End caps!

 I am sorry to report that I was an extreme grumpy gills during Airstream work this weekend. Peter had all of Friday to devote to his goals, so I worked remote from the comfort of the air conditioning while he slaved away finessing the end cap with the assistance of Amanda. The spray glue the guy at Home Depot recommended was inferior to the 3M glue in that it did not want to stick to the Reflectix, so it was relatively useless for its intended purpose, but what are you going to do? Amanda was a huge help in the insulation department, and by 5pm on Friday the front end cap was, TA-DA, finished! 

Before we called it quits for the day, we cleco'd in the street-side upper wall. I stand by my assessment that that is a three-person job. We also checked our newly arrived replacement external lights to see if they would nest in the existing housing--unsurprisingly, I guess, they did not. On the way home we stopped at Tractor Supply and got two more kinds of lights to test. We think we can drill a new hole in the housing so we can sit a single LED in there, and screw the covers back in. 

Saturday morning I got to work on insulating the curb-side upper wall while Peter riveted in the street-side. I took it upon myself to do some wire sorting because it was giving me anxiety that Peter didn't seem to be paying the wires much mind (I had no evidence for this really, but I just couldn't let it go!) I know he is frustrated by the slowness of our progress and I worry that he is so focused on gaining ground that he forgets other details. But, if you know Peter you know there is always a method to his madness. 

We slid our electrical components platform to the side and insulated the back street-side wall and around the back hatch. Oddly, the remaining skins didn't match up the way we expected, probably there was some design intention in that, but since that area will now be visible instead of covered by the bathroom housing, we wanted fewer lines. We took a scrap of aluminum to cover that spot instead. 

With the help of Amanda and Prudence we got the curb-side upper wall cleco'd into place, and then put some rivets in there to help it align more. We are only securing it halfway up the wall so that the wall can peel back a bit for Will to run wires for the puck lighting. We threaded the rest of the existing wires to their spots as best we could. Then I gave it a good vacuuming, which never feels like a particularly essential task but is always so satisfying. 

We have been disagreeing about the number of lights we'll need inside. One of Peter's pet peeves is dim lighting and low visibility, but I think he is underestimating how bright LEDs can be and also how small the space is. He was pushing for additional, larger puck lighting across the endcaps, in addition to more decorative sconce lighting mid-way up the wall, but after getting the walls up he seems to agree with me that that the extra puck lighting isn't necessary. 

Before we left, Peter showed me the shower pan side-by-side with the toilet I had chosen. It is a bit wider than I had imagined, and he thinks the bathroom will end up being longer than we really wanted. We had talked about a waist-high "closet" between the shower wall and the bed, but it looks like we mix need to redirect that space to the bathroom so there is enough room to put your feet down in between the toilet and the shower pan. The other option is moving the toilet from the curb-side to the street-side and doing kind of like a walk-through bathroom, but I am loathe to lose the storage and to interrupt the openness of that side that we had envisioned. 

Next time I think we will put the last lower wall on for the back curb-side and tackle the back end cap? After next weekend, Will is coming back to help us wrap up the wiring and install the propane lines. I would like to leak-test the old freshwater tank and get it re-installed so Will can install tank monitors for us and we can turn toward the plumbing next. But, we still haven't decided where we want our control panel to go, since we only just decided to fabricate both the front and back endcaps. No original control panel anymore! 

But, Peter is project manager, so I will leave those things for him to figure out. Trying to lean into that freedom of responsibility to keep the grumpiness away. ;)

More walls!

Peter got another head start on me this weekend, heading up Friday morning while I was at work. He put up a ton of insulation and some more walls. Putting walls in is definitely a two-person job, so it is fun to work in tandem together: drill, cleco, rivet, repeat. We didn't label where pieces went as we took them off, but thankfully this hasn't been an issue because it's fairly obvious what goes where. Since this was all handmade to begin with, rivet lines are not completely even and not all holes line up with something to rivet into, which actually makes it easier to match the constellation of holes to the piece that goes there. Sooooo glad we got a pneumatic riveter; it is definitely faster and easier on the hands.  

