2. Workshop

The Bus

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We managed to fit 800w worth of solar panels in place, although obviously we'll not be reaching the max output with this overlap. I've got just enough room to squeeze an ankle in between them to walk around for maintenance though, so at least there's that.
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We managed to fit 800w worth of solar panels in place, although obviously we'll not be reaching the max output with this overlap. I've got just enough room to squeeze an ankle in between them to walk around for maintenance though, so at least there's that.

  • The kitchen drawers have all gone together nicely so far!
  • With some help from my dad, we mounted the solar panels to the roof using a variety of means, including these nutserts.
  • My panels are sized large enough that they proved tricky to fit, but with some overlapping we were able to get them all on the roof at least.
  • We managed to fit 800w worth of solar panels in place, although obviously we'll not be reaching the max output with this overlap. I've got just enough room to squeeze an ankle in between them to walk around for maintenance though, so at least there's that.
  • I'm putting together my own cabinet faces, which in the first draft involved carving out a dado on the table saw and then finishing the ends the old fashioned way. I didn't want the cut to show on the outer edges, so I've hidden it by keeping it back a touch and plugging in the other frame members with a small tenon.
  • I feel like there's a few things I'm missing experience-wise on a cabinet face glue-up like this, but I think I lucked out on this set and managed to make them almost flat and mostly pretty.
  • Here's my first set of cabinet doors mostly assembled. I'll throw on a little wood putty, soften the corners with a router, and then paint them white. So far so good!
  • I threw a quick coat of paint on the first set of doors. The rest of them will get it all at once when they're done, but I wanted to see how this design looks.
  • Here's the first couple cupboard doors painted and hung to see how we still like the idea. This set isn't finished here in this photo, but it did finish out pretty nice, so we'll keep going this route.
  • Tracy is stoked to see her slide-out pantry going in.
  • The slide-out pantry was a simple build. I threw together a frame solidified with some gusset plates, and then lined it with shelves. The whole thing is mounted on a pantry slider I ordered online.
  • Here's the slide-out pantry completed and in place. We realized once we installed it that it'll also make a halfway decent bedroom door if we just add on to the back side of it, so we may do that soon.
  • In order to get the AC unit installed I elected to vent it out the back wall of the closet, and then built a window prop that stows neatly inside the kitchen cabinet. The window needs to be open in order to run it, but I didn't have to cut a hole in the wall, so there's that.
  • Here's our second closet nearing completion, with the AC unit installed. It's got the room to roll forward to the front of the shelf if we need it to, and the shelf conveniently fits our vacuum/dust extractor underneath it as well. That unit is already plugged in and capable of reaching the entire house from here, which is super cool. I trimmed out the shelves with maple and we may add a curtain of some sort as well.
  • More progress being made on the kitchen cabinets, with shelves installed and the inside pretty much done. Will still be hanging a door on this and painting the frame, but it's pretty close to finished.
  • Cleaning up the front of the kitchen cabinets, I covered them with the cedar siding. There'll probably be a shelf or something on here eventually too, but for now it's this clean slate.
  • We set up a water bladder on the roof under the deck, plumbed in a pipe with a gravity feed down to our freshly installed faucet, and set up a temporary bucket under the sink drain, so our sink is at least functional. Water pressure is very low with this setup, so I may add a pump in there down the road. but it'll work for now. The drain will also eventually be into a holding tank that can then be dumped in places where it is safe to do so.
  • I'm building my own custom maple trim pieces to finish out the closet and bedroom doorway. I don't know if this is the best way to do this, but here we go! My priorities are strength and beauty, in that order, as this piece will also support the front portion of our bed frame.
  • My custom trim pieces for the closet edges and bed frame turned out alright. These are maple, and I'll be swapping out the horizontal bed support for maple at some point as well.
  • I'm no duct worker and I proved it with this hack job, but I think it should work. These two fans used to draw air from a large duct and direct it down onto the driver, but I removed the duct and put in this much smaller one. Initial tests held up okay, so I'll be boxing it in!
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