The Long and The Short of It

This weekend was another blitzkrieg trip to the ranch, out late Friday night and back Sunday, to install the plywood paneling that we stained last weekend.

When we last left the cabin, the floors had been sealed and the walls were ready for paneling.

We started on Saturday morning with the ceiling panels, which should have fit together in a straightforward fashion, with a course of 4' x 8' panels and another course that was to be trimmed lengthwise to account for the framing that extends inward from the walls and makes the space about 7'8'' wide.

The problem was that nothing was quite square. Things had shifted, and I'm not sure the container was perfectly straight to begin with. So this led to lots of fitting, finding that there were gaps or overlaps, trimming, fitting again, maybe trimming, some more -- you get the idea. It took about five hours to put 10 panels in place. But the results were good, and we continued with covering the far ends of the container before finally breaking for sausages and beer around 4pm.

Then it was on to the wall panels. We had ripped 1' x 8' panels and stained them in three different colors to make a pattern for the walls.

Again, nothing was quite as straight or uniform as we had hoped, and the wall panels required some fitting and trimming as well, particularly around every light switch and electrical outlet. This went a bit faster, and by 10pm we had the entire length of the back wall of the cabin done.

By Sunday morning there were still a few spots that needed to be filled in on the back wall, and the front wall hadn't yet been started. But we were wiped out from Saturday's work and just decided to clean up and organize the site, and take a walk around the property.

This spring has been fairly mild and quite wet, and the weather has had a huge impact on this part of Southern Texas. With all the grass growing, we'll need to bring a lawn mower the next time we come out.

Who knows how long this greenery will last when the triple-digit heat returns to Texas, which it is bound to by July. The new undergrowth may be a concern when drought conditions return and it dies and becomes potential fuel for forest fires. We'll have to keep an eye on that, but for now its a nice change of scenery.

No Pain No Stain

This past weekend did not include a trip to the ranch, but instead a full day of work in Austin preparing the interior paneling for the container cabin. We are using plywood to cover the walls and ceiling, but are trying to paint and pattern it to be more modern and less woodsy.

First we ripped down about twenty-five 4' x 8' sheets of plywood into 1' x 8' strips to use as individual panels for the cabin walls. Then we set to staining all of them, and we even had some help this time from a few of the locals.

We chose four different semi-transparent wood stain colors in muted colors -- charcoal, light greenish-gray, and blue for the walls, and a grayish-white for the ceiling.

After the panels dried, we loaded them all back onto the trailer. Next weekend we will take all the panels to the ranch and start installing them in a pattern on the walls. We are still figuring out what the pattern will be, so stay tuned to see how that turns out.

One More Step

May 31 was a quick (one day), but significant, trip to the ranch to seal the floors and install the air conditioning units, as well as inspect the foam insulation that was sprayed in a few weeks ago.

The insulation looked great. It totally filled in the cavities between the studs and the metal walls, and should make keeping the cabin cool fairly easy.

A little trimming will be required in places when we install the paneling and outlet covers, but this was well worth the cost.

And speaking of keeping cool, since we have the electricity on and the walls insulated, it was time to install and crank up the two A/C window units we had. After a little shimming and bracing we were in business.

And not a moment too soon -- it is starting to get hot in South Texas. Even though the air temperature was only about 90 degrees, the intensity of the sun and lack of shade means that we'll be doing most of work inside for the next couple of months.

So next it was time to prep the floors. Most of the floors in these storage containers are plywood (though ours has a fairly large metal patch in one section), and the wood is treated with strong insecticide chemicals to kill any bugs that might hitch a ride from their native lands. So the wood floor needs to be sealed to prevent the insecticide chemicals from outgassing into the space.

We swept and mopped the floor and patched a few gouges, and then spread on three layers of polyurethane floor sealant. And with that we were done for the day since it needed 48 hours to fully dry. But this means we are now ready to install the wood paneling and kitchen counters and cabinets during our next trip.

It is starting to look like this place is going to be habitable soon...