Tale of a Hiatus

Well, I'd like to say that we've done tons of work on the trailer since my last post, but honestly, that isn't quite right. It really gets progressively harder and harder to pick up on a neglected project. At first it was a case of simply not having any spare time to make progress. Then I picked up a moonlighting job and Rick hung in as his work escalated and he finished off his degree. At a certain point, though, life changed again. I got laid off from my day job and made my moonlight job full time. Rick graduated and shifted jobs as well. We are both vastly happier with our new positions and though we are still busy, time was no longer completely unavailable. But then the challenge of making sense of projects abandoned two years ago was daunting and a point of mutual dread. While our intentions were high, ironically, it was the purchase of new living room furniture that put us back in action. While seemingly unrelated, the process of shifting possessions around our home left us realizing that we really needed to put the trailer back together and reclaim the basement bedroom that is currently filled with the furniture and parts from the trailer.

Our first effort was to inventory just where the different projects stood. That was a surprisingly timestaking effort, involving several evenings of making lists, organizing parts and tallying. This journal was also valuable in tracking what we'd done. There are still several projects we just aren't sure about, so things may get interesting as we move forward.

We hope to plug ahead this fall. Rick has a plan for redoing the plumbing so that we have a greywater tank (operated by a pump, to be installed next to our water heater). We may rewire, though that effort may be limited to merely replacing the wiring we expose (interestingly, we haven't had problems with the wiring, but since it's so old, we figure it's worthwhile doing). We also need to tear up the rear end flooring and weld in new metal there.

So, we got started yesterday, installing a new door handle. It's a small item--but getting started again gave us a sense of accomplishment. As usual, it took a big of fiddling, drilling in new holes, and frustration, but it got done (I didn't document it, but it wasn't really anything other than drilling out rivets, removing the old one, than forcing the new one into the old unit's place. Finally, we have the trailer secured (the lock was broken on the old one). Today we get into meatier work, cutting out flooring in the front and replacing it with new plywood (marine grade). Wish us luck!