The Porch

Another good day. Managed to put the porch on today. It extends 18" off the back of the trailer and makes it much easier to get in and out of the caravan. It is bolted to the trailer using the pre-drilled holes. The light brackets are mounted to the sides of the porch. Should be finished next weekend. Then I will have to start a new blog to document our travels.

Flying Caravan

Today was the big day. The day we had to mount the caravan on to the trailer. Early in the building process, we had set the caravan on to 4 round wooden fence posts so we could roll it from under the carport. We wrapped a rope around the caravan and slowly rolled it from under the carport pulling it with my car. Every few feet I would have to move a fence post from behind the caravan to the front so it would continue to have something to roll on. Once it was out from under the carport I used an engine hoist to jack up one side enough to slide a couple of tires under the caravan. Then we put the engine hoist on one side and a hydraulic jack on the other and used one of the fence posts to jack up the other end. We put one end of the trailer under the caravan and wedged a fence post between the caravan and the trailer and planned to roll the caravan onto the trailer. The trailer could actually lift one end of the caravan by pushing down on the tongue. The engine hoist was moved to the other end and we got some help from neighbors to push the caravan the rest of the way onto the trailer. The whole process was a bit scary but its done.

I bought a new trailer from Harbor Freight for the Caravan. A 1,700 lb model. My caravan is a bit heavier than normal because of the AC, bed, etc. and I thought the extra weight capacity would make it safer to pull. For some reason they designed it to have bolts sticking up on the bed so I had to add a couple of 3/4 deck boards to the trailer so the caravan would not sit on the bolt heads. You can see the deck boards in the picture. That is it for now. Off to Lowe's to get materials for a porch for the caravan.

Almost Finished

Managed to get some more work done this weekend. Mounted the door and trim. The door will open 90 degrees. Glad I lowered it 1 1/2" to give it extra clearance. Found some nice Victorian hinges at antiquehardware.com. Finished attaching the bows. Currently waiting for the caulk to dry between the bows and the wall panels to paint the caulk. Once that is finished I can attach the tarp and it is ready to put on the trailer. My wife made some curtains out of the leftover material of the curtains we used on the walls. Here are some pictures of the finished interior. That is my son Gavin making the funny faces.