We gave approximately +5 demonstrations of how our battery powers the Fantastic vent in the rear--I don't know if anyone was as impressed as we were, but it still has not gotten old for me!

The next day I got to work on stripping the last of the paint off of the remaining uninstalled panels. This was part rewarding (because I finally get how Citrastrip works and the most effective way to get this job done) but also part frustrating--because the vinyl is now peeling off! I am not sure if I ripped it by using the scraper too aggressively or if the combo of being exposed to the elements for the better part of the summer plus the stripper just did it in, but I am very disappointed because it is unsightly. My plan is to find something to patch it to slow/stop further separation. 

And the paint is not 100% removed--I stopped being a perfectionist about it. We will sand the walls down and treat them with deglosser and then hopefully the new paint will cover all the bumps and imperfections. I see why people fabricate all new skins, but I am still glad we went the route we did because reinstallation is much simpler with the originals. 

The exhaust vent we ordered to go over the stovetop is (1) too small for the existing exhaust hole in the skins, and (2) not compatible with the current exhaust vent cover on the outside of the Airstream, so we are going to go in another direction. Not sure what that direction is, but it's fine by me because this vent was ugly anyway. We picked a spot for the bathroom exhaust vent, but we have to mark it on the skin before it goes in. Peter wants to cut holes in the upper skins after they are installed; I am a proponent of cutting the holes before the skins go up. I will record who prevails. 

So now I understand why people make wire maps. I got so used to seeing the walls off that I forgot it would not be obvious where the ribs are once the walls. The walls can be so fiddly that once you've wrestled them into place you forget about where the wires are and where they might need to go and what ribs they might cross over to get there. For example, there is an outlet in the spot where the bathroom might be. We had that wall riveted into place with the outlet nested in its hole before we remembered we had intended to reroute that outlet about a foot over to the "bedroom." We drilled out the rivets and freed the outlet, but we have to remember to (1) free the wires from the junction box so they can be run further down the ceiling and between the correct ribs and (2) cut a new hole in the wall for the junction box to sit in. 

We ordered 16 puck lights, and Peter is thinking they should go in the upper wall skin instead of entirely in the ceiling panel. Bathroom will have its own light, so no puck lights in there, but probably three across the "bedroom" and three across the "living room." The remaining 10 should be spaced evenly in pairs along the main living space, maybe four in the "hallway" and six in the "kitchen" and desk area. We will need to measure! 

We pulled the old tail lights off--the lightbulb sockets are rusted through. I don't really want to replace the whole housing, so we are thinking we will either nest LED lights in the original socket housings, or we will try to mount the LEDs in the socket frame itself . . . and I guess by "we" maybe I mean Will. :P

We have the most challenging skins left to install: end caps, upper walls, and the ceiling panel. Hopefully Will can run the wires for the lights (I think the wires for the other functions like water pump, tank sensors, and range ignition are already in place) and then we will be able to put the last of them up. Peter brought his new nibbler and our roll of aluminum back to the apartment and he is going to try to cut the pieces for the end cap. If the back cap goes well, he may fabricate the front one also. We are in a hurry to get a coat of paint on there! 

WE HAVE POWER and part of a wall!

What an exciting weekend! We arrived at the trailer and surveyed Will's handiwork. I was not entirely sure what I was looking at, and this convinced me there was no way I could have done this myself. He walked us through the set up, explaining the flow of the circuit, and at the end he asked us if we wanted to see something cool? He flipped the battery switch and the Fantastic vent started spinning! 

He explained that all of the existing DC wires were tied into the fuse box and that to wire in any DC component we could just pick a wire and a ground and "tap" into them. He even gave us some connectors he had leftover! He also said that the AC power is hooked up, too, but we didn't have an adaptor to plug into shore power, and so no way to test that yet. Next time. He brought his van to plug into the 7-pin system, and confirmed that the 7-pin junction box was functioning--even some of the brake lights still work! And the hydraulic hitch! 

He was able to get all that done a lot faster than we were expecting, and he is always a wealth of information and encouragement. He is also willing to help us with our propane system, which is a relief because that is the next anxiety-frontier. He said he wished he had installed an outside propane hookup for a grill on his, and he suggested we include that in ours, and Peter was excited about this idea. Will is even going to order all the parts for us, so it feels amazing to completely outsource thinking about those logistics. 

Peter turned his attention to the plumbing venting. We went to the Home Deport and chatted with a knowledgeable and enthusiastic young man, and bought approximately +20 connectors (sorry, baby). Peter had ordered a 24x24x10 mop sink for the shower pan. The venting is 90% dryfitted, even the vent going through the walls, which feels to me like a huuuuge step forward. 

The puzzle of the tank attached to the axles continues. Soon enough it will have to come out, and we will hopefully have a better understanding of its functionality, but Will's theory is that it is an extra fresh water tank. It only has the one hose in and out! Peter is curious about finding a way to plumb the two tanks together. At any rate, I think we will have to install the main fresh water tank soon, including sensors, and find a way to reinforce the section of subfloor that is over the tank. Plumbing, y'all, it's starting sooon! 

I drilled out 90% of the remaining rivets in the ribs, and then went back to stripping paint and power washing. I have given up on perfection. We chose the bottom street-side panel to reinstall. We split the rockwool batt in half and crammed it into the wall haphazardly, with no adhesive, which was not my fav, but it held in there long enough for us to get the wall in place with some clecos and then the riveting commenced! Took a sec to get the hang of the pneumatic riveter, but now it is smooth sailing. Our fridge outlet and our mid-counter outlet are in place! 

I want to outsource rockwool installation to Amanda and Prudence, but I'm not sure the Reflectix will hold the rockwool up all week until skins go in, so that will probably just have to wait. We still have 3 big skins to strip paint from, and they can't really go in right now until holes are cut and vents are installed. Still, it's super exciting to have one of the skins completely riveted in, and I feel like that counts as meeting our goal of having a wall before September! 

Looking forward, I've ordered the Separett Weekender 7010 toilet so we can figure out how to vent the solids and drain the liquids to the gray tank. We also need new brake lights and a new 7-pin inlet and 7-pin cord. The breakaway switch is probably also too corroded, though the wire itself seems fine. I think we should probably also buy our puck lighting, so we can cut the holes in the skins and get those wires set before the top skins go in. No looking forward to cutting more holes in the skins. :( We brought home our window frames so that during the week we can strip the paint and bend them into shape. 

Electrical components box, axles, Citrastrip, and sawmill!

On Friday we built the electrical components "box". We used a leftover piece of subfloor to create a platform so the battery and inverter could sit above the vent and drain pipes for the gray tank. The other advantage of this platform is keeping the electrical components up over and away from any leaks that might occur around that back end of the trailer. We attached a lighter piece of plywood to create a side for the distribution panels to be mounted on. This way components can be accessed from the back hatch but also from under the bed inside the trailer. The "box" is about 17" tall, so the bed platform will be able to extend over it. 

Most of the electrical components have arrived, so it was fun to do a little unboxing. Our 200ah lithium ion battery from AIMS is predictably massive, but I was also surprised by the size and heft of our 2000w inverter-charger, and I'm a little worried about having all that weight on the tail end of the trailer. We lined up the supports for the platform with the two main beams in the trailer frame, which should help distribute the weight. Our AC distribution panel and DC fuse block also arrived, and Will thinks he will be able to get started next week! We might have electric in the Airstream before September!!! 

At Wally World, I wistfully examined the 50a --> 30a --> 15a adapters in the RV section at Wally World, dreaming about hooking up the air con to run off of the extension cable we have running from the farm house, hahah. 

