The Desire To Create

My girl and I shared a glass - after we each polished off our own personal glasses - of our favorite locally brewed craft beer, "California Black," made by the Dale Bros Brewery here in Upland, California.  The temperature hadn't peaked out as high as it had earlier in the week, but I sure did welcome that frosty mug of "Barley Pop," after a long day of scheming, testing and fantasizing about my future.

Anyway, we both agreed that a driving passion in one's life adds much fulfillment to our days spent away from work.  She's embarking on her first book, and I of course, have taken upon the task of building an entire house in 92 square feet - nutty.  But we're both excited about the potential.  She's already filling up her notebook with one-pot campfire meals, and today I reminded her of the small propane oven made by Brinkman that could accommodate her Sunday morning scones, quite nicely.  We clinked our glasses in honor of good times ahead.

From a computer rendering to the real thing -- pretty cool.

We spent the weekend in collaboration, as the seeds of the Roving Home have finally begun to bear fruit.  My application of blue tape on the interior walls of the van brought the vision to life. 

Prior to that, I'd often watch as her eyes would glaze over while I espoused the merits of AGM batteries and MPPT solar charge controllers. 

But now, our exchange was lively.  We analyzed and contemplated where this and that will go in order to appease each of our individual desires -- as if you can have any sort of individuality in such small living quarters.

I spent most of the weekend simply translating my perfect world vision into the reality of what I have to work with.  As I began to tape off the walls and partitions, the oversights became glaringly clear.

I panicked, at one point, after suddenly realizing that the 12 volt receptacles might just stick out further than my slim junction box backing. 

Sure enough!

It's fine.  I'll cut a hole in back because within the wall, I've got two inches total to work with.  I think I alleviated any more sleepless nights. 

Another concern of mine, as of late, is whether or not extending the wiring to the switch on the hot water heater is such a brilliant move.  The thing runs off of 2 D cells.  Yet, it still has all of the components of a normal water heater. Too good to be true? 

Since the system only runs on 3 volts and I want the switch to be about 5 feet away, I thought it best to do a test, rather than to spend a painful weekend installing the plumbing system only to realize later on that the voltage drop would be too great to fire the thing up. 

Here's the switch now -- not a handy place to work with.

 

I recited a quick prayer.

 

Snip!

A wave of nausea suddenly overcame me.  What have I done?

I added about 4.5 feet of wire and crimped on some terminals...

A new switch...

And it worked!  Holy mackerel!  The burner fired up ( you can see the propane tank in the background).

Next!

I've been tossing around the idea of just how I'm going to get all of the outlets I need at the dinette to work efficiently and aesthetically.  I want to have A.C. power, D.C. power and a USB connector to the computer printer.  The whole point is to avoid a spiderweb of wiring all over the place.  I just want to be able to sit at the dinette with my laptop and plug it into the wall for charging and have print capabilities from the cabinet beside the dinette.    

Here are the components.

I started by drilling some holes with the new press.  Man, a drill press is where it's at!  Let me tell you.  I can't believe I didn't buy one sooner.  Whew!

Just line it up...

And, there you have it.  I did, however, have to do a little bit of fine tuning with the hand held rotozip. 

I went O.C.D. on the unfinished look of the U.S.B. hole, there.  Back to Home Depot for the fourth time, today. 

Ahhhhhhhh, that's better.

So, that happened. 

Next was a little test of the recessed light fixtures.  You've seen these before, if you're one of the 5 people who regularly view this blog. 

They're 1 watt and they're crazy bright.  But, I called the manufacturer and asked them if I could buy the cans that they mount into.  The guy said you just need to drill a hole where you want them and stick them into the ceiling, springs first.  I wasn't so sure about that.  It didn't seem right and I needed to verify. 

There's the test hole.  I know I've done better jobs with the rotozip, but it's only a test.  Pretend it's perfectly round.

Pulling the springs back, I carefully inserted the housing, and WHAM, the springs slapped down onto the wood, locking the whole lamp into place.  Who would have thought?

And, for those of you who don't remember, the housing pivots. 

Talk about "groovy," right?

And, that was my weekend.