Friday, September 19, 2014

The guest cabin is done

Guest cabin right after dragging it home.
I spent part of yesterday doing some cleaning in the guest cabin, the formerly ratty travel trailer we bought last year. It's a 17-foot long Nomad that will wander no more, at least not in the foreseeable future. We put it up on blocks, the S.O. did a lot of repair work to the interior (there was extensive water damage and rot in the front end, and one back corner wasn't in real good shape either) and a permanent connection to the septic system, and we now have warm weather guest quarters. As long as the garden hose is connected, it has cold running water and a flush toilet. If a guest shows up who wants to be able to cook or to heat more than a couple cups of water at a shot, there's a small gas range, although we're not sure if the oven works. The S.O. had the propane connected just long enough to determine that the oven lights -- he did not keep it on long enough to determine if the thermostat for it also works and would shut things off after the oven reached the required temperature.

At one time, the trailer also had a gas furnace and a gas hot water heater, neither of which are functioning now. We have no plans to replace either. The guest cabin is meant to be temporary quarters during the months when we don't have to worry about water lines freezing. If it's warm enough that we're not worried about water lines bursting, it's warm enough that a person can manage with just an electric space heater to chase the morning chill away.
The interior at time of purchase. 

As for the hot water, when the bathroom is just a half bath (toilet and sink), we figured that any guests we have can get by heating water in an electric kettle to wash their face or rinse out their coffee cup.

We still need to do a carport-type roof over the trailer because that flat roof isn't going to handle Michigan winters very well if we're not here to shovel off the snow, and it would also be nice to replace the dead built-in refrigerator (currently serving as storage space for paper plates and napkins), but for now the trailer is basically done.

I'd also like to do a small deck, something big enough to maybe hold a lawn chair or serve as a convenient place to hang the solar shower, but that's a project the S.O. and I can talk about next summer.

1 comment:

My space, my rules: play nice and keep it on topic.