Frame ON!

Woo! Progress!

Right now this is Lars' one-man show. So I don't have much to do except pay for the materials. I have to admit, I'm chomping at the bit to get going on the ideas I have for finishing and decorating the thing. But I must be patient, I tell myself. Within a very short time I'm going to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger. But for the moment, I sit on my hands.


Roofies
So we tossed a few ideas back and forth for the roofing. Ultimately we settled on aluminum. We investigated a few different sources, and Lars found this place, which was having a sale on their colored aluminum:
Diamond Life

This place had fewer color choices than some we'd looked at previously, but the price was better. We settled on blue. We talked about it and we don't think that the roof being slightly darker will impact it's tendency to absorb and retain heat that much. I didn't want white or yellow or gray which were lighter but frankly, didn't appeal to my sense of color.

Here's a picture of the proposed color scheme. Since I like the look of stained wood better than painted, we're going to stain the vardo and then seal it with spar urethane. Here's a sketch of the color layout, including which stain colors we'll be using. (All Minwax colors.)

Lars is also going to incorporate insulation in the walls and venting in the roof, so it should be fairly comfortable. Fortunately, our campsite at Pennsic has trees and is quite comfy, unlike the Ghetti where everyone gets to bake themselves. Of course, we're going to be going to other events, especially next spring and summer once we have this thing finished. So we are trying to take all sorts of different situations into account.

Hardware Wars
Not really a war, per se. I didn't have much trouble finding what I wanted. I have found some really nice stuff at this site:
Van Dyke's Restorers
Here is a picture of the door hinges I think we're going to go with:

And here is the latch for the door.

There are a few other things we're going to need, such as bolts for the door, etc. Also, we might end up using a modern casement crank for the windows. Which I don't mind, as long as we keep it black. No nickel or white. Icky.


Pennsic is looming large in the calendar already. It seemed so far off in February when we started getting this project together. Now it's fast approaching. I do have a fairly realistic idea of where we'll be at with the vardo when we go to Pennsic. I certainly don't think it'll be finished-finished. I will be happy if the outside is stained and sealed against the weather, and we have the bed-box finished so we can sleep comfortably. The rest is icing. Although I can whip up stuff like bench cushions, curtains, etc. pretty fast. But one of the fun parts of this project is the fact that it'll never be done. I'll be tweaking and styling it for well, ever.