Trying to weatherproof the carport.

Added some beams, center posts and some diagonal ropes.  

 Finally added the carport walls in hopes they stay together.  Rain this weekend, so we're hoping it holds, so we can move forward with the cabinets and walls.

Flooring Finished

Vinyl glue is nasty, sticky stuff...

....But installing vinyl tiles is much easier than porcelain.  They easily score and snap with a utility knife, even for complex inside corners.  The wife and I went around and around about the pattern orientation, and ended up with her preference for all tiles oriented in the same direction to add some width to the narrow axis.

A flooring roller is $40 for a one use tool, so we went full Betty Crocker on this installation. 

As usual, the helpers were on hand to make sure every seam and corner were pressed into place.  It's a little concerning that we did this on a day that was barely above the required 65 degree install temperature, but Mama wants to go camping, so the trailer show must go on.

Now comes the hard part...we need to fully rain and wind proof the carport before we can even contemplate putting up the walls.  Our driveway is going to look like Ringling Brothers pretty soon with all the tarps and guy-wires, but El Nino is coming..., 

Starting the floor tiling

Our tile order got messed up as usual by Home Depot, but we eventually got them 6 days late.  We started by cleaning up any bumps, filling the remaining divots and laying out the position of all cabinets.  By the time we decided where each tile would go, it was too cold for the recommended temperature range of the adhesive, so will bust it out tomorrow.  Our buddy Pat gave us a few suggestions about weatherproofing the carport, so that might be the next task.

Finishing the street side wall paneling

Got the remaining sheet installed (plus a 2 inch sliver hidden behind the kitchen).  This wall will join it's sister in the garage for a bit while we work on the trailer interior flooring (if Home Depot can ever find our special order flooring that was due in last week)

Christmas

Got a few hours to start on the street side paneling.

As usual, nothing is easy with this trailer.  Framing that seems strong breaks with the slightest movement.

Oh well, we needed a thicker piece here anyways, as there is a 2 inch sliver of plywood here, hidden by the kitchen cabinets.  Added a few extra scraps as this area seemed especially weak.

Rebuilding the street side wall paneling

Even though we replaced a lot of rotten framing with new wood, we still needed to add some additional framing to both walls, since the original trailer was built with 3 foot panels and we were using 4x8 sheets.  While we were at it, we added some scrap under the rear bunk support, as our 4 year old just happens to live in the body of a 6 year old girl.

The windstorm made a mess of my saved template panels, and it also was blowing so hard that we thought the carport would fly away, so we took off the tarp and the street side wall lives under it's own tarp until the paneling is completed.

Rebuilding the curb side wall paneling

This trailer is a little bit different in most ways...one of which is that all the wall panels were securely glued to the wall framing.

Most trailers rely on staples and "twisty nails" alone, but the wife didn't like the look of the exposed twisty nail dome heads, so we will "rebuild it the way we found it" and use lots of Titebond III wood glue and staples/brads to secure the panels.

Removing the old panels is tedious as you must remove many staples and glue residue.  Luckily, we have a "staple power" fairy in residence, so it goes pretty quickly.

The curb side wall took 2 days to repanel, with a light rain and windstorm interrupting the progress.

Uh Oh Part 5

These walls are not built for a lot of strength.  In fact, many people believe the framing is only there to allow you to secure the plywood and metal skin, which supplies the true unibody strength.  That being said, we broke the top framing board lifting the curb side wall, and had to patch it with a 1x4 pocket screwed to both sides of the break.