The Pisgah Project - Part Four (2024)

 TLDR: Continued work on the bath house. Installed an outdoor 'kitchen'. A baby fell off the deck and rolled down the hill. Lots of pics.

I'm kidding, no baby has been on the property. Nobody has fallen off the deck. The hillside is still a trip to the ER waiting to happen.

I completed the construction of the bath house late in 2023, and worked on the plumbing, wiring and fixtures inside over the course of several trips in 2024. This year, I also installed a kitchen(ette) of sorts on the deck.

Our property is entirely off-grid. We have a 275-gallon tote at the top of the property that stores our water. Inside the bath house, I have installed a 12v RV water pump and 12v LiFePO battery, some LED lighting, as well as a propane-powered water heater. Later on, I would wire up a charger and solar panel that keeps the battery topped-off. This system uses very little electricity over the course of a 2-3 day trip. We're not living out here, nor are we trying to power a refrigerator or Margaritaville blender...so, there's no AC-converter, TV, internet (except for the occasional 1-bar of cell phone service) or any other requirement or desire to install a more robust electrical/solar set-up. 

I constructed a partition wall to divide the shower area from the sink/toilet. The plumbing and electrical would also be housed within the wall. The 12v battery is located in the sink cabinet.

This isn't residential electrical. Aside from the switches, all of the components are what you'd use for a 12v, low-amperage system in an RV, boat or trailer. Stranded wire is used throughout, along with crimped terminals. Below the switch box, I've installed a master cut-off switch and fuse to the battery.

Shure 12v RV water-pump, propane-powered water heater.

Conventional fiberglass shower pan, installed using spray-foam. RV-style faucet and shower head. I used bead-board as it was lightweight and inexpensive. Moisture control isn't a concern as the entire structure is subject to the high-humidty of the WNC climate.

Here, I've braced the vinyl walls of the shower-surround kit to allow the adhesive to set.

I also built a composting toilet, complete with a urine-separator. The blue bucket contains soil that you throw onto your waste to minimize the odors. There's something oddly satisfying about saying, "this is my toilet. I built it". It functions remarkably well.

Because it freezes often during the winters in WNC, I installed a valve to drain the plumbing and reduce the chances of freeze damage.

I also ran conduit over to the bunk house and installed switches, USB outlets, and LED lights for the interior and exterior. This all runs off the 12v battery in the bath house.

Quaint.

For several years, the camp kitchen was the Coleman stove and folding table borrowed from our EuroVan kit. It worked well, but constantly packing and unpacking the kit, as well as transporting it to and from WNC, pushed me to install something a bit more permanent. 

Using a pair of stainless kitchen-prep/utility tables, I constructed a basic kitchen that sits at one end of the deck.

Blackstone portable griddle and burner, made less portable by bolting it to the stainless counter-top. 

I cut the counter-top and installed a small sink. Water supply is spliced into the plumbing from the bath house.

I then added a drawer unit, and receptacles for trash and recycling.

Over time, our primitive camping in PNF has evolved into glamping, with the eventual goal of simply showing up and 'go ride bikes' becoming a close reality. Though, while the bunk house is sufficient for myself, and maybe + friend, a family trip still requires two of us sleeping in the roof-top tent while the kids bunk in the tiny A-frame, and perhaps too much 'outside living' than my wife and kids are willing to endure for the cold weather from the late fall through early spring. The plans for 2025 are to build a larger A-frame (16' x 20') just downhill from the deck, hopefully completing the Pisgah Project (at least in terms of building structures/shelters).

The Pisgah Project - Part Three (2022-2023)

 TLDR: Built a deck and a bath house. Nothing and nobody has fallen down the hill. Yet. Lots of pics.

Soon after completing the construction of the tiny A-frame in 2022, I began working on a 12'x12' deck. Because of the steep hillside, and my general lack of experience, I don't lay out the site with string-lines like you might if the ground were flat. Instead, I create a perimeter of the build using lumber, then attempt to level it and square it up in order to determine the location of the deck foundation.

I nailed the center of the board on the far-side to a tree. This made the process of squaring up the foundation locations fairly easy as I only needed to adjust the locations of the near-side corners. Note, the deck would not be attached to the tree; rather, everything was referenced about 1' away from the tree.

In order to reduce the height of the beams needed on the far-side (downhill) of the deck, I dug out several yards of dirt to create a shelf in the hillside. This has been my strategy to adapt to the hillside, minimizing how much I disturb the hill and tree roots that are holding it together.

Again, using the squared and level 'perimeter' of lumber as a reference, I set the 6"x6" posts

The deck would be framed on top of the posts, and this band of boards along the perimeter of the post-foundation would be removed after the joists were framed. 

Sitting atop the 6"x6" posts are girders constructed from three 2"x6". The joists are hung from the outside girders, and supported underneath by the girder in the middle. 

Here's the finished deck, trimmed with Simpson bracing/fasteners, and reinforced laterally with 4"x4" braces.

No safety rail...helps maintain that element of danger.

Some fall colors.

Many of the trips to our glampsite have been 2-3 day outings, supported by a portable RV toilet and sponge-baths using wet-wipes. Its workable, but prohibitive for longer trips. The amount of hiking up and down the hillside to shuttle tools and building supplies each day of construction just leaves you feeling icky and sticky each night. Likewise, serving as a basecamp for MTB excursions into the forest imposes the same end-of-day scenario: I really need a shower. And I really need to ditch the portable RV toilet (and the process of dumping it at the end of a trip). So, the next project on the list is to construct a bath house, complete with a shower, sink and composting toilet.

Get out the shovel, start digging.

I disassembled the remaining original 8'x8' tentpad located at the middle of the property, hauled the framing up the hill to the top corner of the property, and slid it down to its new location.

I then reattached the deck boards. For a couple of trips, the deck simply located the portable RV toilet and 'port-a-privy' next to the A-frame.

The plan was to utilize 6'x8' of the deck (leaving ~2' of porch) to construct the bath house, and to construct it as light-weight as possible. The 8'x8' deck lacks the structure to support framed walls and roof. So, I opted to reinforce the perimeter of the deck with 4"x6" beams, and use 4"x4" posts to support a simple shed-roof and establish the edges/corners of the walls. 

I used clear plastic roof panels to allow daylight to sufficiently light up the interior.

And I used canvas to enclose the walls of the bath house.