Hello Again!

I see it's been over a month since I posted here. The thing is, I focus this blog on my writing process, and there hasn't really been any in awhile. 

As I posted before, we moved. It's taken awhile to get settled. That included getting our studio moved and set up, as well as moving my office trailer. (Remember the office trailer?)

We had so many things destined for my office that they were in the way, so I applied myself to finishing the trailer and moving my stuff into it. That is mostly done now. 
Oh, it's pretty messy still. The wall panels are a patchwork of different types and finishes. Not that it matters, for the most part they are covered by bookshelves and pictures. I finally retrieved all of my boxes of books from storage and put them on those shelves. It involved some weeding. 
I have six bookshelves in my office. Two tall library type metal units, and four smaller units. I made this my limit. If my books don't fit on those shelves, then I weed them until they do. I pretty much did it. 
It may change, since we have books in the house as well, and that layout is in process, so I may weed further. 
Did I mention I love books?
I got the books up on shelves, and I'm still unpacking other related office stuff. I'll post finished pix when I get it done. That will also include painting the exterior. 
Working space, man cave, whatever you want to call it. It's here!

Further Adventures in Remodeling

We've got sporadic rain showers here today. I'm not complaining, we definitely need it! However, it has somewhat curtailed my work on the trailer remodel. Therefore, I'm investing my time in getting my record here up to date.
In the previous chapter of this, I mentioned a problem with the rounded back corner of the roof and wall.

Remember this?

All of the wood supporting this corner rotted away. Below is how I solved it.

 The piece of wall paneling I originally removed from here still had the arch intact. I used it as a template to cut two pieces of the scrap flooring plywood which I then notched to accept the ribs and the window header. You can see my splice for the ribs to the left. It was only one end of each rib that was rotted, re-using them meant I didn't have to take the roofing loose on the other corner as much. I think it worked out well. 

Here is the lower outside of that corner. Again, I re-used much of the existing framing with some splicing to remove the rotted parts. There are new vertical studs at each corner as well as the window sides or mullions. 

The upper view of the same area. This opening was re-done as the original size, since I am relocating the good side window here. One synchronicity, I ripped scavenged 2x8's down to 2x6 for the new floor joists. The cutoff strip was just right to make new 2x2 studs where needed.

Here's an inside view of the opposite floor corner. I didn't have any more of the salvaged floor decking so I'm using salvaged pine 1x12's to replace the sections of rotted floor wood.

Here is the opposite end of the same board in the previous picture. (Below that pesky round corner.) 

And then continuing those boards along the sidewall toward the front. The boards are only butted and screwed to the floor joists. I'll seal the cracks later with silicone caulk. To the left is the new bottom runner to attach the new wall framing on the side wall. Below that is the new portion of the edge joist.


Okay, that's where it stands for now. At least until the intermittent showers stop.


Hooray for rain!

Latest News on the RainCrow Writing Cave! Or, Why I'm Not Writing!

When we last saw the cave I had just finished re-attaching the skin on the outside of the entrance side of the trailer. Now I'm working to re-build the opposite and rear walls. Removing the old paneling and insulation reveals the true story. It actually was not as bad as I expected. Some of the wall studs at the corner must be replaced, as well as the ones on each side of two windows. Pretty obvious in this picture. Again, the edge floor joists need partial replacement as well. The window visible in the upper left corner of the picture is too broken to save.

 This is the upper part of the same corner. The horizontals running across the picture are actually dangling down. The ends have rotted. One end has fallen loose and is hanging from the trailer lighting wire.

This is a close up of the same area. You can just see the dangling horizontals at the right edge of the picture. I'm a bit puzzled about how to repair this portion. It has to be curved and support the ribs that will be repaired as well as support both metal edges at the corner. In this shot, as well, the back wall and skin have been totally removed. 

 Here's the outside view of the missing end wall. The floor joist at the bottom edge must be replaced, as well as some of the window framing, so it was just easier to open it all up.

A close up of the back corner. You can see how the end of the edge joist is rotted away. A portion of the rotted flooring has been removed, much like I did on the first section I repaired earlier. 

 Here is another angle of that corner. Again, rotted flooring is removed exposing the outside floor joist that will be replaced. There is another of those metal pans over the wheels I have to deal with like before.

The front end of that wheel pan and the front limit of the flooring I removed. The wall is fairly solid in front of this, and the floor is much better beyond this point. 

Back to the rear again. The other end of the rotted floor joist. The flooring is not so bad, but that board has got to go.

 This is the side wall opposite the entrance. Again, the side supports are rotted away, as well as some of the runners that support the wall metal. This window will be relocated to the back wall and it will be re-framed for a larger window.

More of that window. Parts of the horizontal runners and the short verticals can be re-used. 

Here are some of the surplus windows I have on hand. I'll use one of the better and larger ones in the new location mentioned above.


Believe it or not, the end is in sight!

Update on The RainCrow Writing Cave

We've had some really nice weather for working on my office trailer project. We definitely need rain badly, but it would not necessarily be a good  thing while the wall of the trailer is wide open. However, I could put up with some.
Anyway, I've been moving right along.

Shown is the front end of the trailer. (Front being where the hitch is.) This end will most likely wind up being more for storage eventually. It may look as messy as before, but actually it has been cleaned up. What you're seeing is my scavenged building material ready to use in re-building. The end window was really not fixable. I have to totally re-frame the area around one window on the wall to our right, so I re-located that good window to the end. The (also scavenged) extra windows I have are of a different size. Since I'm re-framing anyway, I will frame it to accept the different size window. I'll have to finagle the exterior skin some, but that will be minor.

 This next series shows what remains after demolition of the bad wood and removal of the outside skin and insulation. A lot of the insulation is still usable. The door has also been removed, as the supporting board running beneath the floor has to be replaced as well as one of the jambs. The metal pan looking area is a sort of fender well for the wheels below. I assume it was to keep the wheels from throwing water and dirt up onto the floor above. I left it intact.

Outside view of the same area with the outside floor joist and rotten portion of the floor removed.

 Another exterior shot of demolition. Rotted wood and bad paneling are piled on the ground outside. Here you can see where the door was removed.

I replaced the outside floor joist 2x6 along with some judicious splicing. Here it is already attached.

 An outside shot of the new floor joist 2x6. This acts as floor frame and also supports the wall. There are metal braces below that attach it to the steel trailer frame.

Here is some of the new floor framing. 2x4 cross pieces were cut and inserted at about two foot spacing. The old flooring was cut even with the next existing 2x6 floor joist. A new 2x4 was added as a cleat against the existing joist to give something to attach the new strip of plywood to. In the upper right corner you can see one of the new floor pieces. I suspect you give up a bit of strength doing this. The floor was originally one sheet of plywood continuous across the width. That continuous piece gives it a membrane effect. To replace the whole floor would involve rebuilding the entire trailer from ground up. I don't have time, energy, or money for that. This will have to do.

Here both new sections of flooring have been attached and screwed to the floor joists. A note here, I've done this sort of thing on several mobile homes now and I've never once found one with a "standard" thickness of flooring. Fortunately, I had a piece of floor decking (also scavenged) that was pretty close to the same thickness. The new wall framing is also visible in this picture.

 New wall framing in place. To be consistent with the existing style of framing, a 1x2 runner was added along the top of the floor edge and new 2x2 verticals added to duplicate the original locations. One vertical stud had to be slightly relocated to accept the replacement window that, again, is of a different size.

 Verticals are notched on the outside to accept the horizontal 1x3's as well as the existing wiring. The skin will attach to the horizontals, while the inside paneling attaches to the vertical studs.

All the new framing for this wall is done. We're ready to screw the skin back on, insert the window, do insulation and inside paneling.


I'm not sure how feasible this project would be without having all the scavenged lumber available. So far we've only been out the moving fee for the trailer. All the lumber has come from scrap piles at other vendor's booths out at the Sherwood Forest site. The windows, paneling, and other material came inside this free trailer or the portable office building we were given that we now use as woodworking shop. (See previous post.)


More to follow soon!