Journal

The Basin Found an old brass metal dish at the flea market. The seller said it came from a church, and once I had a proper look at it I figured it was probably one of those holy water dishes you find at the entrance. It had good weight and character to it. I later picked up a brass faucet to go with it. Once I cleaned off the heavy oxidation the dish revealed itself properly. It looked like it had a gold layer on it, strong silver and gold tones across most of the surface, the kind of thing that makes you think it genuinely spent time in a church. Only the center showed the bare brass underneath, worn down from years of use. Beautiful object. The Vanity For the cabinet I used scrap wooden boards that were lying around the property. Cut the hole for the dish to drop into, then sanded everything down properly, rounded all the edges so nothing is sharp to the touch. Then I made two support legs cut at a 45 degree angle, designed to lean against the bathhouse wall on one end and against the underside of the vanity on the other, keeping the whole thing stable against the wall without needing to bolt anything into it. Assembly Everything got painted in the same dark brown stain as the rest of the bathhouse. I maybe went one or two coats too many and it came out almost black, but honestly it still looked great and tied in well with everything else. For mounting the faucet I found a metal angle bracket and drilled a hole through it for the faucet stem, then four more holes for the screws. Cut off the part I didn't need and that became my mounting plate. Faucet through the hole, screws in, rings and nuts tightened from the back. Solid. Then I sprayed expanding foam along the bottom edge of the dish where it meets the vanity, to stop it sitting on a sharp rim. Once that cured I cut the excess foam back, ran a bead of silicone around the edge, pressed the dish down into the hole and sealed it all so no water can work its way underneath. Plumbing On the outside of the wall I connected all the pipework coming from the water tank. The line arrives at the wall and splits into two: one branch drops down and feeds through the wall to the sink faucet, the other goes up and through the wall to the shower head. Clean split, both working off the same gravity-fed supply. --- > **Gallery reference** — 31 photos in the slider. | # | Image | Description | | --- | -------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- |                             

The Roof A year after building the bathhouse from scratch it was time to make it properly good. The neighbor's replacement roof from last summer was a start, but I wanted a real metal one with insulation underneath to push the heat away during the brutal Tenerife summer. So that's where I began. Laid the insulation first, then put the metal roofing panels on top. Solid and done. Water Collection One metal roofing panel was left over and I couldn't let it go to waste. I cut it down and shaped it into a collection bed that sits under the floorboards at an angle, so all the shower water runs down to one edge. At that low edge I cut a pipe in half length-ways so it catches everything running along the metal and channels it into a proper drainage pipe. That pipe runs along the horizontal floor beams and exits the bathhouse, where I dug a deeper hole outside and built a small wooden utility box. Inside the box sits a plastic basket where the pipe arrives and deposits the water. From there it's easy to collect and redistribute. Water recovery went from a messy handful of 8-liter plastic bottles to something close to 100% efficient. One of the more satisfying problems I've solved. Sanding Then I uninstalled the sliding door, took down the polycarbonate panels, cleared everything out and started sanding. The vertical beams, the angled braces, the cross-bracing, the shelves, the wall planks, inside and out. It took a day or two of solid work but by the end the whole structure felt like a different thing under the hands. Staining Once the structure was done I chose a dark brown stain and went through everything. Such a good color, it grounded the whole building and made it feel like it actually belongs there. Then I pulled up all the floor boards and gave them the same treatment but more carefully. Sanded them fully, rounded all the corners so there are no sharp edges anywhere, did the underside too. Four coats of stain later the floor was finished. It feels absolutely magical to walk on and looks better than I expected. The Result Put everything back together, rehung the sliding door, reinstalled the polycarbonate panels and the shelves, added a few more hangers and some small improvements here and there. The bathhouse went from something that worked to something that actually feels good to be in. And with the sink still to come, it wasn't quite finished yet. --- > **Gallery reference** — 7 photos + 4 videos in the slider. | # | Image | Description | | --- | ---------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------- |          

The Site My family bought a finka property in Tenerife. Quite a lot of land, several caves, and a 100-year-old stone house with two rooms and nothing else. No electricity, no bathroom, no running water, nothing. When I first arrived in December 2024 it threw me straight back in time, reminded me of summers when I was young at my grandmother's countryside in Latvia. I wanted to make things easier for everyone, so I decided to build a bathhouse. A small outdoor toilet and shower from scratch. Foundation We had a few electric tools that we had to charge at our very kind neighbors' place. For materials, those same neighbors came forward and offered us some old wooden beams, which was a huge help. I started with a quick sketch of the plan and got to work. The ground there is mostly rock so I had to dig out the hole by hand. Cut a big plastic plumbing pipe into four pieces, one for each corner, dropped a cut piece of rebar inside each one so the vertical wooden beams would have something to sit on, and filled them all with concrete. Framing Once the footings cured I dropped the four main vertical beams into place and started connecting them with horizontal ones. At each corner I added two angled braces, and between the main posts I ran cross-bracing diagonally so the whole structure had proper rigidity and wouldn't move around. That was the skeleton done. For the first roof I used reeds harvested from the property. Layered and tied into a canopy, they gave the whole thing a natural look that actually felt right for the setting, and kept out both sun and light rain while the rest of the work continued. Walls & Floor Next came the smaller vertical beams to mark out where the door, the window and the walls would go. On the shower end I put in polycarbonate wall panels, two layers, semi-transparent, so the light comes through and the whole space stays well lit naturally without needing any electricity. For the floor I pulled apart some wooden pallets and laid the boards down flat. Solid underfoot, free, and with enough gap between planks for water to drain through during showers. I also built a hatch section that lifts open. Water matters a lot on this property, we don't waste it lightly. Speaking of water, we got a 1000-liter cube and placed it near the top of the land so gravity does the work of moving it where we need it. Our neighbors helped us fill it each week and we paid for that. For catching water under the shower at that point we were just using several 8-liter plastic bottles, not the most efficient system but it worked. Finishing I added shelves, some hangers and a small shelf for shampoos and soap. Then came the door, and this is the part I'm most proud of. I built it from fabric using a pulley and string system. On the right side of the entrance there was a wooden pulley with a rope that ran around the frame on rounded wooden pegs and connected to a wooden bar sewn into the bottom of the fabric. That bar acted both as a weight to keep the fabric from flapping in the wind and as a counterweight for the whole mechanism. Pull the pulley down and the door opens. Let go and it closes by itself. Same from the inside out, one pulley on each side. I felt a little like Da Vinci. I'm also fairly certain that door was unlike anything else on the entire island. The Result Once everything was in place we installed a composting toilet. No plumbing needed, no digging a pit, and nothing going to waste. It felt like the right choice for a property where you think twice about every resource you use. I went back to Latvia after that and my mother and Carlos used the bathhouse all summer. They really enjoyed it. Eventually our neighbor, a very capable DIY guy, came forward and offered to fit a proper wooden sliding door and a better roof to replace the reed canopy, and well, it was hard to say no. So that was version one. I already knew coming back would mean a long list of improvements. No paint anywhere, no sink, and plenty of smaller things still to sort out. The next visit was always going to be a bigger project. --- > **Gallery reference** — these images appear in the slider on the site. The number matches the slider order. | # | Image | Description | | --- | ---------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |