Five Reasons To Have A Reserve Water Tank ~ Part 1

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

We’ve been thinking about building a reserve water tank, and here are some reasons why:

Reason 1. A few weeks ago, a neighbor set a small fire of yard debris, then left for his house in the city. (I know, I know, I will refrain from comment…) A few hours later, Cynthia looked out our kitchen window and yelled, “FIRE!” I knew that that house didn’t have any water as a new well was being drilled. So I ran to the neighbor of the property on fire and roused the sleeping caretaker.

He and I stretched a hose to the neighboring property and fought the fire for more than an hour. We didn’t have enough water pressure so it was slow going. While the other man used the hose, I used a now-destroyed plastic leaf rake to move the fire away from the unburned pine needles. Had we not acted, lots of pine and palm trees would have burned, plus all our properties were in danger. The whole time, I wished we had more water. Here’s a photo:

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Reason 2. Sometimes, the power goes off. And with no power to the water pump, there is no water at our house. Not a real problem, unless the power is off for more than a few hours. Or if there is a fire! Of course we could get a 220-volt generator to power the pump, but that is another thing that needs maintenance and fuel and fussing with.

Reason 3. This was a tough dry season. We never ran out of water, but I suppose it could happen.

Reason 4. Sometimes we want to use two hoses at a time. But our pump is rated for seven-gallons-per-minute. Exceed this and the pump protection system shuts the pump down for a half-hour to allow it to cool off. By having a reserve tank, we can use two-or-three hoses or sprinklers at once.

Reason 5. Building stuff is FUN!

So armed with these reasons and a couple thousand dollars, we went to work. Armando and I scouted a location where the tank would be high in the air to deliver good pressure, and would be mostly out of sight. We settled on the area where we were going to build the hydroponic greenhouse (before we decided to sell). There was already a good foundation and a few rows of blocks. We went up from there.

Day one, Alex, who had worked for us before, joined Armando. We cleaned the area and started laying blocks:

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At the end of day one, we were up this high:

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Day two showed this much progress:

We inserted a couple ventilation blocks because some day this area could be an employee’s casita.

It is common practice here to lay blocks, but don’t connect them at the corners. Reinforced concrete columns are poured here. At the end of day 3 we had the rest of the blocks up and corners formed and poured:

Where’s Fred?

Day four was a long day. We stripped the corner forms and made forms for a beam that went around all four sides of the structure. We formed a welded rebar armature that fit in the form work and made a good strong base for the tank. Here I am welding the rebar armature:

All four corners are connected so the beams won’t be able to pull apart under pressure of the heavy tank above.

We put the armature in the form work:

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There will be more blocks above this beam, so before we poured the beam, we cut and welded a LOT of rebar in place to support the blocks above from the massive pressure of the water:

That’s a lot of rebar!

Next, we poured the concrete beam. It was still early in the day, so we cut a lot more rebar and welded it in place to make reinforcement for the floor of the water tank:

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While I was welding the rebar, the guys went into the jungle and cut 15 strong saplings that we would use to hold the floor form work in place. After we made the form work for the floor, we tied the rebar together with wire:

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At this point it was almost quitting time for the day, but the guys said they wanted to pour the floor, too, so that we would be ready to lay blocks tomorrow. I told them that I would pay extra if they wanted to keep going. The guys mixed the concrete, and we set up a relay to get the concrete to the roof. This was tough going for the old guy in the middle!

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The next day I stayed in the hammock while the guys laid more block. The blocks took two- or three-more days.

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Next, we formed another beam that went around the top of the entire tank, the rebar all connected as in the other beam. We also welded in place more rebar that we will bend at a 90-degree angle to make reinforcement for the concrete roof and will tie the roof to the walls:

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We were anxious to get the roof poured, but first to make our work much easier, we had to apply the plastering to the inside of the tank. Here is some of the first plaster:

Armando applies the mortar while Alex paints a bonding agent on the smooth concrete beam and corners.

At the end of today, day ten of the project, we have all four walls plastered. In this photo, Armando finishes tooling an angled strip of mortar at the floor line to prevent water from leaking through the wall/floor joint: P1030704-001

We’ll continue next week when the guys return Monday or Tuesday. Left yet to do is to form and pour the roof and then plaster the walls outside of the tank.

