Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Roundhouse Goes to Crown


Here is what the Roundhouse ended up looking like. We are well pleased with it. In the picture on the left, on the left margin, you can see the dog pen. If we had to put it inside, it would easily fit -- but we don't have to, because the dogs can no longer burrow out from under the tent walls. The walls and floor are sewn together, which makes me happy I chose this option, having completely forgotten the dogs and thinking only of rain and ease of erecting the tent. I'd guess it gives us about twice the space of our old pavilion. We had our bed set up in about 1/4th of the ground space. Miach put up his clothes rack in the middle, which also acted as a privacy screen for our sleeping area. We put our chests and storage boxes and the armor bag around the periphery. We still had a large area of unfilled space. The rug we brought, that had covered half the floor of the pavilion, covered about 1/4 the floor. (Which reminds me, I need to scrub the carpets and let them dry. Weather will be good for that this Sunday and for the next few days. They'll disinfect in sunshine.)
The tent went up easily, and one person could easily do it in about 1/2 hour or slightly less if they're good with a mallet. It is possible for one person to tote the tent, in bag, for a short distance. There was as much cross circulation as one could hope for, and the windows were well spaced for this; the vents also seemed to allow hot air to escape. I suspect that had we held June Crown in the Valley again, instead of near the Coast, we would have been hot but we were hot in the pavilion last Crown, too. For people that don't mind the extra work lining up tent and groundcloth, and who don't mind periods of little privacy sacrificed for greater comfort, the removable/roll up sides would be the better option in hot, dry climates, I think.
All in all, we are very pleased with this tent, and with our conversion of it into a Roundhouse. We are looking forward to using it frequently, and perhaps painting some more designs onto it. I am still planning on ogham letters listing our names over the door, and if I get real creative, maybe around the lower margin of the roof where the ropes are attached.

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