Here is the completed Tipi! We have a ton more landscaping work to do…

This thing looks amazing at night all lit up

Here is a random photo staking it down.

Now we have several more poles to lay in and secure!…

carefully walked over each pole and layed them in specific order.

Jo helped too…

now that they are all layed in we had to walk the rope around and secure them.

Check out the video below and watch it all happen.

We decided to use some Alabama brown decorative pea gravel… This decision was based on cost… Doing a completely slate stone florr was going to be more than the tipi itself. They dropped it as close as they could to the tipi…unfortunately that was about 65ft away.

Before we put the gravel and stone in we layed landscape fabric. I used a cheap bag of play sand to weight it down instead of using the giant staples. Its cheaper and you dont have to worry about the staples coming back up on you.

Now it was time to move the pea gravel to the tipi..

Xman was a big help with his new “shuggle”

It took about 2.5 tons to fill the 20ftx20ft space.

Now it is time to Raise the rest of the poles!…

Here is the proposed site… 20ft x 20ft

After a few hours of tilling and picking out random objects

These poles look amazing in person

We chose our 3 most stout poles for our “tripod” which is kind of like the foundation of your tipi.

Todays project was a family affair… our boys are already loving the Tipi!

Next we followed diagrams on how to properly tie the tripod together… I modified it a lil bit.

Almost there…

 

Here is a short time-lapse video of us raising the tripod! took about 5 minutes total…

Double checking all of the measurements…

Wifey “setting” the poles… this held both of us…

A view from from the center of tripod looking up!…

Next up we are adding the stone and gravel floor….

The tipi poles arrived a few weeks after the other tipi components. They were shipped separately from Montana by truck freight.

I had to borrow a few saw horses from neighborhood friends.. total I used 6 to support all of the poles until I could sand them down by hand and water seal them. You don’t have to do this, but living here in the south I think it will aid in the longevity of the poles.

The poles are beautifully tapered by hand… another benefit to smoothing them out is the poles guide the rain down and away from center of tipi… Any large knots or bumps in poles can form a spot where rain can collect and drip.

I used 60 grit sand paper and some good water sealant.

It took several hours to sand the poles down… just take your time and enjoy it. I only had to change sand paper sheets 4 times.

Next I spread all of the poles out over the several saw horses so that they were lined up. I then used a deck sprayer to evenly distribute the water sealant then after it dried I turned the poles and repeated this process. I did this  two times…

Finished pole!