Latest News on the RainCrow Writing Cave! Or, Why I'm Not Writing!

When we last saw the cave I had just finished re-attaching the skin on the outside of the entrance side of the trailer. Now I'm working to re-build the opposite and rear walls. Removing the old paneling and insulation reveals the true story. It actually was not as bad as I expected. Some of the wall studs at the corner must be replaced, as well as the ones on each side of two windows. Pretty obvious in this picture. Again, the edge floor joists need partial replacement as well. The window visible in the upper left corner of the picture is too broken to save.

 This is the upper part of the same corner. The horizontals running across the picture are actually dangling down. The ends have rotted. One end has fallen loose and is hanging from the trailer lighting wire.

This is a close up of the same area. You can just see the dangling horizontals at the right edge of the picture. I'm a bit puzzled about how to repair this portion. It has to be curved and support the ribs that will be repaired as well as support both metal edges at the corner. In this shot, as well, the back wall and skin have been totally removed. 

 Here's the outside view of the missing end wall. The floor joist at the bottom edge must be replaced, as well as some of the window framing, so it was just easier to open it all up.

A close up of the back corner. You can see how the end of the edge joist is rotted away. A portion of the rotted flooring has been removed, much like I did on the first section I repaired earlier. 

 Here is another angle of that corner. Again, rotted flooring is removed exposing the outside floor joist that will be replaced. There is another of those metal pans over the wheels I have to deal with like before.

The front end of that wheel pan and the front limit of the flooring I removed. The wall is fairly solid in front of this, and the floor is much better beyond this point. 

Back to the rear again. The other end of the rotted floor joist. The flooring is not so bad, but that board has got to go.

 This is the side wall opposite the entrance. Again, the side supports are rotted away, as well as some of the runners that support the wall metal. This window will be relocated to the back wall and it will be re-framed for a larger window.

More of that window. Parts of the horizontal runners and the short verticals can be re-used. 

Here are some of the surplus windows I have on hand. I'll use one of the better and larger ones in the new location mentioned above.


Believe it or not, the end is in sight!