A week, A van, & a dream

     Today we’re going to talk about my vacation. I got a week off and it was beautiful. Now in April in Minnesota you can get anything as a matter of fact as I write this it’s the last day of April in 2017 and there is a Winter storm watch for Northern and Central Minnesota. Nothing like that happened on my days off though. It was a beautiful time and I got a lot of stuff done.

I put a sub-floor in, a laminate floor on top of that, painted and finished the walls, and built a counter top which I sunk my homemade sink into. There’s a blog about that sink here. All of this got done in a week.

     Before you tell yourself that I must have all of this experience doing this sort of thing let me assure you that I don’t. I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to construction and constructing things. I did however make it a goal to learn as much as I could about it while doing fun stuff in life. Hence the van. The sub-floor that I built, and I’m sure that I did it wrong, was made with plywood cut to the shape (more or less) that the floor of the van was in. I did put this sticky stuff that I bought at Lowe's which I forget the name of. It’s suppose to keep heat out and take the noise down. It was a lot cheaper then that name brand stuff.

Now I saw pictures of people doing floors like this and they had this special tape they put on the boards to make the pieces hold together better. Eh, I used duct tape.

                             ****shrugs shoulders and makes a funny face****

I don’t know if it’ll work. I just did it. Afterword I got to thinking. I probably should have made sure that the floor was level which is something to remember for next time. 

     Then I started putting the laminate flooring in. Now everyone will tell you it’s super easy. They’re lying; however, having said that I will also say I’ve done harder things. Think post hole digging in August then think a lot of post hole digging in August and you’ll be on the right track.

Okay the laminate wasn’t super hard, but it had challenging parts. I think if someone does it a few times they will get it quickly or if someone has a nice square area to put it in you’ll be fine. A Chevy Express 1500 is known as a curvy lady. She is not square anywhere.

     Elissa, and I also finished with insulating, priming, and painting the walls as well. We found the primer and the paint in the basement. We used them when we painted the house a couple of years ago. We have the same green on our windows and edging. 

     The counter-top was relatively easy. It had it’s tough moments, and I’m sure would have been screwed up without the help of my neighbor who asked me if I was going to be using a guide when I sawed the board. I had no idea what that was so he showed me. Then he changed the blade on the circular saw I got at a pawn shop. Imagine my surprise when I realized that cutting the wood could be easy and not have burn marks with the new blade.

I built the legs for the counter from what I figured they needed to be to hold the top, and I was right. I got the shape, the support, the size everything right.

     Next came the hard part. I had to drill the holes which would become the cut out for the sink. I measured like three or four times. This wood was my baby. I had sanded it, and preened it with mineral oil I didn’t want it screwed up with one miss measured hole.  Eventually I got it drilled, and cut out but I had to keep cutting and slowly widen the hole for the sink. I did it slow and took my time so that it would work well. Elissa was right there helping with her eye’s as well. As you will see in the video it turned out terrific.

Now the next steps are to start building the bed and begin putting the ceiling together. Keep tuning in to see how this goes.

Thanks

Trevor

Update on the van

How about an update on the van to rv project?

This is a smallish one and it’s all about making a butcher-block counter top.

We went to Lowes and got a nice piece of Aspen and then I put food grade Butcher Block oil on it. In the video you will see that I have six layers of it on the wood. It’s a very pretty wood and with the oil on it I think you’ll agree it’s brilliant.

Have a great day. 

Happy Holiday's and The Electric Plan

Dearest Fellows-

     This weekend was terrifically cold and so with wind chills going as far as 40 below zero I decided it would be best if I didn’t hang out to long outside and work on the van.

I did shovel it out of snow, turn it on, and drive it out of it’s stuck spot. Then I looked around it, wished it well, and promised to return in a few days when the temperature gets back above zero.

We have a lot to shovel out and last year I was in a wheelchair (go here for that story) and wasn’t able to do any shoveling. Elissa did everything which was wonderful. This year I plan to shovel all of it. That’s what I did Saturday. I shovel ours and helped with two other places down the block. Saturday was only like 10 below so it was way more doable.

