Power Up

We have electricity at the property!  We are super excited that getting power to the place worked out so nicely.  Our neighbor turned out to be very neighborly and allowed us to hook on to her pole - she saved us a LOT of money!  If you know Mrs. Klapuch, tell her Jim Bob and Candice say "thank you!!!" and give her a big hug.  GVEC is our electric company and they are were FANTASTIC to work with.  Roy Johnson in particular was very professional and knowledgeable.  They were always on time, answering all of our questions and returned every phone call (and I had plenty!).  We lucked out and only had a tree to trim and a two trees to completely come down.  Once we live out there permanently, we will plant many, many trees to replace the ones that were sacrificed.

The bus is still chugging along.  We have ordered a heater, a water heater and looking at appliances.  The windows are completely finished and next is the water lines and electricity.  JB has two more pottery shows coming up - so I am not sure when that will happen.  Hopefully soon!

Here are some pictures of the pole that GVEC put up on the property.  It looks good as far as electricity poles go.  We will eventually have either a wind turbine or solar panels hooked up to the grid to compensate for some of that electricity we will be using to fire those kilns.

How often do you see 00000?

Sea Containers

As part of our transition from house to bus, we bought some sea containers for storage on the property.  We plan on bringing a truckload to the containers each time we are in the area.  We thought this would be easier than renting some crazy huge truck to move all of our stuff at once.  Plus, we will need some tools to build the studio and this is a nice safe place to keep them when not in use.  It is also helping us clean out our house and allow us to finish some remodeling that needs to be done before the house goes on the market.  (Yes, we are also remodeling our house!)  Here is a video of the sea containers being delivered to the property.  It was a pretty impressive trailer this guy had.  Notice how the axles move along the trailer.  I am not hip to trailer technology and thought it was pretty darn cool.  We bought the sea containers from a guy off of Austin's Craigslist and had them delivered.  Pretty simple process if you are in the market for some long term storage.  The video is almost 10 min long - enjoy! 

Windows In

With the glass windows out, we are replacing them with 24 guage sheet metal, a layer of 1/2" foam board and then 3/4" plywood cut to size.  Another bonus to having some of the windows out is some much needed insulation!  Maybe it will keep some cool air in in the summer and cold air out in the winter.

Jim Bob went to our local AC place and bought sheets of metal from those guys.  He then took it up to the metal shop at school where he cut it to fit the windows using a foot shear and put this nifty 1" lip at the bottom to hold the metal in place, to give the metal rigidity and to give some surface area for the caulking.  He made the bend by using a metal brake.

A sheet of 3/4" plywood was then cut and placed on the inside of the window to finish it out.

Jim Bob screwed it all together from the outside being careful not to screw all the way through the plywood on the inside, leaving a nice clean surface to work with later on when we want a backsplash.

Jim Bob has a nice little helper these days. 

We are replacing six windows on each side of the bus.  I think eventually we will put a little window in over the kitchen sink for a nice view.  This picture shows four windows complete and two windows lacking the foam insulation and the 3/4" plywood.

It is nice and clean on the outside too.

Here is a video showing the installation of one of the windows.  In Jim Bob style, it all fits together nicely.

Nice Breeze

Jim Bob removed six windows today.  We are having to take the windows out for a couple of reasons:   1. The cabinets are higher than the windows which means that they will look pretty funky from the outside.  I find that it rather funny that we are concerned what it will look like from the outside when we are living in a bus.  I guess we have to draw a line somewhere?  2. We might need to bolt the cabinets to the plywood that is taking the place of the glass window.  3. Some privacy would be nice.  4. We are going to put a nice little tile or metal or some fun little backsplash to give a little personality to the space. (I am excited about this project!) 

JB is chiseling off the old crud that held the windows in and kept the rain out.

One window out - five more to go on this side.  Six more to go on the other side.

We are back!

Six months has passed since the bus has been touched.  Too long.  Time passes so fast and life happens too fast, sometimes we can't keep up!  But now that the weather is beautiful (at least for the next few days) and our schedules are giving us a break - it is time to give the bus some much needed TLC. 

I actually put together the cabinets for the bus over the Christmas break.  All those wonderful Ikea boxes were scattered throughout the kitchen.  I wasn't expecting it to take me 3 evenings to put it all together but it did!  Those Ikea engineers are quite brilliant.  The cabinets went together very smoothly and seem pretty durable.  I can't wait to try them out!

Here are the cabinets in the bus.  They take up a lot of room, don't they?  This isn't where they will go permanently.  This is just where they were sat down...eventually they will go on this side of the wheel wells (our bed will be where the cabinets are.)

The Land

In case you haven't noticed, there is a new page across the bar up there:  The Land.  Check it out.  I posted some pictures of our property.  Noticed how I said "our property?"  Yep, that's right.  We closed on the property and it is officially ours.  I wanted to post videos on the "The Land" page but Blogger wouldn't let me for some reason. So I will post it here.  Hope you enjoy.

Still working...

We are still here!  We are still working on the polyurethane floors.  It is a super slow process.  We've busy been sanding, wiping, coating and then drying for some days.  In between that, we have been busy with a garage sale (first of many), construction on our house and a vacation.  Jim Bob is starting back in the studio to produce work for the big show in October, The Texas Clay Festival.  That means that the bus will take the back burner until November.  I'm sure there will be intermittent work between now and then but probably nothing drastic.  We did buy our kitchen cabinets at Ikea while we were in Round Rock.   The cabinets are in boxes in our kitchen.  I should take a picture of that.  It will probably take us until November to put all those freakin' cabinets together!  Got to love Ikea! Jim Bob wanted me to give a "shout out" to Rachael at Ikea.  She really knows her Ikea kitchen software.  She got us hooked up and squared away, super patient and easy to work with.  Highly recommended! Thanks Rachael!

Jim Bob is still applying poly to the floors.  Today, he got up early and applied the third coat.  It's looking great.

This time around, Jim Bob thought he would try out a new applicator.  He said it worked much better than the sponge business.  It seemed like it went a lot faster.

You can see that line between the 3rd and 2nd coat of polyurethane.  The grain is really looking nice.  I think we have 2 more to go.