Bedroom

I have had this idea many years ago: wouldn’t it be great if I could connect – dock, so to speak – my long-serving Hilleberg Namatj tunnel tent to a yurt. Some youth groups do exactly that – they use multiple sleeping tents connected to the yurt in a star shape. While I have never experienced that I myself, can see how appealing this concept is. The yurt’s main room becomes the living / dining room / kitchen which is connected to several “bedrooms”. Tortuga offers the “Ramses” tent which is specifically designed to connect to a standard yurt – although requiring high side walls.

So, I have had this trusty little tunnel tent by Hilleberg for at least 20 years which looked like the perfect candidate for connecting to the yurt. Its advantages – besides the fact that I already have it – are that

a)      its width suits perfectly to the width of one of the yurt’s side walls and

b)      it has a zip-able vestibule extension in front of the entrance, allowing converting the Namatj 3 to a Namatj 3 GT. The current version of the Namatj does not have this anymore – it comes either as version with short or long vestibule.

first concept design

With the right customised yurt side wall segment I could remove the vestibule’s apsis and zip it to the wall. I only need a spare yurt side wall and the correct zipper. The sidewall was on sale as a factory second at Ralph’s www.jurtenland.de because its dimensions were slightly off spec. I figured that this should not matter with the large opening that I was about to cut into it. Getting hold of the correct zipper required a bit of research. Hilleberg’s website recommends the Outdoor Service Team company (www.outdoor-service.com) in Berlin for repairs on their tents. Birgit Prasse responded to my email and was extremely helpful. She had to refer back to Hilleberg and was able get the correct zipper to me in very short time and very cheaply. I then marked on the side wall where the zipper needs to go and took it to a local upholsterer who sewed it in.

And that was all. I couldn’t wait to test it. I worked perfectly with no need for any modifications. It is really popular with the children – they all want to sleep in there. And I had thought everybody wanted to sleep in the yurt and the Namatj would become the “naughty corner”.