In other news, when Cynthia was a teenager, she was in the Masonic order Job’s Daughters, and was crowned DeMolay Sweetheart. The Masonic youth organizations are planning a reunion for later this year. For the event, Cyn is making ten crowns for the former Sweethearts (they passed the crown on to the next Sweetheart so they never got to keep their crowns). This is a surprise gift from Cynthia for the Sweethearts who are attending the reunion. One of the Sweethearts has passed away so in accordance with tradition, Cyn has made a white crown in her honor for the memorial.

This has been a lot of work, but the results are handmade pieces of art that will be a reminder of memories from years ago. Here are some photos:

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Two 12″ x 12″ pieces of glass, a clear piece and an amber-colored iridescent piece, cut into 3/8″ squares, were glued together then fused together. Then each of those rounded pre-fired pieces were glue tacked onto a plain piece of glass, then fired in the kiln to fuse the pieces together.

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After she fused the crowns but before she curved them in another firing in the kiln, I drilled holes at each end for attaching wires that can be bobby-pinned to each woman’s hair:

I drilled the holes with a diamond bit in a pan of water to keep the bit cool.

My grandfather’s 65-year-old drill press is still going strong, but after the nerve-wracking stress of drilling a couple dozen holes, I was a bit dazed and confused…

Here are a couple of the crowns after Cyn curved the glass and applied some crystal beads.

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And remember the climbing vine at the front of the carport? Well finally, finally after a year, the plant is lush and in full bloom:

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That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

April Is April Appreciation Month

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

I haven’t posted in a long time because I haven’t done anything much write-down-word-worthy lately. But I felt like writing this morning and cranked out the following bit about the month of April here in the mountains of Panama, and I thought I’d show you a little project that I have been working on.

As I do many mornings, today I was on our roof deck sweeping away a few dry leaves and watering the plants. From the roof deck I can see the woodpeckers that, as they do every year in April, are making new nesting holes (in preparation for babies and for protection in the rainy season) in the trees in the next lot over from us. It’s quite a show.

Every day I put several bananas in the dead tree stump in our front garden. We’ve covered this stump in bromeliads and orchids, and nesting birds have made the tree a bird condominium. They have a wonderful time darting in and out of the plants on their way to and from the bananas. There are black birds, black and red birds, black and yellow, green, and even blue birds. Robins, and the woodpeckers, too, come for the bananas. Small reddish-brown doves peck in the freshly-tilled garden and finish off the banana peels that fall to the ground. The bird banana buffet gives Cynthia and me hours of enjoyment as we watch out the kitchen windows.

The tall trees in our front garden turn golden-crested in April, and the loudly-chirping hummingbirds work the blossoms all day long. Soon, bees will arrive to take the nectar that the hummingbirds leave behind; their buzzing is very loud and reaches a crescendo in the heat of mid-afternoons.

I also love April because now, after several very dry months, we are starting to receive several rain showers each night. They don’t last long, but come down in brief sheets, signaling that rain is on its way. The fragrance of freshly-dampened soil smells good and I go back to sleep.

The other day our gardener, Armando, pointed out a loudly singing bird that was “calling the water,” he said in Spanish. I’ve really enjoyed learning Spanish so I can pick up these bits of local knowledge – such as when the breezes that start in November and December are called “brisas de Navideña,” — the breezes that bring on Christmas. Many of the local workers here may not have a lot of book learning, but they know the wildlife and the subtle rhythms of the seasons.

With everything so dry, the birds enjoy the three birdbaths that we made for them; keeping the water refreshed is a pleasant part of my daily routine, too.

Recently we noticed that the mango trees are in full-bloom in our area; we should be picking mangos fresh off of the trees in late June and July. Because we are in a micro-climate zone, our mango schedule is quite different from down in town or just down the mountain road a few kilometers.

There are distinct seasons in Panama, not as dramatic as, say in New England, U.S.A., but they are distinct in their own subtle way. I love April; there is a lot to observe and to appreciate here.

