Day 99

The weather looked like it was going to be cooperating, at least for the morning, but it was a little cloudy and incredibly humid. Rain expected by the afternoon.

 First order of business: finish the back window frame. Lower piece installed:

 

Second: bridge the gap between the wall boards and the frame. Two pieces of wood - sounds simple enough. But, as usual, everything is wonky in this trailer, so the boards had to be free-hand cut on the band saw to fit the slightly crooked space:

 

I wanted to work on installing boards to the left of the window, but in order to do that, I needed to build out part of the side wall first, since that's the way it came together on the opposite corner, as shown below - the back wall boards overlap the side wall boards:

 

So the first steps were to put in wall studs. But...before I could do that, I needed to place part of the window frame on the side wall (because the wall stud is installed against it). So that meant finding a good length board, then cutting, planing, sanding and oiling it before installing. This is a great example of how time gets away from you on projects like this. And, while I was waiting for the oil to soak in, I grabbed a wire wheel drill bit, and cleaned up the metal frame a bit. Right side frame piece installed:

 

I installed the first wall stud, then pieced together the second one from some scrap wood:

 

First board in:

 

Second board in:

 

I was itching to connect the two walls. In order to do that, I needed to cut a special piece to fit around the window frame, but I also needed to come up with an end piece for the wall boards above (to fit in the gap, as shown below). Pieces cut - test fitting:

 

The paint in this areas is either not finished, or scuffed up, so did some touch up painting, and took a short lunch break. When I came back, I wanted to give the paint a little more time, so I cut and installed another board on the side wall:

 

The paint was dry to the touch, so I deemed it was safe enough to work around it with the pieces I was installing. I drilled the holes then oiled and placed them:

 

The underside of the shelf/cabinets is pretty ugly- partially painted, wood veneer torn away, etc. Since this will be right over my head where my bed will be, I wanted it to look nice. So I'm going to use up some smaller fence board scraps to fill it in. First one installed in the corner:

 

Now I was ready to start adding boards to the back wall by the window. Unfortunately, when I installed the left side of the window frame, it was right over the wood stud, so now there was nothing for me to drill into on the right side of this space:

 

I found a piece of scrap that was almost the perfect length. Trimmed to fit:

 

I cut up some more of that old aluminum frame trim to make two more L-brackets. Installed:

 

It was getting into the late afternoon, and there had been light rain on and off, but nothing serious. I was able to spend the last couple of hours processing more wall boards- one more for the side, and two for the back:

 

I was working on the last board when a downpour started. It was coming down hard enough that the rain was coming in through my screen door, so I had to close up shop for the day.