Building The Outhouse

The family and I went to our property in northern Michigan for the weekend of the 4th. On the 4th we went to the Mackinac Bridge to see the fireworks. We had heard that they were the best in Michigan and we were not disappointed. The most brilliant colors seemed like they were right on top of us because we were near the bay where they were being launched.

Most of the weekend was spent building our outhouse. It took us a little over two days. My three sons helped a bit. They dug the hole, helped me frame it, measured and cut 2x4s. By the last day they were board with it and stayed inside the air conditioned camper as it was nearly 90 degrees everyday. But my faithful wife stepped in at the end to offer a hand and to give the boys a break.


I have never built a structure like this before and I found a lot a satisfaction out of the project when I was done. I did have one minor flaw though, the toilet seat wasn't placed properly for the lady folk and they end up peeing on the framing in front instead of the hole. I'll defiantly fix that on our next trip.

My design came from a few different sources. Blueprints I downloaded from online, an outhouse book my wife's grandma loaned me and a few sketches from an engineer friend of mine.