Lourie Albanese’s Shack-Up portable toilet covers resemble a variety of buildings that range from ski lodges and mountain inns to Anglo-Caribbean homes and Southwest-style houses. Libby Volgyes/The Coastal Star
By Libby Volgyes
Lourie Albanese’s business is really taking off these days. She’s building wedding chapels, Anglo-Caribbean houses, Southwestern-style houses. There’s a cute new beach house just south of the Blue Anchor in Delray Beach, and she’s got a new “Western” line — ski lodges and mountain inns, barns and saloons.
Albanese’s work is popping up all over Delray Beach — making a scene so there is no scene.
A Delray Beach-based general contractor, Albanese, 51, creates personalized, portable toilet covers, covering up the dirty, bland construction site essentials with vivid, charming and funny shacks: “Artistic coverings for portable toilets, Dumpsters and any other ‘unsightlies,’” her Shack-Up website proclaims.
“As a woman builder, I always had to look at these nasty things,” she said. “Even though they’re not that disgusting, you start associating all these nasty things with them. I’ve had to look at them my entire adult life.” Her path to making over Porta-Potties started after being invited to a think tank on improving Delray Beach. While discussing a variety of issues from parking meters to limited ocean views on Atlantic Avenue, the conversation touched upon the lack of restrooms on the beach.
“I wasn’t aware of how critical the problem is, especially for the homes north of Atlantic Avenue,” she said. “We started talking about Porta-Potties, but nobody wanted to look at those nasty Porta-Potties.”
This started her thinking about a solution.
Then, last year, her daughter started giving her birdhouses that looked like dollhouses, night lights or Victorian houses. One day at the beach, she and her daughter were walking about 15 blocks to use the restroom, and the idea just came to her.
“What if the Porta-Potties looked like little birdhouses and they were cute, cute, cute? What if they looked like little birdhouses or night lights or dollhouses?” she wondered. “So I started with what I knew the best: builder sites. Why not make your neighbors happy while you’re inconveniencing them with building something?”
While she’s still in the test period, she has more than 20 designs and has 15 to 20 in use. They generally rent for $80 to $100 per month.
The first one was made in January 2012 after the patent was approved last December. They are made with three walls that pin together with a PVC hinge system. The walls surround the front and sides of the portable toilet, leaving the door accessible and roof open. They assemble in about five minutes.
The toilet covers are made with a variety of materials that would typically be used on a home exterior, including metal roof flashing, architectural foam and fencing wood.
“It’s fun, fun, fun. I just love making them,” she said. “Pretty much I just head to the garage and have something in my head that I want to make.” After the initial one is made, it only takes about five to six hours to duplicate them.
All Star Toilets — a division of South Florida-based Southern Waste Systems — is ready to partner with her, and she’s ready to go. She’s looking forward to expanding — especially in Colorado, where she has a second home near Aspen.
“I’ll really be proud when I get them out there,” she said.
For more information, visit shack-up.com.
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