In the previous post my wife prepared and painted the interior. Now it's time to do the outside. I used the wire brush and chisel to scrape off excess paint first. This was quite a big job. But the end result was a nicely finished bright white painted surface, and much less shabby.

Originally I wasn't going to worry about painting the wheels or even the drawbar. Howver once I start something I tend to go all the way to make it good. So off come the various drawbar related parts for grinding and wire brushing the rust off before painting. And the wheels could do with a paint too.

Before removing the old drawbar I checked out the wiring loom for the 7 pin round connector that connects the lights etc to the car. I then measured the drawbar so that I could cut the new  one to the same size.

Now comes the tricky part... Getting the old draw bar cut out requires a lot of grinding under the chassis in awkward positions. I used a reciprocating saw also for hard to reach areas. I had an accident with the grinder that could have been quite tragic. Thankfully my beard saved me. Finally I got the old draw bar off. I also cut off the old vehicle chassis number and later reattached that to the new drawbar.

My friend Dirk helped me with some of the initial welding to attach the two drawbars (He's a better welder). I welded the plate steel where the tow hitch would go. There were two top and bottom pieces plus a plate for the front.
There was a gap of a month or so before I got the tow hitch attached.

The old gas tank holder and spare wheel hlder were wire brushed and repainted, there was nothing wrong with them.

I decided to use the original tow hitch because it still worked and it had an attachment that held the jockey wheel at the centre of the drawbar, not on the side, and I liked this arrangement as it gave me moor room for the spare tire and was more logical and a more efficient use of space.After repainting the tow hitch, I bolted it with new bolts to the drawbar.
I decided to add some extra chain to the old chain, both had to be wire brushed, welded and painted.

The jockey wheel needed a new screw as the old one was rusted out, I just happened to have a half wrecked jockey wheel lying around that still had a good screw in it for raising and lowering the wheel. So I put that it after cleaning it up. Painted it too.

Finally the old chassis number plate was riveted into place. in front of the gas tank.

With a lick of paint it all came up looking great.

I replaced the old round 7 pin plug and 7 core electrical cable and checked that everything worked. With a bit of work it all came together.  I reattached the gas line and the break cable.

We had some seat  covers, cushions, curtains and other things to sew for our little caravan. A friend named Janine gave us an old Singer 15K sewing machine from the 1920's, which needed a bit of work to get it going. I made a little hand crank  for the main wheel. It was hard work for Hadassah, my wife, as you can imagine, but she managed to get some sewing done for all the seat covers and curtains.

I really like the idea of having machines that work off the grid or are simple to maintain. These old Singer Sewing machines are exceptional.

Later on I got 3 more Singer sewing machines, including a treadle and two electric ones. I needed to rewire the electric cables because the insulation had perished. But I enjoyed restoring these beautiful and well designed and sturdy machines. They don't make stuff to last like this any more. We don't have the fancy sewing patterns, just a straight stitch, but it was good enough. My wife made two rows of stitches along every seam.

We were very pleased with the homey sort of feel the new curtains, seat covers and cushions added to the caravan. We got the material for them from old curtains that were not needed any more. It's wonderful to re-purpose and reuse something.

As well as the curtains, my wife made a cover for the sofa-bed and something to hang some books in and also a bag for her essential oil collection.
I added some more layers of polyurethane to our new wooden bench top that covers our gas cooker. I removed the small cat door from our large caravan and made a place for it in our small caravan door. I put a new and slightly larger cat door in the large caravan.

I also added a 3mm panel below the top hatch to cover the unsightly polystyrene insulation. I made a wooden bracket/housing to go around the white plastic hatch that helped keep the 3mm ply in place. All these little finishing touches really made a difference.

There was one job I really didn't want to do. It was a dirty laborious job. I cleaned off the rust and dirt from the metal frame and axles etc under the caravan. I then put the water tank back in also. I also painted the rear hand cranked parking stabilisers white.

With very little money, but some faith and petrol, we can now set off for Queensland for a winter holiday with our cat Leon. Hopefully we can find some work, and maybe a place to stay for a while. Eventually we would like to live where the weather is warmer for my wife. And we don't want to live in a big city like Melbourne when hard times come. We prefer to life off the land and off grid. We will see what Providence opens up.

