Upon my return from my travels abroad in Nepal over the winter of 2021/2022, I felt called to create a shrine similar to those in the far east, except scaled down to fit on the deck of the yurt. Like the ones in Nepal and India, I decided to make it out of concrete and rebar.
Here’s the initial form for the base, including the vertical rebar for the walls:
Here’s the base after the mortar was poured and an indentation created for the shiva stone:
Once the base was completely dry the temporary vertical rebar holders were removed and the forms for the walls were added:
With Josh and Cem’s help, I filled the wall forms with concrete and did my best to settle the concrete into the form:
Once the walls were filled I shaped the concrete around the upper form which was held up with thick plastic from the inside:
After removing the forms the concrete was fairly brittle in spots so I decided to use a putty knife to apply a layer of caulk over the concrete to hold everything together and provide a good base for the paint:
Once painted, the shrine really began to look quite beautiful and smooth. I decided to leave the bottom and inside forms intact (I originally intended to remove them):
The last step was to add the hinges and the metal doors. This part proved pretty challenging. My original idea was to glue the hinges on but in the end I needed to drill into the concrete and use screws:
Here’s the completed shrine before moving to the yurt deck:
It weighed over 400 lbs and it took five of us strong men to move it to the yurt deck, which is where it is today:
After a few weeks I decided to create a nice cabinet underneath it for storage of shrine-related things. I used quality brass hardware for optimal aesthetics:
