We’re supposed to go above zero tomorrow, so I’m hoping against hope that I’ll be able to spend a couple of hours Eternabonding.

Needing a few hours away from the computer and some exercise, I decided to go get plywood for the loft floor this afternoon!

It’s the cheapest plywood they had in the 5/8″ thickness. Might be cheap, but looks a heck of a lot nicer than I expected.

Plywood comes in 8’x4′ sheets, which is exactly 3 1/2″ too narrow. I had the guy cut the sheet into two panels, one 30″ and the other 18″. I found some reasonably price solid-wood moulding the exact width I needed to compensate; that’s the white bit you can see at the front of the pictures. I’ll be screwing the ladder into it, so to ensure that it’s super solid I’ll reinforce it from underneath with some square braces.

I need to notch one end of the moulding to get it to fit around the awning bumpout, plus screw the flooring down and add the trim on the edges since 8′ is one inch too short and there’s a gap 1/2″ gap at both ends between the wall and the floor.

Getting the flooring in, especially the 30″ x 8′ piece, was a nightmare. There’s no room to work in the library! I think the worst was having someone next door who would have been willing to help, but not having any space to bring her in! I caught a corner of the floor on the tinting film of one of the windows and ruined it. I guess it’s better than ruining the window.

If it’s not too late tomorrow after I do the Eternabond, I’ll head back out to the Home Hardware to get some paneling. The plywood changes hurt my brain too much tonight to wrap my brain around another project, so I decided to go back out for the paneling. Tomorrow, I’d be very satisfied to have the Eternabond done and the flooring screwed in; getting the wall done would be a bonus. I’ve made a lot of estimates for this project, but having a coat of paint on by Sunday night and being back in my bed by Tuesday night is not wishful thinking at this point.

Once the loft is back together I’ll have to decide if I can realistically get the library and kitchen done before I leave, what with everything else I’ve got going on (it’s nice to not have to be cryptic about the book and RV show now!). Since none of those renos are weather dependent, I can put together a schedule and stick to it. Two weeks (part-time) should do it, so if I can start on the library by the 12th, I’ll be going ahead.

We’re in day two a cold spell and I woke up yesterday to no water.  It made no sense to me, my fresh water tank compartment is ducted:

I’ve also been keeping the furnace on so that the rig doesn’t go below 15.

Silly me forgot to take into account the location of the thermostat. Even when it is 20 in here, it’s still below freezing in the fresh water compartment!

What’s the point of having a ducted compartment that you can’t keep warm unless you keep the inside of the rig at boiling temperatures?!

I am considering several things. The first is to cover as much of the floor in that compartment as possible with insulation. The second is to insulate it from outside with spray foam. The third is to replace the door into the compartment with something much more insultated. The fourth is to improve the insulation around the front door. The last is to run a cord with a low wattage light bulb into that compartment when we’re going to get these kinds of cold.

Incidentally, this is my third winter with this rig and only the first where I even noticed that the fresh water compartment is ducted! This confirms the manufacturer’s claim that rig was built to be usable to nighttime temps of minus ten. Now that I realise that I probably won’t have to do drastic measures to keep water circulating in cold weather, I’m really tempted to consider getting holding tank heaters. Not that I intend in spending another winter in Canada, yaddi yadda, you can all laugh next winter, etc. 🙂

I’m still waiting on Eternabond to arrive before I can finish the loft. There is still definitely water infiltrating along the seam. 🙁 I think it’s a combination of having a tiny ripple in the tape and not pressing down hard enough on it. I’ll know better when I get the next batch!

We’ve just entered a cold stretch that promises to last about a week, so even if the tape appears in the next few days, I won’t be able to apply it. So, I’ve decided to not even think about the loft right now. Instead, I’m focusing on some projects with the hope that by the time the projects are ready to announce, I’ll have good enough weather to get the loft put together and peace of mind to spend two solid weeks on renos.

In other news, I just had to take a picture of the view this morning since the sky is a really strange colour!