The gist of this post is we put up some walls

Holy smokes it’s mid-March! The gist of this post is we put up some walls. Here we go.

The bathroom in its current, ready-for-tile state:

That red stuff over the cement board is called Red Guard. Our friend John recommended it as a waterproofing membrane for walls, floors, heck—it even claims to be a leak proof shower pan liner. Although most folks just go straight from cement board to tile, my dislike of plumbing leaks has made me cautious and I decided a little extra cost and work upfront was worth it to prevent headaches in the future. This stuff is expensive at $50/gallon. It took 2 gallons to apply 3 coats over the walls, ceiling in the shower, bathroom subfloor, as well as on the subfloor around the doors of the trailer. 

Heartburn, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, upset stomach. (This what it looks like before it dries):

We will tile the shower ceiling because the height is only about 6’5” with the mortar built up on the floor for the shower pan, and it might should behoove us to have some water protection. To finish the shower pan I spread on another 2 layers of mortar with another layer of metal lathing in between, and sloped it down to meet the drain. As long as the plastic pan liner is still leak proof we should have a functioning and hopefully visually attractive shower once we install tile to cover up my beginner DIY mortar job.

Hook-up of the shower supply lines:

Post-bathroom we started putting up our plywood walls. I found cheap board at the Depot that’s 1/8” thick for $9.99/sheet. Score! It works great for the curved ceiling pieces. For the walls we are using ¼” birch plywood which is double the cost but more durable and purrty. I tried to use the nail gun to tack these in, but the board is too thin and the nails fired right through. So, we are using the trusty Torx screw (1.25”), one of the finest inventions of all time. Flat head? Phillips head? Forget about it.
Torx get it DONE.

What’s tricky is that the studs are not nicely spaced at 16” centers. And they’re only ¾” wide. So we do a lot of measuring before putting each board in place to make sure we hit studs. The process also involves installing fiberglass insulation between the studs, and in some cases adding additional framing where needed. We are also very cautious about mapping out the electric lines before each piece goes up and putting those metal stud covers in places where a 1.25” screw could hit an electric wire. When you factor in the various curves and cut outs for windows, electric boxes, etc., this is a lengthy process. But man it makes a difference!

What else? Oh yea we had a lightning strike infraction last week! It happened about 15 minutes after I went inside for the night because the storms were getting bad... It hit our fence, ran along the outdoor lights to the tree by Little Wayne, proceeded to hop onto our security camera wire into the house and took out a few extension cords and our internet and camera system in the house. And it was LOUD. Ripped a 4x4 fence post in half and shot it 15 ft across the yard. It also tripped the breakers in Little Wayne, because an extension cord plugged into the outdoor receptacle criss-crossed paths with the aforementioned security camera wire. At Larry's recommendation I bought supplies to install a separate grounding rod by the trailer just in case this happens again...