Walking to friends’ house this morning I picked this seed pod off the ground. Oropendula birds live in the tree and will pelt you with these pods when you walk under the tree. Pretty cool, huh?

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In other news, the other day I got a call from a friend of ours. She has been taking care of the home of someone who had recently died, and she lost the keys! She asked me if I could get into the house. Of course I could, houses are my business, but locks, unfortunately, aren’t.

I did a survey of the exterior of the house and decided to remove the security bars on a small bathroom window (the window was small, and so was the bathroom, come to think about it). Fifteen-minutes with a hammer and chisel and I had the bars removed from the concrete block house. It would be minimal work to mortar the bars back in place. I climbed through the window, removed the screws from the two deadbolt locks, and opened the door. Our friend bought two new deadbolts and I installed them in just a few minutes.

But this got me thinking — how much easier it would have been on my senior citizen body if I could have just picked the locks and not had to mess with shoe-horning myself through the tiny window and making the high drop to the floor. YouTube to the rescue. Over the next couple of weeks, I watched a couple-hundred videos, maybe more, about lock picking. I now dream about picking locks.

So I thought that I would buy a set of lock picks. They can be had for twenty-bucks, or a high-quality set for under a hundred. But then again I thought, why not make them myself? There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to make picks from hacksaw blades and the thin pieces of spring steel that sit under the rubber part of most windshield wiper blades.

Our car needed new wiper blades anyway, and a few bucks bought a handful of saw blades. A day or two later I had my very own homemade lock pick set (I still have a couple more picks to make…). I think they came out pretty well, all ground, sanded, and polished to a bright shine. Here are a few photos:

I ground the teeth off the blades but left the notches that created the set of the saw teeth. It gives the handles a bit more grip.

There are still a couple more picks that I want to make to more complete my set.

I ground the hacksaw blades with my bench grinder, filed and then polished with emery paper. Some car polishing compound did the final polish.

So now it is time to see if I have what it takes. I have a pile of old padlocks that I am gearing up to practice on.

By the way, if you are the least bit interested in how insecure most of the locks that most of us use, here is a video by a man named bosnianbill. Locks are his hobby and he enjoys figuring out the puzzle of each lock he touches. Bosnianbill is part of an international group of people who consider lock picking a grand sport. They have competitions and swap locks and information among themselves, picking for the fun of it. Here is one of his 600-or-so videos:

Now, after a bit of practice, maybe I will be able to open a lock the next time I get a call from a panicked friend. I’ll “keep it legal” as these sport pickers say at the end of their videos.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

SHIPPING CONTAINER HOUSE FOR SALE!

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Posted on December 20, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

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Our shipping container house / art house in Panama is for sale.

The question has been hanging around my blog for some time now. “What will you do with your free time now that your house is finished?” In this post, I will answer this burning question.

Cynthia and I are creatives. And along with creativity comes curiosity and passion. Just this morning we watched a video of Lady Gaga accepting Billboard’s Woman of the Year award. It was clear that she has a passion for her work, a drive to keep creating, to keep pushing her own limits, to see what she can do with her voice and her piano. It isn’t a competition with others, but with ourselves to see who we are and what we can do. So it is with these qualities that Cynthia and I feel the need to explore ourselves and the world yet more. Continue reading →

Birds Win Big

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

Three days ago I finished applying the Feather Friendly window dots on our large front windows. I am happy to report that not one single bird has even come close to colliding with the glass!

This past week in addition to finishing the bird dots on the windows, I’ve spent several days washing windows and making the house shine. Ramiro is still washing the house inside and out and touching up paint as he goes, and Armando has been cleaning the exterior rock work with the power washer. I still have a couple small tasks to do — install an electrical plug, tie some wires up under the house, install a plumbing vent — but everything is all but done. However I did want to show the finished bird-proofing of the windows.

