Blog 13 – We Now Have a Habitat Box

I left you last week with 3 of the 4 walls up.  Before we can put the back wall in, we cut a whole in the passenger side wall to allow access to the inside of the box.  This will be where the door will be fitted but at this stage it isn’t exact to measure, just big enough for us to climb in.  We now load the fridge and shower unit inside as these will not fit through the door once the box is complete.  To be fair, the fridge would if we had to but we would have to take the doors off first and why do that if we don’t have to?  Once inside it starts to become real as to how much space things take up.  That old saying “you don’t realise what you had until it’s gone” comes to mind when I think about De Busta – yep that 12.5 metres was so luxurious, “the day paradise moved from the bus to the truck la la la la la.  But don’t think for a minute that I’m regretting De Trucksta – we have so many things to look forward to in him and always look on the bright side of life – only half the cleaning!

It was time to prep the back end wall and in no time it was up.  This is old hat to Fred now.  Blink and bam we now have a box, without the lid of course.  This makes it all real – now that it’s closed in we can see and feel just how much space we have to work with, all of a sudden what seemed so big doesn’t anymore.

We took advantage of the nice shiny white walls and armed with whiteboard markers began drawing our cupboards and benches etc getting ready for the cabinet maker who was due later in the week.  We decided this time we were going to get a bit of help and not build it all ourselves, hoping to take advantage of other’s expertise.  The drawing was an excellent exercise and went on for days, rubbing out and drawing again.  Early in the week our washing machine arrived which was a bonus as the build was dependant on it and our microwave fitting in particular places determining sizes of cupboards.  Lucky we rehashed, last minute we realised that the fridge couldn’t go where we always thought it would as the doors would not open fully where originally positioned it.  If we hadn’t of discovered this, we would of been in a world of pain for a longtime afterwards as we would never of been able to pull the drawers and trays all the way out.

Now bike box you are thinking….. yep the biggest cupboard, taking up heaps of real estate is a box to house our bikes.  5 bikes to be exact, well hopefully we will fit them all in.  I have 2 and Fred 3 and this is a considerable downsize on what Fred could be taking lol.  If you are a bike person you will get it.  Now it probably seems crazy but to put it in perspective it will be the equivalent to our trailer, well sort of, as it will house our bikes which replace our Jimmy as transport.  We originally wanted the box to be on the back of the truck but due to size limits, this would not of been legal.  Fingers crossed this all works out.

Time to put the roof on!  There was a bit of extra prep for the roof; cut out for the exhaust fan/vent, work out and thread the wiring through the roof panel and the normal sanding for the glue.  Now the biggest issue was lifting the big bugger up onto the top, a mere 3.8m or so.  Originally we planned to use the block and tackle and mango tree but found that this was a pipe dream, just not enough clearance.  In the end we got a crane in to help out.  The best decision in hindsight.  It made what would of been a huge task much much easier but still it wasn’t without it’s moments.  We had a few issues getting it in the exact spot, but after a lot of grunts, shouts, expletives and loud comments it was all good in the end.  Hip hip hooray – we have a habitat box and no-one lost a finger!

We now stood back in wonder, this was it, the real deal and to be honest although it is huge it didn’t look out of place, just seemed to work, proportionately that is.  We hopped up inside to see how big it felt from the inside – answer:  not so big at all.  I’m hoping that it will be just right!

It was now time to cut holes in the walls and install the windows.  We started with the bathroom window as it was the smallest and figured if we stuffed it up; well better it’s the smallest hole.  All good it fit like a charm.  I’ve got to say, these things are amazing, nothing to them.  Basically they are 2 pieces which are placed either side on the frame around the hole and screw them together.  Cutting the holes was a bit hairy though, too late if we cut them in the wrong place.  In total we have 4 windows, one in the bathroom, 2 in the bedroom/living area and one over the kitchen bench.  A bit different from the bus which was full windows each side but real estate for cupboards is at a premium this time around.

Next was to finish cutting the door to the actual size.  Measure twice and cut once as they say and it was done. The door is a lot more complicated than the windows so this is a work in progress and not yet completed.

I had purchased some lino for the floor and we were getting to the stage that we would need to put it in as we plan to have the cupboards sit on top of it.  This meant prepping the floor so that we didn’t have any bumps or lumps come through.  When we received the floors they were quite bubbled with small air holes.  To ensure we wouldn’t have marks in the lino we bogged up the fissures and sanded it back to leave a smooth floor ready for the laying.  Before laying the lino though, we needed to seal the small gap between the floor panel and the side panel.  Masking tape and glue – tick.

We had the cabinet makers coming so it was time to ensure we knew exactly what we wanted in terms of cupboards and benches.  So back to the box to go over it again.  Lucky we did as we realised where we had the fridge positioned wasn’t going to work as the doors would not open fully.  Phew, this would of been a major drama.  But it was an easy fix, simply swap the pantry and fridge around and no problems.  

In order to ensure we would have enough space when planning the cupboards, we picked up our recliner chairs and put one together and placed it in the box to gauge spacings.  Our recliners aren’t huge in the big scheme of things but once placed inside the box we realised that it doesn’t take much to fill it up.  We had a couple of other deliveries this week as well, our washing machine  and one of our big ticket items, our Safiery Scotty.  I’ll talk about the Scotty in another blog when we are talking electrics, but the washing machine was good timing as we could place it in the box when measuring the for cupboards that would be adjacent.

The last thing to chat about this week was having caps fabricated for the top corners of the roof.  When we originally ordered the panels we asked about what covers the corner joins.  The response was, we used to make corner caps but we don’t do that anymore.  What, really (insert meme of me scratching my head)? All good though as we have found a fantastic sheet metal mob who whacked up the 4 corners in a day or so and they fitted perfectly.  It really amazed me to watch the interaction between Fred and the boss man.  Fred rocks up, no drawings, “hey mate can you fabricate a cap which will be this size and this size and this, the boss man says sure, no worries, grabs a bit of paper and sketches a diagram with the measurements Fred supplied and says they will be ready in 2 days.  What the……..to me this was genius’ at work!  They were ready in 2 days and they fit like a glove.

It is a really exciting time at the moment as we constantly see progress.  We would love to stop everything (this working is getting in the way lol) and spend 100% time on the build but of course that’s not an option if we want to pay for it.  Fred started shift work this week and on one hand this is great as he will get more days off in a row as he does night shift but the down side is he still has to sleep so sometimes those days are a struggle.

Life is grand but it will be even grander when it is finished.  Stay tuned until next week………….