Outdoor Kitchen/Porch/Shower/Outhouse Plans
Re-posted from @springdiesel@spore.social.
I feel like I posted this already but I don't see the post. I finally found a builder who will do it. These images are not the whole thing.
Look at the first image, where there are double shed doors. Now imagine that roof keeps extending from that wall, and that there is a porch there the same size as the enclosed building.
That's the thing I want.
(Snap.as cannot handle alt text that includes line breaks or periods, so for the floor plan image, I am fully describing it in the main text. That's why no alt text.)
Here is the floor plan I submitted getting quotes. The letters for the sides have to do with one of the design apps they offered. The biggest providers cannot do this design. They won't do interior walls, porches more than 4 feet, nor porches on slanted roof designs. The most local one will do the job, so they already won.
Alt text: On yellow lined paper from a legal pad that is letter sized, go figure, a floor plan labeled "Deer Camp Porch + Outdoor Kitchen + Shower + Outhouse. Because of the app I was using to make a mockup, the right wall is labeled A, the top wall is B, the left wall is C and the bottom wall is D. A wall divides the rectangle into left and right halves - the left half is labeled "open porch". That wall has double shed doors swinging outward. The right half has another wall dividing that space into left and right portions, and the wall is labeled "full interior wall". The rightmost section is divided into top and bottom chambers by another interior wall that is labeled "NOT full height". Each of these chambers has an outswinging door to the outside, labeled "3' shed doors with transoms". A curly bracket indicating the entire right half of the structure is labeled "enclosed 8'x10' ". A line along wall B is labeled "transoms this wall". An arrow to the double doors "prefer a roll-up door but double shed doors will do". Also a note that the total is 16'x10' and my quote number and name.
So, next to the open porch, that is the outdoor kitchen. The wall between it and the rest of the structure needs to go to the ceiling, for hygiene reasons. It should be full of countertop, cabinets, and appliances. A person is not really meant to be inside it — the doors are for protecting the contents from dust when not in use. I'd like to have it kitted for low-scale electric for a dorm fridge and small appliances. Sink with gray-water drainage. Room to run a gas cooktop.
Yeah, that sounds on-grid but I want to be able to run the electric a variety of ways. Solar, wind, mains, extension cord from the house, generator. And I want it to be useful without electric. Like a well insulated dorm fridge that can work as a cooler instead. Or maybe use a DC powered cooler fridge instead of dorm fridge. I do plan on a wood stove + oven but not for inside this thing. That's a separate build outside.
BTW I'm borrowing a lot of ideas for this from #VanLife and #teardrop design. Space and electricity are at a premium so I want to make the most of what I can get.
The other two chambers are for the shower and the outhouse. Their wall doesn't extend all the way up because I want to maximize the light from the transom windows. I observed that working great in shower houses of various parks.
The outhouse will use a bucket dry toilet system, probably two separate buckets with a urinal going to one of the buckets.
The shower will get warm water from an elevated tank. In the summer, the sun heats the tank. I want a rocket mass stove outside for cooking and baking, but also to supply hot water by heat siphon to the tank in cold weather. The water will come from rain harvesting off the roof.
Gray water collection from the drain here for the pond, as with the sink.
Yeah, I could build this thing myself, especially if I get some help. But the last year has taught me that I can't rely on my body anymore. I get ready to do something like install my wood stove, and my back, knees, hips give up and I just can't. And I can't get “help” if I'm not participating myself. That's a hire-out thing.
Forgot to mention that the water heating system would connect to the kitchen sink as well.
I already have solar water heating for the outdoor shower, but obviously that's not happening just now. It works well, though, on a truly tiny scale. It's a black five gallon bucket with lid, connected to a sink sprayer. Love it. I plan on using it even after the new one is built.
Haven't even mentioned the porch part yet. It has to be screened in, because mosquitoes. None of the builders will do that, so it's on me. But what I'd love to do is outfit it so that transparent/translucent corrugated panels can go on it in the winter for year-round and maybe even greenhouse use.
My dad likes to be outside a lot, but he hasn't done it much this year due to fear of taking ill. I'd like this little intermediate zone for him as well as me.