Personally I believe that the world is heading towards economic chaos, natural disasters and world war. We don't want to be in the big cities when that happens. We are also hoping to meet some folks who are down to earth and want to live similarly and who have faith in God and family values.

That's all for now folks.
Rory & Hadassah

Newly married, Hadassah and I have decided to grow our own food.

We have the beginnings of a tiny garden. We planted a few tomato and pumpkin seeds in pots a few months back. Well they all germinated so we are going to have a lot of to eat and give away.

We also purchased organic seeds from 'Eden Seeds'. Varieties growing now include...

• Capsicum
• Chilies
• Okra
• Zucchini
• Carrots
• Kale
• Lettuce

The last three items on the above list were planted into a couple of boxes on trestles to keep the rabbits away.

Ive just completed building an external mobile bathroom unit. And I worked on a larger caravan (travel trailer) renovation last year. It was the same make and model as this one in this article, well almost - just a stretched out version. Now that is completed. So I needed to either sell or restore my tiny caravan that I lived in before the stretched out one. It's almost done as the photos will show.

Wow, what a difference a bit of paint can do. The photos here don't really do justice to the massive improvement to the look and feel of the caravan now that the interior is re-carpeted and repainted and many other bits and pieces repaired and improved. It is a brand new space.

Things done & todo...

DONE:

• Replaced old carpet
• Repainted interior (cream for cupboards, white for walls)
• Replaced rear window sill and back wall lining below it.
• Repaired and restored seats and kitchen table.
• Replaced old kitchenette bench top.
• Installed skylight into roof hatch.

TODO:

• exterior paint job
  - plain white without red stripe (it doesn't make the caravan go any faster)
• replace a few broken window pains
• make seat covers

There is some urgency to our renovations. I need more space for my wife's stuff!

Twelve months ago I didn't know I was getting married! I was quite content to live the rest of my life alone if that was the way it had to be. But the Lord Yeshua יהוה ישוע had other plans. Obviously we are off to a humble beginning, we have two, a mobile bathroom unit that fits on my 8x5 ft trailer and we have a lone of another caravan. We have our own 1000 Litre (264 Gallons) IBC water tank, Gas hot water for showers, 500W 12v solar panels and a 300A Hr battery (no inverter). We still have mains power. We have a home made composting toilet also.
Ideally we want to live off grid and away from the city. Currently we live in Melbourne. We don't have money for land. We both hate the rat race and want to have a permaculture type set up for vegitables etc. We have a little Garden already planted. At some point we will have to move from our current location as the owners are going to sell their property.

Because my wife Susanne Hadassah comes from Germany she has to leave every 3 months, so we do so together. Because I am a New Zealander living in Australia without Australian citizenship it makes immigrating here that much more difficult. At the moment we do well to put bread on the table. expenses are low but I am not tiling full time and I got a bit behind financially with having to leave for New Zealand a month ago. Still it was great to catch up with family and show my wife where I grew up. We will be back there in 2 months Lord willing.

Anyway we have almost completed our work on the big and small caravans and the bathroom unit.

This small caravan is being used to store my wife's clothes. We also use it to eat our meals. It also gives us somewhere where we can do our own thing, especially because I am more a night owl and my wife is more of an early bird. So I don't wake her up!

And it is the caravan we will use if we go on holiday somewhere.

The carpet was worn out, filthy and just recently there was a leak from the little fridge that damaged it further. So I removed it. Thankfully there was a lino covering that prevented damage to the plywood flooring.

It may be hard to tell but our small caravan travel trailer that has been my home since 2006 had a terrible looking greyish timber grain pattern on the plywood. I wanted to brighten it up and make it much warmer and inviting.

Here are some pics...

I got my lovely wife Susanne Hadassah to sand and paint the interior. We used two coats of undercoat and two coats of top coat. We selected a white finish for the walls and a light cream colour for the front of the cupboards and doors.

There were two places where the 3 play veneer damaged. I was going to completely replace it. However I found that I could just removed the top layer of the veneer to expose the natural wood grain. This was on the front and rear cupboard area. The damaged front veneer was underneath the  cupboard while the damaged back vaneer was on the vertical section.

Later on I removed the back internal hardwood timber window frame due to some rot damage. I replaced it with a tasmanian oak hardwood frame that I built.