Here are some photos:

This first photo is in progress. You tape two ruler guides (provided with the rolls of dot tape) to the window. Then you roll out enough tape to go across the window and cut it to length. Then, following the ruler, press the tape onto the window, one row every two-inches. Lastly, run a credit card over each dot to stick them to the window and then remove the carrier tape. Only the dots are left on the window:

I took the next photos just after sunrise:

You barely notice the dots from inside the house. Jabo does report, however, that he is seeing spots:

As I get closer and closer to completing every little item on the punch list, Cynthia reminded me of what I said when we first met about eleven years ago. We met online, eHarmony.com. In our emails back and forth, I told her that I was in the process of doing a down-to-the-studs remodel of my 1920s Craftsman bungalow home in Colorodo. This was a Big Red Flag for her, as the photos that I sent to her were “ugly” as she says.

But I told her that, “I finish projects,” and I emailed her my resume, if you will, of other houses that I had completed. Well, that sales job sealed the deal. Cynthia moved from Ohio to Colorado and we spent the next three-years finishing the bungalow.

Here is the bungalow on the day that I bought it. It was pretty nondescript.

And here it is just before we sold it, windows washed and everything:

Now our shipping container house looks finished. It really feels good to have so much to show for our five-years of work:

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Hung Out To Dry ~ Kitchen Cabinet Doors

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

I’ve been working on the kitchen cabinet doors.

I planed the wood for the cabinet doors to its final thickness, cut the pieces to their final widths, then plowed a groove to accept the glass panels. Here is a photo with the boards cut to width and the groove cut:

I used to have a router table, but the humidity here made Purina Mold Chow out of it. I looked all over Panama for a new router table but couldn’t find one. So using a small shop bench and a quarter-sheet of plywood, I made my own.

With the router set up with a single cutter, I easily made the groove for the glass panels (photo above). Next, I calculated the size of the stiles (the side pieces of the doors) and the rails (the top and bottom pieces of the doors) and cut them to length with the miter saw. Here I am sizing the doors and cutting the pieces:

I put double cutters on the router and cut the ends of the rails. Here is my makeshift router table. The router hangs upside down under the plywood:

Here is a close-up of the double cutter assembly that cut the ends of the rails:

Here is a photo of a stile (on the right) and a rail (on the left):

When all was said and done, I had a pile of pieces and parts, ready to assemble:

I marked the bottom of each stile with the number of the door and the direction that the wood faces. Now to assemble the puzzle!

Whoa! Not so fast! Before I assemble the doors, I need to drill holes on the back of the hinge-side of the door stiles to receive the hinges. Here is my setup for drilling the holes with my grandfather’s antique drill press:

Now with everything measured and ready to assemble, I calculated the size of the glass panels and ordered the glass. I had to wait the better part of a week for the glass to be cut. There is one glass company that we like to use, and they didn’t have any of the frosted glass that we wanted for the doors. It would be weeks (months?) before they would have any. But they did have frosted safety glass, basically two sheets of clear glass with a frosted safety film sandwiched between the panes. Although it cost a lot more, we went with it.

While I waited, I applied a couple of coats of polyurethane varnish to the edges of the stiles and rails where the glass panel will slide into the grooves. This will keep me from slopping varnish all over the glass when it comes time to finish the doors.

Next I pulled all the hinge stiles out of the pile and screwed the hinges onto the stiles. Then I screwed the hinge onto the cabinet. These hinges easily come apart into two pieces, making hanging the door really easy. These are Blum brand and have several adjustment screws for aligning the door in the frame. Here are the hinges shown with the parts connected and separated:

I also took some time and installed the drawer slides onto the wooden carriages that I previously built:

These are Blum brand self-closing drawer slides, the best. They aren’t cheap, plus I had to import them from the $tates. Here is a close-up:

I like these drawer slides. They have several adjustments for tilting and moving the slides to easily-align the drawer front with the front of the cabinet.

I finally got the call from the glass fabricator, and drove down the mountain to collect my order. Back home, I wasted no time in assembling the doors.

At this point, they don’t look very pretty what with the edge varnish slopped a bit here and there. You can see that the hinges are ready to remount on the doors.

