Going-going, back-back, to Depot-Depot

It has been a minute since our last post and we apologize. On the upside, this means you will find a lot of new pictures below!

We took a 2-week trailer hiatus in mid-October during which Cassidy flew to Tanzania and hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro and I went to Seattle to record with some SoBs.

We both kicked some butt in our respective adventures—especially Cass the mountaineer--but it was good to get back home to each other and pick up where we left off on Little Wayne.

I’ve been working on getting the utilities buttoned up. I installed an outdoor tankless water heater, connected in our water supply pipe, and ran the hot and cold pipes inside the trailer. The heater is a Takagi and based on our water usage calculations it should provide plenty of hot water to run the shower and a sink simultaneously. It’s 100% propane powered which is nice because it won’t draw any electric power. I attached galvanized steel pipe to the PEX we had already buried in the ground, hooked it into the water heater, and then ran through the floor underneath the trailer. This process involved many trips to HD to swap out pipe fittings and buy more Teflon tape. I still need to put insulation tape around all of the galvanized lines.

Then I needed to frame out the bathroom, and, luckily, framing is something I really enjoy doing. It’s not a lot more than careful measuring and cutting boards, but when it’s done the changes are pretty dramatic. Cass and I went back and forth on different design ideas for the bathroom. We are working with pretty tight space constraints on the whole trailer, but we wanted to maximize the bathroom as much as possible. Do we put the bathroom all the way to one end, a la the Airstream design? No, because then headroom is very limited. Do we extend the shower into the kitchen window? No, that’s funky. The biggest challenge was negotiating with the wheel well, which was previously used as cabinetry. That really made the bath tiny. We ultimately decided to make into a shower bench. Here are some photos along the way:

Toilet will be in the back right, sink in front right, and shower to the left including the bench over the wheel wheel. We will tile the shower and put glass up between the shower and the rest of the bath. It will be tight, but ya know it’s a trailer! We found a 12” deep vanity/sink from IKEA and a cool German toilet whereby the tank fits inside a stud wall. Then the toilet bowl sits flush with the wall. You see these a lot in… Germany. They also have self-cleaning toilets at Autobahn gas stations. Way ahead of us in toilet technology. Will post pictures once this bad boy is installed.

^^^ With the walls in place I connected PEX to the galvanized supply lines and ran lines to each fixture. Now I need to pressure test and hope for no leaks! Cassidy ran Reflectix insulation on all the interior walls, and it really makes it look cleaner inside.

We also got a sliding bathroom door installed. It was a trial and error process. I was able to make it all work by ripping down 2x4s to 1&1/8" on the table saw and then screwing together the framing. 

Next on our list was electric hookup. We had already run our lines in conduit underground from the basement out to the yard. From there I needed to get the lines into the trailer and install breaker boxes. I installed two 70A breaker boxes (the smallest I could find), each receiving one 240V / 30A 8-gauge wire. Cassidy used the dremel to cut out a hole for running the lines into the trailer. Then I concreted a 4x4 pole (more post hole digging!) to which the conduit would be attached for support.

I counted 79 Home Depot trips (give or take) in one weekend buying more conduit, more fittings, and shopping around all the stores in Nashville to find what we needed. I also learned to use a rivet gun (we got the manual kind) and attached a new aluminum panel to cover the hole where we ran wiring into the trailer. I think the rivets look pretty rad and they’re easy to install. The whole project took way longer than I expected but it felt good when it was finally completed!

From here we will install a 15A and a 20A breaker in each box and run all of our lines to each receptacle and switch box.

Cassidy has been polishing like crazy (Little Wayne’s skin is lookin’ good!) and researching and ordering sinks, toilets, tile, shower fixtures, etc.