A Statement of Purpose.

So why do this? Why buy an old mobile home? Why improve it way beyond it's original intent? Why put all of your energy into a trailer house?

That's what she said.

Just kidding.

After buying our first home, a 1080 square foot 1928 wood frame in a small town, we worked very hard to customize and personify our dwelling while also improving it's efficiency. It has been a wonderful seven year adventure. When we look around at our work, we are proud of the distance we have come. We also want to be somewhere new seven years from now. We're only on this earth for a brief life, so we better experience whatever it is we desire.

We want to live on an unrestricted piece of land. We want, for ourselves and for our children, the freedom to live as we please.  We're no different than everyone else on this earth. Here in central Texas, land is not cheap. In order to purchase a piece of land to our liking, we would have to live in a tent. Not  that I'm judging tent dwellers, it just would not work for our family.

We had recently bought a funky old travel trailer and were enjoying the freedom and flexibility that it afforded us when the light bulb went off in our heads. What if we bought a bigger travel trailer and lived in it while we built a home? The idea sounded perfect to me, but not so for my wife. She was homeschooling our girls at the time and her mind drifted to the idea of rainy days with grumpy daughters while Daddy was away at work. Fair enough.  She thought about it for several months. So did I. It was gonna be really cramped in there with 2 kids.

What about a mobile home? Yuck. it just has a lousy feeling to it. Sorry mobile home dwellers, we're just too damn picky.

I was still looking at travel trailers and hoping that I could find one that felt big enough to us. My wife was halfway on board when I stumbled on to this trailer house. I drove the couple hours to check it out. I think my wife allowed me to go look at it feeling fairly certain that something major would be wrong with it and that I would come back empty handed. We had been through that scenario several times before.

Instead, I came back home with a vision. I envisioned this trailer house in my driveway, built out with cash before we sold our home. I envisioned the profit from our home sale becoming a handsome down payment on a piece of land. Land where my family's hobbies, ideas and interests can develop. And our basic needs are met in a mobile home packed with design features and customization at every corner. A perfect blend of 1961 vintage and 2014 modernism. A large screened porch with fire pit. A 3 story lookout tower.  Wood. Aluminum. Concrete. Steel. Freedom. Flexibility.

Roof Work

While the weather perked up for us, I took the opportunity to patch some holes in the roof.

Not every roof penetration was leaking, but I'm still going to re-patch every previous hole and seam. 

Hopefully by the end of the day I will be done with the patching and then I'll wait thirty days or so before I coat the entire roof with an aluminum colored fibrous coating. 

Side by side, the same brand of roof coating that is white is almost 25% more efficient. I really want to use the white one, but the aluminum coating just looks so much better. 

Build Momentum

 The last few months have been great. We have visited with much of our family, attended weddings, hosted parties, made changes at work, celebrated holidays, maintained our cars, and even found the time to earn a little extra money. This is daily life. Daily life is good. But it feels like I lost my momentum because of this here Christmas tree.

So I recycled it. 

 

 

 

Like most projects, I am behind schedule and over budget. Now, I have not made poor choices with my purchases. Everything so far has cost what it had to in order to get the level of quality that we desire. So I feel that I can't control the prices that are set by people that could care less about my budget. I will continue to find creative ways to achieve our goals without wasting money, and the rest is what it is. So that's the budget. As for the schedule, that is something I can control. As much as it hurt to re-evaluate my deadlines, I did. And I tried to be both ambitious and realistic.

 

Roughing in drainage plumbing is something that I have never done before. I have done quite a bit of plumbing, but I'd always had something to start with. Whether they were right or wrong, someone else had always made the difficult decisions. So I scratched my head over where to locate this toilet flange for over a week. The structural members running under this trailer did not make that an easy decision.

 

 

Once that decision was made, things began to come together pretty easily. So drainage and ventilation of the drainage plumbing is close to done. Supply plumbing should be relatively easy.

These trailers don't belong to me. That's why I stopped to take the picture. Spartan trailers and mobile homes are just not that common. And if I see them, they are usually dormant. These ones, however, were just moved to this site 8-10 miles from my home along a road that I travel almost every day. I can't wait to see someone out and about. Whoever you are, my name is Nathan and I will be stopping by! Spotting these trailers made me wonder what the owner's intent was. Not that they owe me or anybody an explanation, but I wonder. And it's at this moment that I realize that I have not stated my own intent on this forum . Up next: A Statement of Purpose.

 

Dry (mostly)

My pop came by again and helped me get the last window and the slider door installed. This is the last window that went in, and the first to get trim. Hoisting the 60"x80" slider door up to hip height with limited clearance was the greatest challenge. We definitely used our degrees from the university of redneck engineering that afternoon.

Now that all openings are filled, I am out of the wind and weather for the most part. next on the agenda is sealing the roof leaks!

Drying in

My Dad and I spent the better part of a day installing windows. All but two openings have been filled. One of the remaining is for a slider door, and the other had a broken frame when I received it. Both of those will be installed in the next few weeks. It'll be really nice to be all sealed up for the winter.

It was truly nerve wrecking to cut an opening in the aluminum. It wasn't all that difficult, but there was no turning back once the process was started.

Here's a little contrast. As you can see, the trailer is parked about 2.5 feet from my home. I can stand in the trailer and smell dinner on a good day. On a bad day I can stand in the trailer and hear my kiddos getting out of line.  

The tin can with a wood floor.

 We busted out the making tape for some floor planning. Although this seemed really caveman(ish) , it worked very well for us. It allowed us to feel each space and make minor adjustments prior committing to plumbing and electrical rough in.

In this photo, the chair is where my new toilet will be. We were very happy with how much room there seems to be in our 10x55' space.  

Floored

Fueled by frosty beverages, I have spent free time this month completing the subfloor of the Spartan in 2 hour increments. 30 minutes to set up, 30 minutes to remember how I did this last time, 30 minutes of work, and the last 30 minutes for cleanup. I had a lot of help from my 4 1/2 year old though, so that really kept things on pace.

 I went about it one sheet at a time. I layed the sheet down and snugged it up against the last one, marking the rafters where crossbracing was needed.  I then removed the plywood and cut braces on centers so that everything was very snug. After that, it was just gluein' and screwin'.

 I finally scrounged up the better part of a day and completed the job. I'm glad the task is done, and so is my wife because this means it's time to do some floor planning. We tried using graph paper and then CAD, but neither worked out. Both methods cost a lot of time, and the result was inaccurate. I think we'll try chalk or pencil on the plywood. I know, I know, that's really backwards, but that's just how I'm living!