In other large purchases, Peter ordered our axles. He talked to Colin Hyde, per Will and everyone else's recommendations, and wow, the guy is so knowledgable. What we ended up ordering is: #3500 axle with 12" brakes, powder coated tubes, 32 degrees torsion arms down angle, EZ lube spindles, shock brackets welded in place, and mounting hardware. The 32 degree torsion is in lieu of a lift for the time being. Colin says it will give approximately 1.5" of additional clearance. We are wanting more like 3" of clearance, but Colin said lift kits are not too complicated to install, and easy to add on later, so we felt comfortable delaying that purchase for now. 

On Saturday I turned back to the interior skins, only this time armed with Citrastrip. I feel so dumb that I wasted two days trying to strip paint without this. Layer one for 30 minutes softens the Kilz enough that I can use a paint scraper to get it off, and layer two for 20 minutes weakens the blue paint enough that the powerwasher can get it back down to the vinyl. Bonus: it smells very pleasant! I was only able to get through half the skins before I ran out of Citrastrip (and gas for the power washer), but then it was time to leave for our next project. 

The sawmill! 

Peter's mentor and the officiant at our wedding graciously invited us to his farm and sliced our locust log into six hefty pieces. I got to feed the cows their evening beer mash, and then they fed us smoked turkey, and I am just really thankful for this couple and their hospitality! The wood grain and raw edges on the boards are really beautiful, albeit super freaking heavy, but I'm excited to see what my baby is going to be able to do to them when we get to the aesthetic stage of this build. 

When we were working on the electrical box, Peter showed me how to use the circular saw, the jigsaw, the sander, and the router, and now I get his affinity for these things! Peter finds this work "fun" and I did not agree at first, but the more he teaches me about power tools and plumbing and carpentry and problem-solving, the more I see where he's coming front. I got hyped about this project in the beginning because I was dreaming of the end product, but the more I learn, the more I enjoy the process. 

Next time . . . we have to freaking ground our external lights! I just keep forgetting to do that. I want Peter to add a bracket to the electrical box because the "wall" feels a little flimsy to me. I need to finish scraping paint off of the skins now that I have a method to do this! Peter is probably going to focus on laying more plumbing and melting/shaping the gray tank vent pipe so it can hide between the skins. 

Dutiful

In high school I would lay in my bed in the dark, air conditioning blowing on my face (few things are such a signal of privilege to me as air conditioning), and wonder to myself why I was here: why I was born in the U.S., born to good parents, born into safety and comfort and opportunity. I was fixated on teenaged orphans in the Ukraine, and on teenaged refugees from Syria. 

How was it fair that God had given me such goodness and such goodness was withheld from others?

I felt strongly the call of Luke 12:48. As she saw me flounder with my direction in life, my mom would quote its charge to me often, along with Proverbs 29:18. 

When I went to Kazakhstan, I felt so much relief and cognitive harmony, that I was purposing my life towards giving back and doing something for the Kingdom with my privilege. But then I failed. I was terrible at it. Your setting is not irrelevant to your work or commission, but it is not everything. You do still have to, you know, work. 

During law school I felt of two minds about this. Teaching ESL was still meaningful. I got better at building relationships with my students now that I was back on my home turf. Or maybe my students did all the heavy lifting. But my future was not ESL. I was mediocre at it. It was not my goal. I studied law and eventually had to shift, leaving the ESL world behind and putting my hand to the transactional grindstone. 

Still, I found favor. Despite my bumbling and lack of inherent talent, the patient training and mentorship of other attorneys brought me into the good graces of those who could help me get where I wanted to go. I kept struggling non-custodial parents out of jail. But it was not enough for me. I got to criminal law--I couldn't keep these guys out of jail, but at least I was trying. 

