Progress on the vardo

I thoroughly enjoyed teaching a workshop in Tennessee at the Tennessee Arts Academy - a first class job that was exciting and exhausting.  When I finished up my week there, I rented a car and drove from Nashville to Indianapolis to teach at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and also to spend some time with my grandson Parker.  We made lasagna:

He's such a lot of fun!

We got the basic box built for the vardo, and already we're altering our plans. Originally the ledge was going to be 12" -- but that looked large so we made it 10."  We also had put up some basic wedges to hold the ledge in place, but decided to cut out some curved wedges. 

We got the box built and also the back deck.  This platform will help make a transition to entering, and also serve as a place to put our camp stove and any other equipment.  We'll have to move the lights and license plate later.

We set it up on jacks so it's level and stable while we're climbing all over it.  We are going to probably add some jacks welded on later but for now, these work fine.

After we got the basic box and ledge done we started on the back wall.  This was exciting and kind of anxiety inducing -- all of a sudden, it seemed really huge!  Luckily, one of the online forums I joined to learn more about building these was super helpful, and it turns out we're right on track.  Right now the box and the one bar across the door are stabilizing until we get the sides put up.  We have the back end up -- or at least 75% of it - it got dark before we could finish.  It's cut, just need to get it attached.

 We have a couple of things we want to splurge on, even as we try to keep costs/weight down. I bought two stained glass panels on wayfair.com for our side windows:

These were about $115 each, and I will build frames around them for our side windows. I also have a piece of leaded glass in the garage that I got off craigslist awhile back for about 10 dollars, and that will be the center of the bay window.  I'll see what I can do for the front door and I think I want to add a small window next to the door as well.

So we're having fun -- but we're not in any rush. I'll get the stained glass this week and then we'll know what size holes to leave for windows.  We're also rethinking some of the other parts -- maybe redesign the mollycroft so it blends more into the roof -- it's so tall, I don't want to have too much wind resistance!  I ran across this plan and I think we can do this instead:

On top of all that, I had gallbladder surgery yesterday == ouch, but I'm glad that thing is gone!  it was no fun dealing with that the past few months.  Easy laproscopic surgery but I'll be sore a few days.  We'll get back to business in no time, though!