This is the page for the fourth year of the house project. As stated previously, I'm taking this year off from working on my sister's family's house. However, I did do a little project on my own place, and I thought I'd include some photos of it here. It's a little strange posting these photos before those of the house project last year, but my new laptop (that enables me to process the images) arrived the same day as the wood did for this project. I have (late June, 2009) ordered a 32Gb SD card shipped to my parents' address and asked them to put the house project photos on it and then mail them (it) to me here in Alaska, so I should get those photos up before too many more months are gone by.

First, here's a page with a few photos of "my" surroundings.

Here's a few photos of my trailer taken before the start of the project. My dad helped me (both physically and financially) to realize my idea of building the trailer in the late summer of 1986 as something for me to live in during graduate school. It measures 8 1/2 feet wide by 17 1/2 feet long by 12 1/2 feet high when it's on the road. On the inside, the high part of the ceiling is about 10 feet above the floor. Grad school didn't work out, but I've been living in this trailer (when I'm not away from home) for 23 years now. I really like the moss, but for the past few years, I've been able to push my hand through parts of the walls on the sides. The wall skin on the ends has held up better.


Here's the first side. Between personal lazyness, driving to town to get tools and pick up packages of stuff I had ordered online, and dealing with structural rot in addition to skin rot, the first side took three days, June 17th, 18th, and 19th of 2009. Of course, once I had started tearing my wall off, the record dry spell broke, and it rained somewhat on the 18th and 19th.


On the 20th, I did the whole second side. It helped a lot that there was significantly less rot in the 2x4s on the door side.


I took these last photos on the 21st after painting a second coat of Thompson's Water Seal (it had orange coloring added), screwing the urethane vinyl roof covering back (I used "pole barn screws" that have similar sorts gaskets to the ones on the gasketed roofing nails I had used before), and returning my rented drill motor and circular saw.


Well, That's it. My flight back to work in Alaska left the airport at 9:30 in the morning on Monday, June 22nd, 2009, so I'm glad I got it done in time. I have enough wood to re-cover the door and the panel above it, but those seem to be holding up ok for now. The wood for the drip guard above the door is completely rotten, but the silicone coating I had put over the wood is still holding the shape well. Perhaps later on I'll scoop out the rotten wood and fill back with spray foam.