How to Build a Meditation Sanctuary in Your Own Backyard

Do you have a hard time finding peace and tranquility in your own home? Is the clutter and activity of everyday life keeping you from finding the Zen that you crave? Do you desperately need a space that is just yours? Maybe it’s time to think about building yourself a sanctuary. A backyard meditation hut is a project that you are perfectly capable of building on your own. Here are some tips to help you get it done.

1. Build Green

Choose building materials that are green or ecologically friendly. Bamboo, for example, is a good choice if you want to “build green.” Obviously you want to choose materials that are well suited to your local environment. Weatherproofing and treating the materials will only get you so far. You can save even more money by using scraps and found materials to form the structure of the house. Incorporating reused and recyclable materials helps add to the natural feeling intended for your mediation center.

Tip: Wood is better than metal, wood absorbs elements like heat and sound while metal radiates them.

2. Comfortable Flooring

You might be tempted to simply build the hut over the earth and lay down tarp or other easily removable materials for your flooring. Don’t give in. Having a solid and stable floor is worth the expense. Flooring helps seal in the house and reduces the risk of pests and other problems infiltrating the space that is intended for your peace and relaxation. Picking up a few yoga mats and throw pillows are great for accommodating any personal needs or entertaining company.

3. Mood Lighting

Even if you aren’t able to run power out to the hut, you should still have some form of light fixtures in place. LED bulbs are great for any lighting needs and saving energy. They can run for hours, even days on battery power before they run the batteries down. They also give off very little heat so you don’t have to worry that you might accidentally burn down your hut if you leave the light on for too long or overnight. Dimmers for the lights are also great for more energy saving and mood setting.

4. Ventilate Properly

Even part time huts need proper ventilation. If you hate the idea of somebody possibly peeking through the windows while you are meditating you can make the windows smaller and put them up near the roof. If the goal is to construct a room in which you can eliminate reminders of the outside world you don’t have to put in actual windows. You do, however need to put in vents (which can be up near the ceiling as well. The vents can be simple holes cut in the wall that are covered by grating to muffle outside noises, but they need to be there.

5. Gutters and Element Filters

Even if you don’t live in a particularly rainy part of the country, you should still have some sort of rainwater removal system in place on your meditation hut. Installing a gutter system is a good idea—you don’t want the water to simply absorb into the roof—that’s how roofs end up rotting away. If you want to do even more for the environment you can turn it into a rainwater collection system. You can collect the water in barrels and then use it for things like watering the lawn, washing the car, etc.

There are lots of different things to think about if you want to build your own “green” meditation hut. Remember that a lot of the choices you make are going to depend upon where you will be building the hut and how often you plan to use it. Still, these tips are a good place to start.

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