I let the glue dry for a day then sanded the doors smooth and ready for varnish. Now they look like this:

For the first coat, I painted on a coat of sanding sealer. Basically thinned down varnish, sanding sealer soaks into the wood, raises any grain that is going to raise, then dries hard and is very easy to sand. It leaves a satin-smooth surface for the polyurethane. Here I am applying the sealer. Notice that I don’t have to cut close to the glass because that part of the wood is already sealed:

Here are the doors all hung out to dry overnight:

After sanding the sealer, I applied a coat of polyurethane, let it dry overnight, sanded the doors again, then applied a second coat of finish and let them sit another day. I finally got to hang the doors and install the handles that we bought about a hundred-years ago. I like to mount the handles so that the top of the handles line up with the horizontal line of the rails:

The door on the left is in direct window light and photographed much yellower than it actually is.

We think that they look great. But now we can’t just reach down and pull something out of a cabinet; extra step — remember to open and close the doors!

The drawers are next and I have already started working on them. But this will wait for my next post.

In other news, just as a downpour arrived, Armando dug some of the yucca that we have growing on the other side of the road. He couldn’t wait to show it to me as it is Guinness Book-qualified BIG!

Water from a long gutter at the front of the carport/bohio dumps a lot of water! The water goes under the fence and into the drainage ditch:

The garden is growing on steroids this rainy season; there is a lot of sun but the downpours are substantial and deeply-soak the soil. Here are some going-crazy maracas:

And some going-crazy ferns and what-ever-they-are big purple plants:

What a dignified jungle we have! It is nice to have a mature garden at the same time that the house is nearing completion.

And last but best, Cynthia just completed a glass platter. This one was an amalgamation of two projects that she didn’t like. So we got out the tile saw and cut both projects into small pieces. She then arranged them into a new piece that is really fun to look at. Cyn named the piece, “Amalgamation.” In the photo below, the platter is casting a long shadow in the morning sun:

We made a little video about it:

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Kitchen Cabinet Progress

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

I have made some progress on the kitchen cabinets.

If you remember, a long time ago I framed the cabinets with 1.5″x1.5″x1/16″ square steel tubing. At the time, I had no idea how I was going to mount hinges and drawer slides, but I knew that I would figure it out when the time came.

Well, the time came. I spent some time sitting on an upside-down five-gallon bucket, analyzing and figuring out what I would have to do. Finally, I had a clear idea in mind. I would build a wooden “carriage” inside the metal framework to carry the drawers and to mount the door hinges to.

The 1.5″x1.5″ pieces that I cut for the purpose were finally dry enough to work with. I made pilot holes in the wood, then screwed the wooden pieces to the metal framework with 2.5-inch zinc roofing panel screws. These screws are self drilling and hold well.

Where I needed to attach one piece of wood to another, I used my Kreg pocket screw jig to make the holes for the screws. Here is a photo (credit — Kreg website) of the jig and the pocket holes that allow you to screw the pieces together. I like this jig; it is well worth the money and really speeds assembly of parts:

Building the framework was a double-jointed contortionist’s idea of a good time. Here are some photos of the completed carriages — sealed, sanded, and polyurethaned:

I’ll mount the hinges to the vertical pieces and the drawer slides to the horizontal pieces that go front-to-back in the cabinets.

On the right side of the photo you can see one of the pocket screw holes in the wood. In the rear of the cabinet you can see the head of one of the roofing screws.

Between coats of urethane, I spent most of a day running boards through the thickness planer. Here are the drawer fronts — I still need to cut them to their finished length and width:

And the pile of un-thickness-planed boards that you saw in my last post —

Now looks like this:

I planed (as in past tense of to plane) the parts that will be the door frames down from one-inch to 13/16″. I still need to take these down another sixteenth to 3/4″ when they dry just a bit more.

And I planed the parts that will make the drawers and pull-out trays down from one-inch to 3/4″. I still need to take these down to their final 5/8″ thickness after they dry just a bit more.

Each board went through the planer six-or-so times as it is best to take off a little bit at a time; I was like a one-armed wallpaper hanger, jockeying each piece of wood in and out of the planer as fast as I could. I took Armando home with four more bags of expensive shavings for his chickens.

I’ll let the wood dry a few more days, then plane it to its final thickness. I took my dovetail jig out of storage today — I hadn’t opened the box in eight-years. I was afraid it would be full of big black ants and a lot of rust, but everything looks good to go. I can’t wait to make the drawers!

