There are many distractions available in life. This Mercedes 300TD is one of them. 

I do, however think that I have worked all the major kinks out, and am ready to commit to daily driving. 

This collection of works has been another distraction from the trailer. Work has been more demanding than usual in terms of projects that require not only labor, but mental fixation as well. There are not enough hours in the day for me to dedicate enough of them to doing my job well. I wonder if I will ever have the lazy boy/ lamp combo that I often imagine myself having as I grow older. I wonder if I will ever actually sit there and read all the books and magazines and articles that currently sit stacked on my bedside table. Will I ever make the time to do more than casually read a few pages while I wait for the water to boil or the toilet to become available?

This is the little 60 cfm ventilation fan that I installed above the bedroom doors. It's very quiet, I just hope it does the job. 

Flooring is near completion here. I had to level out a few spots with a planer that I borrowed from my pop before laying the last of the finish plywood down. 

Unfortunately, this little rascal got sucked up into that planer. The screw's head was countersunk and the hole filled with sawdust so I didn't notice it. As I leveled out the high spots, the screw was "discovered". I thought for a moment that I had totaled the tool, but I got very lucky. I've already stolen and ruined enough of Pop's tools. 

This was one of the more challenging boards to lay. Tetris. 

After completing the flooring, I started working on the closet enclosure for our bedroom. We'll have to design and build a wardrobe for this space that fits everything we own in it and still looks uncluttered. I'm open to ideas, folks. 

A clean workspace happens so infrequently around here that I've taken to documenting it when it does happen. 

As the carpentry wraps up, finish work will begin. Which means that this thing is almost done being built.  That forces us to start thinking about where to take it.  When it is 100% complete, I'll need to spend a month or so tidying up my home. And then I'll need to sell it in order to finance building something like what you see below on a piece of land that I haven't started looking for and can't afford!  I stole the next two photos from google. Is that appropriate referencing?

I really like this roof line. I can imagine the spartan under this roof, but there is a lot for me to learn in terms of how to get natural light inside the trailer. I'm pretty sure that people go to school for years to learn about stuff like that, but I figure that I can wing it with a half hour search on the internet. That's how I fix most vehicles I've worked on anyway. 

Maybe we'll build a pool like this one before my girls are too grown up to swim in the back yard!

I've been really bad about this. It's hard for me to make the time to document this project because balancing the desire to work hard, be a good father and husband, and build for the future is a real challenge.  Progress comes so slowly in all those realms that I often forget to stand back and look at my accomplishments in order to frame them against the mountain of goals that remain ahead. I made the time today because I ran out of materials and it's raining, so I can't go get more. And we're broke!

The kitchen's hood vent is installed. 

Steve also completed the bathroom cabinet and I installed it before beginning the frame work for the shelves that will be accessible from inside the bathtub/shower. That little nook where you see the level leaning is where the towels will hang. I hope to prime this room in the morning and lay the hardy backer down on the floor whenever it stops raining and I can make a supply run. 

I hung the door into the girls bedroom. The void space at the header is left blank because I am waiting for the ventilation fans that I ordered to come in.  Because there is no ductwork in this   trailer, I had to come up with a way to circulate air from the rooms on the ends to the center where the Mini-Split A/C and Heater is located. The little fans that I bought will cycle about 60cu. feet of air every 15 minutes. My hope is that this will keep the bedrooms almost as cool as the main living area in the summer without a lot of noise. 

I rebuilt my childhood mini-bike for my girls. It scoots along pretty well, so we're in the market for some cool helmets that they can personalize. Mae said she wanted to paint a giant flaming eyeball one hers. That's my girl!!

Flooring creeping forward. 

I replace the word philosopher with whatever I want, and apply this concept broadly. Just some toilet reading. 

75% complete flooring.  Ran out of material and started blogging. 

Installed the cabinets in their permanent position recently. 

Also got the doors hung and roughly adjusted as well as topped with 3/4" Baltic Birch. 

Formica will be soon to follow. 

Lighting here is pretty poor, but Cassie thinks she's got the colors "finalized". The floor will be the color on the floor right, and the walls will be the color on the wall left. 

Made a little progress in the bathroom too. Water valves placed and walls covered. 

Shower enclosure is 3/4 complete. I'm having Steve build one additional cabinet to occupy a narrow space at the head of the tub for storage.  Tile selection really hasn't begun yet but will probably be a simple, timeless white rectangle. 

