Blog 21 – Cupboards, Power, Lights Action!

I missed blogging last week, we have been full noise and I just didn’t get it done.  So in 2 weeks we have made great progress.

Fred is now, again, officially retired.  He finished a week ago and has been busier than ever spending every waking moment in/on/at the truck and a large percentage of sleeping moments thinking about what’s left to do.

Apart from one small bit of extra bench top (which was forgotten on the original order), our cupboards are finished.  All installed with headboards attached.  Fred fitted most of the doors with spring hinges and secure latches.  We don’t want to pull up and find everything on the floor lol.  He also restructured the large drawer under the sink cutting around the sink making a drawer space either side.  And just because I didn’t think he had enough to do, I got him to build the drawers in my pantry.  I wasn’t happy with the drawers provided by the cabintry place as I felt there was too much space wasted the way they built them so we did our own.  It all looks amazing.

Now to fill them up.  This is easier said then done and my current project.  Fred has delegated this to me while he continues on other vital things. I looked at everything we had taken out of De Busta and could see a lot of culling to be done.  How hard can it be, I downsized from a 6 bedroom house to a bus, this will surely be a piece of cake.  I measured each of the cupboards and headed to Kmart and Target, who incidentally sell Anko as well (for those like me who didn’t know that), and came home with various sized baskets and storage boxes.  The fridge is now full of baskets to minimise movement when travelling.  I have packing cells for a lot of our clothes and am still working out the rest.  All I can say it that I am doing my best to not waste a single millimetre if I don’t have to.

Now I’m a big fan of Fusion Loc and as we don’t want to drill into the panels, it was time for another shopping trip, but this time to Bunnings.  There’s so many options and I came back with a basket option for shower, soap dispensers for vanity and kitchen sink, toilet roll holder and towel racks and hooks for miscellaneous stuff.  I whacked it all up and so far so good, nothing has fallen off as yet.  I reckon I’ve got to go back for more hooks, you can never have too many hooks about the place.

While I’ve been tirelessly working away at all these important things :), Fred was doing some of the less stressful stuff like wiring the whole truck.  He ran all the wires through the back of the cupboards, housed in conduit – fancy fancy.  Sounds easy hey, but I can assure you it was a bit tricky trying to fit a Fred and a drill into some of the small confined cupboard spaces.  He then designed and wired up the switch panel and housed it in one of the overhead cupboards, all neat and tidy.  

We made up special backing boards for our inside lights to provide the space for the wires behind.  They came up a treat and look great attached.  He also added the bedside lights and awning lights.  

Now for the powerpoints, all doubles and we have 2 in the big boot space outside, 1 near the bed for a charging stations, 1 in the bike box, 2 in the bathroom, 1 under the sink and the final one on the end of the kitchen bench.

The last electrical thing for now was wiring and attaching the touch screen for the Cerbo.  This allows us to monitor the water, inverter, solar, batteries, you name it it does it.  We popped this up the back near where our chairs will be.

The final big thing inside is our bed.  Another bit of ingenious work from Fred.  He had already fabricated the frame and it was now time to attach it to the top of the big boot space.  He added some timber framing to the top of the box to allow the mattress to sit on top but allowing air to circulate under.  As the frame folds up we bought a mattress that will allow it to bend.  We fitted the frame and added legs, dropped the mattress on top and we have a bed!

To finish it all off, we put our recliners together and positioned them in front of the bed.  The plan is to recline them at night and the bed will fold down over the top.  I can assure everyone that they are bloody comfy!

So we are hosting our first dinner party tonight and will be sleeping in our new bed for the first time.  Dinner is a very elaborate affair, I’ll be cooking chops and veggies on the new induction cooker and we will be hosting our very generous hosts of the past year in their back yard.  We will be using all of the fancy crockery, literally, as I only have 4 plates.  :). Update:), we still hosted but had fish n chips from the local shop around the corner, It was a suggestion that I wasn’t about to argue with.

Stay tuned…….