I sat in arraignments, or in presentments, in front of judges who did not care what I said, if they did not outright shut down whatever I said, and I looked into the downcast or pleading eyes of defendants and thought, "They deserve so much better than me." I scrawled on my notepad, what am doing with my life? Why am I even here? Aren't I doing more harm than good? I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders as I packed up four DUI trial cases--all sure-losers who insisted on going to trial--and passed them off to a colleague. 

Now, as I struggle to provide any comfort to noncitizens caught up in a system that is fundamentally unfair, I ask myself, why am I doing this? Isn't this a waste of time? Am I cut out for this? On the one hand, expectations are lower in immigration court, and I thrive under low expectations. But on the other hand, the stakes are higher, and I find myself splintering under the pressure. Maybe it was time to give up and find a legal job doing doc review or contract drafting or something where I did not have to carry other peoples' suffering. 

I felt the air conditioning in my car wash over me one day on my way home from work and the Spirit brought Luke 12:48 back to my heart. 

The goal of life is not to avoid suffering. Not that suffering should be chased or embraced or called "good", but suffering is just a bi-product. It is pervasive. It will come to all of us, one day, in one form or another. And if I don't even try to stand with those who are suffering, can I even call myself a servant of Jesus? Is not a heart that is soft to the suffering of others the one thing that separates the sheep from the goats? 

What this means for me is, I cannot grow weary of doing good. I have been blessed so I can be a blessing. It is my duty to step into the opportunities in front of me and work at them faithfully until someone better equipped comes along. I can't shirk the challenges because my selfishness prefers the comfort of solitude to the rigors of defending others. When I feel the pangs of worry and stress, the answer is not to relinquish my work, but rather to steel myself against the discomfort, for this is my obligation as a steward of my privilege.

And it is more than just a mental choice to persevere. The emotional tax of this work is real. Nevertheless, my comfort is not within myself and my sense of obligation. Rather, my God will strengthen me to do the things that are hard for me. As I flex my muscles, He will fortify them. He will give me peace when I am troubled. And it is His love that compels me. 

Make no mistake, this is not to say that we should take on roles that we are not qualified for. Well-intentioned but naive self-appointed saviors have done more damage than those with nefarious motivations at times. Self-reflection, as well as diligent and disciplined work, is critical to ensuring that our efforts have their desired effect, and even then, we have to have the humility to recognize and repent of our failures and shortcomings. 

But it must never be fear or self-preservation that dictates our work or makes our decisions for us. 

Weatherstripping, sealing, and Reflectix!

One of my favorite accomplishments of the weekend was no longer having to use a ladder to hold the door closed. Peter reinstalled the latch. It is amazing! The door works! Ahhhhhhhh! Also, I washed all the mold and grime off the door, which was not a strictly necessary project but was immensely satisfying. 

Since the Airstream was sitting out exposed to the elements, unused, for many years, there is a lot of dirt, dust, and organic material in the window frames and crannies. Even with the skins out, and the new subfloor, and the Reflectix on the walls, the trailer still smells musty, and I am trying to control my impulses to engage in useless cleaning prematurely. 

W reinstalled the access doors and put new weatherstripping on them. We went with 9/16 width and 1/2 thickness. They ended up being too wide, so Peter trimmed them down with a razor blade. Thickness ended up being just right.

I finished up interior sealing and then did the tops of the windows externally. They look terrible. I used a clear polyurthane caulk and it is shiny so it catches the sun. It is bumpy because I didn't take the old sealant off. The clear looks better untooled, but I was forced to tool it on most of the windows because of the bumpy application. Then I decided to take some external lights off and I covered the sealant in crude from the lights. Ugh.

But the external red indicator lights are now replaced!

Peter's sisters are in the throes of SAT prep, studying 12 hours a day, every day except Sunday. They were willing to take a break from that and help us out for the right price. So while we were spending time with my family watching Hamilton, they were toasting away in the Easybake Oven taping Reflectix to the walls! In a few hours they had it almost all done. I don't know if it actually feels any cooler in there, but it certainly looks cooler. We had two rolls of 200 sq. ft., and it was just shy of what we needed. 

