give
ourselves some extra space inside by not having a shower and toilet in the
house. Instead, we made the would-be-bathroom space into our closet/supply
room. We really didn’t have any other options for closet space with how much
living area we really wanted. When the idea was presented, I thought it wasn’t
really that big of a deal. We have an outhouse with a modern toilet next to the barn I work in, and putting a bath tub
right outside the back door will make it easy to get ready in the morning. And
hey, we are surrounded by a pine forest in case of bathroom emergencies (or not
wanting to cross a pitch black field at 2AM). After living in the tiny house
for three years now, I have found the pros, the cons, the awesome and the ugly,
and this is what I have to say about having an outdoor bathroom.
From the start, I knew this was going to be pretty freaking
awesome. Three years ago when we were getting the bath house together, I was at
my pottery studio while Sam was getting the hot water heater hooked up. I had
been in my studio for about three hours and sent Sam a text saying that I’d be
home in about a half an hour, and I got an “Ok see you soon” back. I pulled
into the driveway and was walking up to the front door when I looked at the
opening of our bath house to find him like this:
(It’s pretty cool to drink a beer with a cigar while bathing
in your regular bathtub)
·
it’s quiet
·
has 100%
natural light (except at night when the string lights come on)
·
sounds of
nature all around you
·
you can
feel the breeze go through the pine trees
·
being
able to look out and see a house nestled in the woods that Sam and I built from
scratch
Originally, there was no door on the bath house. It had 3 walls that enclosed the tub with a completely open wall so we could see out into the woods. We had to change that after an incident with Sam in the tub on a Saturday morning when a Jehovah’s Witness paid us an unexpected visit. All Sam could do in that situation was wave and say “Good Morning!” because there was nowhere to hide. Now we have a sliding barn door that can easily be opened or closed while in sitting in the tub for such occasions. Lesson learned.
The catch with an outdoor shower is that you have to use it
rain or shine, summer or winter. It’s hard to make yourself get out of
beautifully hot water and stand in a 14 degree morning while you dry yourself
off enough to not make a puddle of water inside the house. Many a time has Sam
come in saying that he fell asleep in the bathtub and woke up with his hair
frozen to the side. Because of the winters in GA, we purchased an instant, tank-
less propane hot water heater that has a
max water temp of 122 (about 20 degrees hotter than a hot tub setting) which
allows us to have no limit on our hot water supply, making it very easy to get
a very warm bath in colder, winter temperatures. During not so pleasant days,
we do find ourselves wishing we didn’t have to bathe outside. We go see our friends
for dinner and say “my hair froze to the tub again this morning”. But this
feeling quickly comes and goes because of the usually mild winters we have in
Georgia.
One other minor set back to having an outdoor bath is
constantly being harassed by nesting birds in the spring. One minute you are
all relaxed, the next there is water going everywhere because a tiny tufted
titmouse got a sense that you were going after it’s babies and wasn’t okay with
it.
All in all, I don’t see myself going back to the
traditional indoor shower/bathtub. We are in the process of laying out floor
plans for a shipping container house to build in the next few years and I have
already told Sam that I would like an outdoor shower and tub that will go off
of our bedroom so I don’t have to give up my standing Saturday evening appointment
with my glass of wine, lavender/sage bath bomb, and the view of the forest I
now crave every time I take a bath.
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