I also replaced the crappy stove cover with a nice thick folding hardwood bench top with brass hinges.

The old roof hatch did not have a window. And the flyscreen was ugly and inconvenient to open so I could open or close the hatch.

So I decided to cut a hole in it and put in a small cheap 40cm square venilated skylight with flyscreeen and winder for opening the top.

Just a few things left to do...

• exterior paint job
  - plain white without red stripe (it doesn't make the caravan go any faster)
• replace a few broken window pains
• make seat covers
• install cat door on entrance
  

Then after that I might actually build my tiny home. If we have kids we will need more space.

Since the last post I have worked on and off on the bathroom unit (Formerly called the Toilet/Shower/Bathroom unit). Now it is completed.

I have completed the following since the last post...

I managed to get my RHS steel from storage out of town. It is for a proposed 20 foot (6m) trailer base for a tiny home. Only 2 pieces were galvanised, the two 5m long drawbars. The rest of the pieces including the two 6m long 100x50 mm lengths were wire brushed and painted with gal primer.

I got this steel about mid 2016. So it has been a while since I decided to build a tiny home. The Lord put the breaks on the project then. Instead I rebuilt a caravan and built my toilet-shower-laundry unit.

It remains to be seen whether the Lord wants me to proceed with this this coming winter. I had prayed that if the Lord wants me to do this then that I would get a $4000 tiling contract that I had quoted on. This would help pay for the wheels and accessories and other bits and pieces. I have a day to go before the builder should get back to me. I haven't heard a thing. So this is about as far as I will go. I don't move forward without clear direction and blessing from 'on high'.

One of the reasons that I would build this is for the possibility of either getting married or getting my own property some time down the track. I don't have the money for any of it now and I am not worried. I see the hand of providence in most of what I do. If the Lord wants me to proceed then He will make it abundantly clear through His provision and providence. This is what keeps me going really. I love to see the Lord's hand in all I do.

I know the caravan was of Him and the Toilet-Shower-Laundry unit had his fingerprints in all the 'just-so-happenses'. Everything in His time and will. Otherwise we end up flogging ourselves for no good reason. We live in unstable times. Father knows best.

I have already more or less completed my caravan (travel trailer) rebuild as described in the earlier blogs. I want to be able to set up on a farm or large property somewhere and have basically all I need to survive. And thus I need a separate toilet shower and laundry space as I don't have this in my little caravan. I will put this next to my caravan and have a raised walk way between the two.

So I am building a little mobile unit that fits on top of my utility trailer. It can slide out and be moved via 4 detachable jockey wheels and adjusted for level. Once in position I can rest it on removable wooden foundations and remove the jockey wheels until I need to move it again.

The unit is being built mostly from recycled free materials so it is very cheap to build.

I used the remaining second hand tongue and groove boards that were also used on the caravan floor for my new units flooring.

And the walls and roof were made from an old refrigerator shed that was disassembled laying around on the property I am staying on and was given to me for free. So it has been re-purposed to live another day. It had a doorway and roof and a cut out area in the roof for the old refrigerator motor. I will use this hole for a skylight. The walls are made from 70mm thick refrigerator 'sandwich' panels (polystyrene foam covered in aluminium sheet).

A kind neighbour gave me a free new wooden toilet seat for my home made composting toilet. I also purchased a cheap urine separator unit to separate liquids from solids. Because the liquid and solid waste is separated there is very little smell.

The unit will be powered by a 12V cable from my caravan's PV solar system for LED lighting. And I will have a hole where I can put a 230V AC extension cable to power the laundry unit. I may buy a portable gas generator to power the washing machine if need be.

The shower will probably be powered by a cheap portable external gas heater unit used for camping.

If I wanted to set up semi permanently I could buy some more batteries and solar panels and buy a decent inverter for total power independence.

Anyway one day at a time.

I have almost finished the rebuild of the caravan. I am tired of the project. But am enjoying the use of it daily. The pictures below are pretty self explanatory.

The phase 3 PV Solar electrical side of things is basically done. I have not got an inverter installed at present. But that is a simple thing to do. But I think I will stick to just using the solar for 12V for now. 

While finishing the last few things of the phase 2 rebuild I am busy building a separate portable toilet, shower, laundry unit. See the next blog post for details of that.

I need a break and a change of pace.