So that’s my update on the kitchen.

In other news, I finished painting the front door wall metalwork and spent a few hours with a razor blade cutting paint and caulk off of the perimeter of the windows. It looks nice now:

I took this photo standing in the bed of our pickup which was parked in the driveway turnaround.

Here is a panorama shot that I took from the pickup as well. Remember, the driveway doesn’t curve, it is just the panorama distortion:

Cynthia has been spending a lot of time at her lampworking torch. She and I were just remembering how her (now fired) neurologist told her that she would never work with hot glass again because of the neurological damage done during her last open-heart surgery. Never tell Cynthia that she can’t do something! Here is a slide show that we put together of some of her recent stunningly-beautiful beads:

And finally, Jabo takes solace on the cool tile next to the living room fountain on a warm afternoon.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Watching Wood Dry

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

Not so much this time — watching wood dry is not very photogenic.

But I have made progress. After about ten-days of the planks drying, I rough cut all the pieces that I will need for the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers. A few days later I thickness-planed the 2″x2″ pieces to their finished 1.5″x1.5″ sizes. I ended up with three trash bags full of very expensive sawdust, which Armando was happy to have as bedding for his chickens. Here are some photos:

With a new $80 blade, the Caoba (African Mahogany) cuts like butter:

The sawdust is extremely fine and doesn’t have a lot of oil in it.

I had to do a complete tear-down of my thickness planer. Years of lack of use in this tropical environment rendered it rusted and frozen. I completely disassembled it, replaced a new gear that I bought on the Internet, and sanded, polished, and lubricated all the moving parts. A total of $5 and a day’s elbow grease got it going again as good as new:

Here the planer spews expensive shavings:

I used the miter saw to cut boards to rough lengths. I have another new blade ready for the finish cuts:

Here the wood sits, stacked and drying for a couple more weeks — still a lot more thickness planing to do before I can make the doors and drawers — Armando’s chickens will be very happy:

While I wait for the wood to dry, I kept at my Long List Of Stuff Still To Do, including installing roller guides for the door in the half-bath in the hallway off of the living room:

Using a hammer and small chisel, I created two small holes. I set the bolts in the holes and filled around them with tile grout.

The strong east sun had faded the trim paint at the front door wall, and the caulk glazing between the glass and the metal angle iron had shrunk as well, allowing water to enter the framework and rust the metal. I am in the process of caulking/repainting this front wall:

I spent a full day working on the front door. Some welds on the door jamb needed to be ground smooth and there were areas that had never been properly primed and painted. Also, the hole for the latch was ragged and ugly, so I welded in some new metal and ground and filed it all smooth. The door closes much better now.

So bit by bit, I’m chipping away at the remaining detailing of the house. Feels good to be this far along.

In other news, nature happens all around us, all the time. This morning while I was washing Very Stinky Jabo, I spotted this motionless drama — a very pregnant gecko tried to eat a very large spider. Neither won, neither walked away:

Every now and then, an adventurer/traveler, looking for a place to park a camper, will find our quiet neighborhood. I generally invite them to park in the road in front of our house — it is well lighted and safe and no one will bother them. Yesterday, Peter, from Germany and on the road now for about two years, stumbled upon us.

We invited him in for dinner with one of our Panamanian neighbors, and had a pleasant evening talking about exploring and traveling. Peter’s camper is quite a rig, an engineering and craftsmanship marvel, and I am very envious. He built it himself with 3,000 hours of his labor, and his blog shows construction of the rig plus his travels around the world. Here are a couple photos of the Lady Grey:

Peter says that no one bothers him because no one knows what his vehicle is! The vehicle is foreboding and impenetrable, but Peter is warm and friendly, excited to meet strangers and learn about their cultures.

An electric winch is needed to remove the spare tire from the back of the rig.

On the rear of his vehicle is this saying: “The most dangerous world view is the world view of those who have not viewed the world.” Alexander Von Humboldt .Well chosen Peter!