     The holiday season is coming upon us quickly and this demands more time, so I hope to get out to work on the van this week but I’m not sure it’s going to happen. There are lots of things that are also demanding my time, and I hope the weather gets a little bit warmer. I mean if it’s at least at zero I can get a few things done.

    

     The plan then is to get heavy gauge electric wire and run it from the solenoid and the starter battery to the house batteries with a giant fuse in between and the whole mess grounded to the frame. You can see why I hope for the temperature to warm up a bit since I’ll be crawling under the vehicle on the snow. (My shed isn’t tall enough for van.) From the house batteries I will connect a lighter gauge wire to a DC fuse junction box. The kind you find in cars. At that point I’m a bit lost, and don’t entirely know what to do. I think I’m going to need to connect a couple of dc cigarette type plug in to that fuse box, but I’m not sure. I do know however that we will be needing an inverter. Here’s the one we’re thinking about getting. You’ll notice that it’s sort of small. Well this is why. We aren’t full time boon-docking yet. We are only going to be “trying it out” and thus won’t have the same demands as other folks do. We won’t be putting a refrigerator on it, we won’t be using hair dryers, toaster, or coffee makers. We will only be charging a few devices once in awhile also when we upgrade I’d like to be upgrading to solar charging and get the right inverter for that. This will be connected to the house batteries with the same heavy gauge wire and have a B.A.F. (Big A$# Fuse) between the batteries and the inverter. The whole thing will have a large red On/Off switch, so we can turn the whole mess off if we so choose.Here's that link.

    

     Well that’s about it for this week I wish you a happy, healthy, and wonderful holiday season. Remember this can be the hardest and most depressive time of the year, so give someone a hug and let them know they’re loved.

All my best

Trevor

A photo just for fun.

Gutting the Van and Nanowrimo

Gutting the inside of the van and Nanowrimo.

Hello Gang-

    How are you doing today? We here at the Marty Estate are doing fine. Two thumbs up.

Today’s blog is all about the gutting of the van we’re turning into an RV. The van is a 2001 Chevy Express. They made three different types a 1500, a 2500, and a 3500 I believe ours to be the 1500 and it does have a 5.7 liter V8 engine in it. Quite the difference between that and our little four cylinder wagon.

    First though a little about Nanowrimo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and I have been participating in it. It’s a sort of race to see if you can get a novel written in thirty days. Now the goal is 50,000 words and I will admit that does seem like a big deal and it is, but as far as novels go that is a bit light. The type that I choose to write, an anthropomorphic murder mystery should weigh in at between 80,000 and 89,999 thousand words and that is what I’m shooting for. Having said that though I have only gotten as far as just over 32,000 words and the end of the month is only a week away. I don’t think I’ll be making it, but I still feel good about getting to 32,000 words. That’s a pretty big deal, so this weekend instead of sitting and writing all weekend I wrote a few thousand words per day and then started work on the van.

    As you’ll see in the video below there are several speakers, two T.V.’s, and a power amp thingy. The speakers are all Bose which I thought was a fun discovery, but I’ll probably take them all out. Also there is this weird air conditioner/heater thingy (don’t you love my technical parlance) in the back of the van. This two will be coming out. Besides those things the back area is gutted.

    This is exciting, because now the next step will be to sweep it out and then to start putting up the wall, ceiling, and floor. Oh and let’s not forget about the insulation and the wiring for the lights. Which means I have a lot to learn about. For example. We are planning on putting solar panels up on the the top, so we have to wire for that. Do we wait to put the finishing on the ceiling till after we put the panels up? I’m thinking, ‘yes’ because it seems easier to have that all finished before we put the ceiling on.

    There are a lot of options as far as learning to wire it and I plan on exhausting all of my options. I also plan on showing y’all every part of this transformation. Whether you’ve found this place by accident, my music, or someone pointed you doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re here now, and I am grateful. Thank you for dropping by, and please bookmark this and check back. I post another entry every Monday, and some have video’s like this one.

Thanks again for stopping by.

I wish you good health and happiness. 

Trevor Marty

 

Trevor Marty