I am wondering what is next in my life for the rest of 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVXH1_3_2UO8f8GD86MECDiS7r0qRzNxI&jct=2z7RkO-Fyhr4nTiLAURM4MKgV_BJyQ

I will add more videos to this playlist in time. 

The caravan restoration project is broken up into 3 phases:

1. Phase 1
   - Gut and replace rotten wood and metal including floor, part of wall, front & rear window sills, ceiling near skylight and drawbar!!! Can you believe it?
   <Phase 1 is completed - see previous post for details.>
2. Phase 2
   - Install new remodeled interior including bed, kitchen, desks and book shelving.
3. Phase 3
   - Install new PV solar system including batteries and inverter.

I will update this blog entry with progress pics as I go. So check back every few weeks for updates.

​Phase 2 and Phase 3 are the fun stuff as it is all design and build - not dirty and boring repair! 

I will spend another month or so, on and off (between work to earn money for my next project) on the following..

...complete the fit out of the caravan including the...

1. bed (with 800mm slide out drawer),
2. kitchen unit
3. desk
4. and shelves. 
5. fix wood panel to front window lintel.
6. remove side windows and reseal. 
7. paint interior and exterior.
8. fit break cable,
9. fit LPG gas to kitchen
   (NOT USING GAS INSIDE NOW. PORTABLE SINGLE ELEMENT INDUCTION COOK TOP FITTED INSTEAD!!!).
10. fit new electric light cable for hitch.
11. fit 12v LED lighting
12. fit external gas and water and electricity adapters on exterior wall below kitchen window.
13. reregister and get new number plate!

I have partly completed the bed, kitchen unit and desk, just in time for Sukkot (the biblical feast of tabernacles).

I have more or less completed the refit and rebuilt. The interior is painted. I have installed the 800mm slide out drawer under the bed. The Caravan has been lived in since Sukkot 2017. The kitchen unit is completed. I have installed various shelves as can be seen in the pictures below. And I have the curtains complete but I have yet to properly install them. I am pretty happy with how it is working for me as my own little tiny tiny house on wheels. But I pretty fed up with working on it and the pace has slowed down. I need a break. I have been doing a few tiling jobs in between to give me some money. But I have pretty much completed the project.I just have some cupboard doors to make up and some brass trim to add (I may do that at a later stage. Will put a few more photo's in a few weeks. I have also installed an external guttering to fill up my water tank with rain water.

I still haven't painted the exterior or fitted the break cable and gotten it registered. But I have installed the 12V DC PV solar system and battery. I will outline all that in the follow up blog post on the phase 3 PV Solar installation.

I want to build a modern solar powered caravan using an extensively repaired old caravan as my canvas. I will refit it with a new interior including bed, kitchen and desk and shelving. I have recently acquired a dilapidated wreck of a caravan to rehabilitate. Not my first or second choice -but it's all experience and character building!

​It is an old 70's era caravan (travel trailer) that I have guttted. The shell will be refitted with a new kitchen, bed and study area. the cabin is 4.4m long. It cost me $300. Because it is so run down it will cost me about 2 months and $2000 to resurrect. Perhaps it doesn't quite make financial sense but it will fill in a few wet winter months with valuable practical experience. And the end result will be nice... ...hopefully!!!

​I have put the 6m (20ft) tiny home project mentioned in the previous blog post on hold as I got 'cold feet' and received the "no go lights" from on high via circumstances. Actually I wondered if I really needed it and when I did eventually decide to proceed with it I couldn't get the trailer welding done with the help of my messianic friend Dirk. I wondered if it really was God's perfect will and I was thinking of that verse about being mindful of heavenly things more than earthly...

But I need a place to live and I have no space to swing a cat (yes I have a cat!).

​I have always been a bit of a minimalist, living in the smallest caravan I could find and being quite content to be there until a few years ago when it began to feel cramped.​​ During many years since 2006 I lived on and off in this little caravan, which is still my home...

Slowly life is changing for me, I have to cook my own meals and have accumulated so much stuff that I can no longer fit in my little caravan. So sadly I have to up-size. I am happy to get out of the clutter but I am sad that I have to leave my more spiritual pursuits for now. But in some ways it is good for my soul as it grounds me a littler more. The heavenly things can wait a few years while I get on with getting some sort of income and accommodation issues sorted. Although I make a living renovating and installing new tiled kitchen's and bathroom's I would like to do more creative things.