Coming up: Peter's mentor has some kind of a sawmill he is willing to let us use to turn the black locust tree Peter harvested into boards for our countertop and cabinets! We need to build the electrical components box while we are waiting for the components we ordered to arrive in the mail. Peter bought PVC pipes to redo the venting for the tanks. Blessed Will gave us the specs for his axel order and Peter has a welder lined up, so we might see about ordering those soon-ish. I need to finish drilling out interior rivets and stripping paint off the skins because we have a target date for skins back on!

More Preliminary Marriage Thoughts

Six months, y'all. I don't know, it feels like a milestone. I remember when we were dating I was so anxious to be past the beginning and into the middle, and I wonder now, we might be at the phase where I want things to slow down so I can really savor them.

The coronavirus quarantine precautions gave us a nice little bubble. We've carved out our selfish little routines and there's a lot of comfort in this. I take care of him and he takes care of me and we just get better at it as we practice more.

I want to have some kind of insight on our marriage, or marriage in general, but it feels both too new and too comfortable to force any kind of compelling reflections. I am just really thankful for my husband, for his love, for how my life looks right now. 

I was worried that living in Stamford, away from my family, my church, my community, my job, would send me back into the struggles that plagued my three years of law school. But so far, it has not, and I think it is because I feel safe and secure with Peter. 

It's Electric!

This weekend we spent all of Saturday and then an hour on Sunday working. The brevity was on account of how blisteringly hot it was. In the morning, Peter made and installed a patch where the TV antenna had been, and then removed the old back skylight, replacing it with a Fantastic Vent. During this time I tried mapping our wires, which in retrospect was probably useless work, but did give me an opportunity to inspect the existing wires and get an idea of how much we would have to run. 

Then, Will arrived!

We had reached out to a couple vendors about helping us with electric. First was Peter's brother's girlfriend's uncle who is an electrician--he didn't feel comfortable advising due to the unique nature of Airstream systems. I also messaged two RV retailers in Rhode Island (with service departments), thinking they might be able to direct my inquiry, but got no response. Then I sent an email to Dave Jewell at Cay Electronics on the island, who in fairness to him got back to me pretty quickly, but asked me to complete an audit of our electrical loads on our existing systems, which left me feeling overwhelmed. I also emailed Lithionics Battery in Clearwater, Florida, but ended up not returning their calls because we were looking for someone local. 

Enter, Will. Will and his wife Nicole were the first Airstream account I started following when Peter brought me in on his renovation plans. They caught my attention because they had only just finished their renovation as we were starting, and they had the same year and model as us, and they were based out of our area. Not a ton of Airstreamers in New England, so this was exciting!

Wanting to outsource the electrical work, and feeling discouraged about finding someone with such niche expertise, I messaged their account on Instagram and asked how they handled this problem. Nicole wrote back that her stepfather was an electrician, and that he was self-isolating because of coronavirus, but that her husband did their system and would be interested in helping us with ours, YASSSS! 

So Will inspected our situation, agreed to do the electric for us, and then gave up a boatload of free encouragement and advice about our renovation. It was so nice to hear from another Airstreamer that we were on the right track and making progress. Really excited to have him work with us! And also very excited to relinquish my stress and confusion about executing electrical installation. ;)

Other things that were accomplished: Airstream was powerwashed and leak-tested, simultaneously. No more black mold and mildew! Inside seams are 2/3 caulked. Access doors are removed and came back to our apartment with us for weather stripping replacement. KT lock came out of the door and is also down in CT with us for repair. Detached striker plates are re-riveted back on the windows and the drop-down step was sanded and sprayed with Rustoleum. Peter worked out how the piping for the tank vents will work, but we bought the wrong size pipe so we will try that again next time. 

Scaffolding is down! Roof is "done"!