Fitting this shower mixer inside a 1 3/4" wall opening was a challenge. It took some janky redneck engineering to keep the hallway as wide as possible. 

It hurt me to cut another hole in the roof for the bathroom's fart fan. I was trying to find a way to make one penetration for both the bathroom and kitchen vent, but it wasn't possible or recommended by the folks I spoke with about it. Immediately to the left of this vent I will soon be cutting the last hole for the kitchen hood vent. In such a small space, proper exhaust of heat and humidity is critical. 

I've had the pleasure of working on a few projects with my Pop recently. We planted these 5 100 gallon Chinquapin Oaks for a client of his a few weeks ago. 

And with the help of my buddy Ben, we finally got some new plastic on Pop's old greenhouse. It's been on his list for a few years. Hopefully this will bring us all a bit of regular food and start some new young trees for our spartan's final resting place!

Colors

Cassie's been working on color combinations and here's where we're at. Pay no mind to the greens to the sides. The cabinets will get several clear coats (this is one) and that's what the board in the middle represents. We're probably only a few workdays away from priming most of the interior. I have some sanding to finish on the trim before we clean the place up and prep. 

Took an afternoon off from projecting to do some climbing. Here's Louise on her ascent. 

And Mae's running the munter. 

Catching up.......Summer's over?

A few deliveries (and cash withdrawals) hit us right before our summer beach trip.  Our mini-split air conditioner and our cabinets.  Much of the information that I wanted prior to wiring and plumbing this unit was not readily available online. So I had to get the thing in my hands even though it won't be fully connected for a few months. 

The photo on the top is what we'd hoped to end up with according to our plan for a 20" range. Once the cabinets were in place there was little debate about removing a cabinet to gain a 30" range. So the photo on the bottom is what the placement will be once the under cabinet flooring is complete. We lost a good deal of storage, but gained a ton of flexibility for appliance options. And or skillets can go side by side. 

After that, we went to the beach in our other trailer! We stayed at Fort Pickens National park outside Pensacola, FL  for 6 days with our good friends. It was a great decompression time right before school started.

After returning, I was eager to get our new A/C mocked up. 

And mock up turned into.....

Completion! Turning the thing on should be as simple as a few wiring connections and a few compression fittings for coolant. It was nice to finally get to seal up this wall and say that I am DONE with wallboards.

There's been a lot of uncertainty about finish flooring the last several months. We finally decided to use  1/2" baltic birch cabinet grade plywood over the existing 1/2" subfloor.  It comes in 5'x5' sheets, and so we toyed with several length and width options, settling on 15" wide, 60" long planks. They are glued down and nailed around the perimeter with a 1/32" - 1/8" gap between planks.  I got this section complete last night to prepare for cabinet installation soon. The benefit of covering up our new flooring with cabinets is that we get to try out several finishes before it's hidden away forever. We did a few samples of whitewash at different ratios as well as whatever stains I had left over from other projects. No to whitewash. No to any leftover stains.  Looks like it's time for Cassie to get some   PAINT TESTERS!!

Finish Work

Finish work has begun! We decided to go very simple and square with our window trim. Which is handy because I am not a finish carpenter and don't own the tools to even pretend that I am!

These are the kitchen windows and are the only ones with a sill. Cassie likes to have a place to set an avocado to ripen, and I like a place to set my beer. Cabinets are about two weeks out. Even a cabinetmaker deserves a vacation! The spray foam insulation and cabinets are the two jobs I have hired out and it's pretty hard not to be a nag! 

I slapped up a little rigid foam insulation in order to limit the sound transfer through the partition walls. 

Cassie and I went back and forth about tubs. We both like claw foot tubs, but they are a poor match for the trailer.  Most of the options other than cast iron really kind of felt flimsy to us. A used cast iron tub usually has chips and scratches and a new one is not cheap.  Lucky for us, this one was sitting on the porch of a woman's house down the street while the house is being renovated. I dropped a note off in the mailbox, and 18 hours later brought this one home for $100! All of the blemishes visible in this photo are just dirt and old caulk, it's in very good shape. I'm going to wrap it up well in old carpet before carrying it into the bathroom so I don't screw up the finish myself. 

This is a doll table factory. 

"You should never be too busy working to teach your children how to work."

I do my best to repeat this phrase in  my head whenever my kids are "helping" out in the trailer. As they grow older, I want them to remember this time as something we spent together and not a place where Daddy disappeared to. 

Boxing in...

Getting close to done with this task. One section of wall and one partition wall left.