Shelves, walls and doors

We've been busy bees these last few summer-end days. Getting out and working on the bus has felt really great after talking for weeks about the projects we want to get done but never having the time to do them. Every new thing we complete truly feels like a giant step towards getting our bus mobile. We've been focusing most of our energy on tying up loose ends, creating places to store all our "stuff" and securing everything for the coming earthquake of trundling down the road. We're gearing up to move to a new spot in Eugene hopefully within a few weeks.

In other news, we've been getting a chance to work on some exciting side-projects lately. Erin is writing a how-to article for Threads Magazine and she's also been working with Ecobuilding Collaborative of Oregon on a fiber-related research and design project. I've been doing some work with this website called The Point, dabbling in the world of online social network organizing - you can see my two campaigns on the bottom of our links, feel free to join if you're interested!

On to the pictures:


Here is part of our unfinished new wall. Drop dead gorgeous, right? =) We took out the three windows behind the wood stove and closet to help with keeping the bus cool/warm. Sheet metal on the outside again with our fancy recycled denim insulation and a moisture barrier. Then plywood. We'll put up more wonderboard before we use the stove.


Here's our new living room shelf.


Detail of our new securement for our main shelf. When we're driving, we'll put bungee cords up between these eyelets to keep all the stuff in. We have these funny metal grids we can weave into the bungees at certain spots, too. See all those sideways books? We'll put a metal grid over stuff like that to keep it from sliding inbetween the bungees. Erin wants to make some curtains to go over the shelves so that we don't have to look at piles of stuff all the time.


Framed in kitchen shelf!! We've been wanting this one for a long time. You don't realize how much of a difference it makes to actually have somewhere to put your things. We haven't decided how we want to finish it yet. Bungees? Doors? Hmmm....We have been wanting to invest in wooden plates and bowls for a while so that we don't have to worry about ceramic breaking. Yet to come.


Another angle of the kitchen cabinet.




The full "range hood" effect - we still need to replace the fan with a quieter one (ours sounds like an airplane taking off) and also install some mechanism for closing it off. We eventually want to decorate the heat shield....metal cutouts? Flowers? Circles? Decorative grille? Flames?


Our new bi-fold bathroom door that we got from Bring Recycling. The old one didn't work out too well because it was hollow, so the hinges didn't actually stay on. This one's solid wood and pretty classy. We even recessed the hinges into the wall. Oooo-ooo.


Interior view of our newly re-vamped bathroom. We put those cute shelves up (more shelves!) and fixed the whole composting chamber section (not shown). We basically had to re-do the whole thing. We took out the false floor that used to be there and lowered the buckets/trays to sit on the floor. That way, there was enough clearance for the whole funnel & fittings & hose apparatus for the diverter. Yay! Works a lot better. We ended up taking a gallon milk jug and cutting the bottom off, flipping it around, cutting off the handle and sealing off the hole and super gluing it onto a PVC coupler. Works good.