I am really attracted to building tiny homes and I really love natural timber and things that are beautifully designed. I love fancy intricately carved or routed wood. Years ago I had a career in electronics and then later software. I will be happy to be involved with PV solar systems for mobile applications. But I do really enjoy the more earthy nuts and bolts experience with hand tools and creativity with wood and metal. Also I prefer to detach from work that gets me too involved in corporate stuff or the business world of Babylon in general. I'd rather be in nature with my feet in the mud and my head in the clouds with some down to earth dreamers who love the Lord.

I don't know what the future holds for me in the immediate future. But I have asked the Lord to confirm if it is His will to build a mobile workshop trailer. Is there time? We are surely heading for war even as the Jesuit planned disintegration of western society accelerates. Our once Judaeo-Christian morals have been replaced it with the morals of Sodom and Gomorrah and a trans-humanist nightmare .

While we wait for the inevitable I am looking at very practical concerns. I no longer study anywhere near as much. And I have very little fellowship as Australia is all but dead spiritually. I have a few messianic believers that I am in regular contact with here and we are all in the same unhappy situation, and we soldier on as best we can as darkness grips the minds and hearts of our careless and unbelieving compatriots. 

So now I am concentrating more on more mundane things like learning some practical skills. I have learnt a trade so that gives me money and independence. I no longer just work on people's properties part time for food a rent.

Instead I have decided to rebuild an old caravan (travel trailer) to give me a somewhere mobile to live that has decent kitchen and storage space and allows me to gain some practical experience. After the rebuild I would like to add PV Solar panels and inverter etc.

The caravan restoration project is broken up into 3 phases:

1. Phase 1
   - Gut and replace rotten wood and metal including floor, part of wall, front & rear window sills, ceiling near skylight and drawbar!!! Can you believe it?
2. Phase 2
   - Install new remodeled interior including bed, kitchen, desks and book shelving.
3. Phase 3
   - Install new PV solar system including batteries and inverter.

I am almost finished phase one!

​The current caravan restoration project was something I was not keen on because the caravan had so much wrong with it. It was a heap of junk with really bad damage to some major parts including the drawbar, flooring, end walls, front and rear interior window sills, ceiling and skylight. 

After 3 weeks in tropical Cairnes in far north Queensland to see my sister I returned to cold miserable Melbourne and decided since I had nothing better to do and I had no work, to push through and get the essentials done on this 'sows ear' of a caravan and turn it into a 'silk purse'. 

Let me describe where I am at in the caravan restoration project..


As of this writing I have...

1. gutted the interior,
2. ripped out the rotten old flooring,
3. sanded off and painted the metal floor joists with galvanized paint,
4. removed rotten wooden floor joists with new ones made from tasmanian oak & painted white,
5. cut off old rusted through steel draw bar
6. got friend to weld new longer draw bar from steel I purchased.
7. and carefully removed rotten wood on the interior sides of the caravan.
8. ripped out the rotten ant infested 3 ply curved front and back end interior walls and replaced with new painted 3 ply.
9. installed a new under floor water tank with a housing I have made.
10. welded new floor joists to enable recycled hardwood tongue and groove flooring to be installed.
11. Installed new front and rear window sills.
12. reinstalled rear windows.
    
    ​DOING NOW
13. remove front to middle of roof, removed rotten ceiling panel and replace with 7mm 3ply.
14. removed rotten wood around top hatch and and fashion replacements from pine.
15. remove top hatch and cut hole for skylight window pane.
16. close up roof and reinstall front windows.
17. reseal edge trim on top of roof.
    ​
    

I have just completed 3 weeks of work earning some money which will help me get my light utility truck ('ute') repaired and purchase bits and pieces for the caravan. 

I have just replaced the front and rear interior wooden window sills that the aluminium windows screw into. 

I am currently completing the last major milestone in phase 1, repairing the rotten skylight and adjacent ceiling panel. I have had to leave the front aluminium windows out and peel back the front half of the roof in order to replace ceiling. Then my caravan is leak proof and sealed and I can get it out of the garage. I have also just sanded and varnished the floor with 3 coats of polyurethane clear lacquer. It has come up very well. Initially I didn't want to do it but there were some boards that were too high. I am so glad I went the extra mile and got this done.

Now it's off to do the Phase 2 refit. I hope to have the bed installed by Sukkot (biblical feast of tabernacles) and begin fitting out the interior in between tiling work to earn some money. The caravan still looks like a bomb site. It's really during the phase two refit that it will pretty up.

Phase 2 and Phase 3 are the fun stuff as it is all design and build - not dirty and boring repair! 

I will spend another month on and off (between work to earn money for my next project) on the following..

...complete the fit out of the caravan including the...

1. bed (with 800mm slide out drawer),
2. kitchen unit
3. desk
4. and shelves. 
5. fix wood panel to front window lintel.
6. remove side windows and reseal. 
7. paint interior and exterior.
8. fit break cable,
9. fit LPG gas to kitchen.
10. fit new electric light cable for hitch.
11. fit 12v LED lighting
12. fit external gas and water and electricity adapters on exterior wall below kitchen window.
13. reregister and get new number plate!

​I will put out another blog once phase 2 is completed.

The final phase will involve installing PV solar panels, batteries, charge couplers, inverter and lights and 12v DC sockets etc. I will also install a 12V DC water pump and a small external gutter to collect water for the water tank. 

I can then be off the grid.
​
This should only take a week or so and cost about $2000 (as much as I will have spent in total on phases 1  & 2 - including the $300 for the junk caravan in the first place).

I will write up a blog article about the phase 3 solar experience and issues later too. And if I have time and motivation I will put a short 15 minute video together on the whole experience.

Although this project started with a very dilapidated caravan, the end result will be wonderfully useful and hopefully quite cute and homely as well as eminently practical and timely. And I have gained valuable experience with nearly every aspect of caravan repair and reconstruction. Most of the phase one repair, although costly in time (will be close to 2 months) was done during the winter when work is scarce anyway. Besides I didn't feel the cold much this winter, I was just too busy physically. 

I have also gained experience with all sorts of tools and tongue and groove flooring. I think next time I wont bother with sourcing second hand flooring. It's too time consuming to de-nail, clean and fit and sand. 

I think I would prefer to build a new trailer home from the ground up rather that repair an old caravan, unless the caravan had minimal fundamental things wrong with it. Still at least I have dealt with nearly every sort of problem a caravan could have. At the very least it's character building!

And I will have created my first PV Solar system which will be invaluable for my future proposed mobile workshop (covered utility trailer) and mobile tiny home. If the Lord opens up the time and opportunity to pursue these projects. 

I u​sed 'SketchUp' Pro to design my proposed trailer home before the software's trial period ran out. I can begin welding the stell frame for the 20ft trailer base once I have completed helping a friend construct a garage over the next 2 to 4 weeks.

I am not sure what sort of construction method that I will use for the walls. I really want a relatively light weight trailer so that I can hitch it to a light truck like a Ford F100 or one of the modern pickup /utes. I may use refridgerator sandwhich boards for the outer walls but I still need a means of supporting the loft. I really dont want to use wood due to weight. I may be able to weld a 40mm square tubular steel frame. This is twice as heavy as Aluminium but half the cost, stronger and easier to weld. I would like some sort of thin wood composite inner wall lining with an insulating metal foil then a 10mm air gap and then a 30mm sandwhich panel (second hand).
​
Originally I had wanted a rustic looking wood exterior, but realistically I didn't want to use a large truck to haul it. Although the wheels will be rated to 4.5 tons, the trailer needs to weigh less than 3.5 tons fully loaded to enable a lighter pick up or ute to move it.

I hope to fit out the interior with cabinetry that I get for free from Gumtree.com.au. As yet I do not have a budget for the entire project. The big expence will be the wheels and solar panel, battery, inverter system. Initally I will just get one solar panel and a cheap battery to run some LED lights. Later I will purchase more panels and proper deep cycle batteries and inverter etc. I will need to install a parallel 230V AC system and will need an electrician to sign off on it. I will hide the wiring behind the cupboards as opposed to putting it between the walls.

The main thing is to get the trailer base welding completed and then the lower floor, walls, loft floor and roof up quickly. Then I can relax and fit it out at a more leasurely pace. If I can use a simple prefabricated wall panel construction method then that should make the construction quick and simple.
​