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Birdbath 2.0 Plus Kitchen Wood Procured

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

This past two-weeks have been mostly a flurry of tiny, unphotogenic tasks, and I am often ticking off several orphan items per day. Touch up this paint, install this small piece of trim, grout this small area of tile, fabricate a foot-rail at the breakfast bar, install some kitchen ceiling trim, put plastic gliders the dining room chair legs, and on and on.

But two items stand out from the crowd.

First, our two garden globes and three homemade birdbaths, as nice as they are, were each sitting on top of a few round, rough concrete blocks. Cynthia and I decided to have Armando sculpt the stands to represent tree stumps with vines wrapping around them. I gave Armando very little direction, told him to be an artist and to have fun with it. We think he did a pretty good job. Here are some photos:

Where’s Armando?

Armando posing with his space alien friend. Cynthia calls it Bubble Brain.

Bananas are almost ready to harvest. A volunteer papaya tree is growing in the foreground.

Last Saturday, I decided to head out to find wood for the kitchen cabinets. As you drive down the mountain, there are several roadside woodworkers who make chairs and tables from local wood. Most of the furniture is very rustic and not to our taste. But I stopped at them anyway and asked where I could purchase wood. They all sent me to the woodworker in Coronado near the El Machetazo store. My order was for too much wood for him to sell me from his supply, but he gave me the name of a man, Marco, in Penonome’ who sells wood.

I called Marco and he suggested that we text via WhatsApp, which we did. He also suggested that he visit us on Sunday so that he could show us some samples. I thought that was above and beyond the call as it is about an hour-and-a-half to Penonome’. He arrived right on time, bringing his wife and daughter along for the ride. After a cup of tea, we talked and settled on Caoba wood (African Mahogany) as he promised easy working (like butter he said), and a rich, deep red finish with several coats of clear polyurethane. It would go well with our wood-grain ceramic floor tiles.

Marco said that he could deliver the wood on Wednesday or Thursday. I took his word with a grain of salt as he didn’t say which Wednesday or Thursday; he had a fair amount of work ahead of him. I told him that I would give him a nice tip if he came when he promised.

I was amazed when he drove up to the house on Wednesday morning! I told him to back his truck into the driveway, but he wagged his index finger back and forth (the Panamanian word for no, no, no). He drove straight in.

We unloaded what looked like the right amount of wood. I started to pay him, but he directed me to the “Secretary and Treasurer” (his wife) and I paid her the $3 per board foot that he had quoted me. (I got independent estimates of $2 to $3 per foot; I thought the $3 was at the high end, but he did make two trips here and delivered as promised.) I joked that damn, he came when he promised and now I would have to give a nice tip! The Secretary and Treasurer smiled and gave me a thumbs-up; Cynthia and I suspect that she is also the Project Manager in their family.

We said our goodbyes, and then Armando and I pushed him out of the driveway as his reverse gear had been broken for years! The wood is rough sawn and I will need to plane it to the thickness that I want. I can’t wait to start working with it. My thickness planer had rusted from lack of use and I have ordered a new thickness-adjusting-gear from the States. It should arrive just about the time that the wood is ready to size.

Here are some photos of the wood, starting with the photo that Marco sent to me via WhatsApp:

Marco arrives with the wood:

Smells good!

Marco said that he used to be a policeman, but now he is retired and cuts wood.

Here is the wood freshly cut from the logs. As it dries, it turns a deep red color. Marco suggested that I let the wood set for about ten days before I cut it to the finished sizes.

Can you see the dovetailed drawers hiding in this stack of wood?

In other news, here are a couple of bonus photos:

I finally painted my shop door!

A while back we planted four of these plants/trees. The humming birds will love them:

Here’s a photo of the path to the back yard (taken from the gardener’s gate):

Jabo on the stairs at night:

I wouldn’t want to walk past him in a dark alley…

And Jabo solarizing on the front steps:

I took Jabo to the vet the other day. His toenails were long and he click, click, clicked when he walked across the tile floor. Three bucks. He was the perfect patient.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Essentially Electrifying

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

We’ve spent the past week or two essentially electrifying the rest of the house. With very few exceptions, the electrical phase (pun intended for you electrical engineers out there) is now all done.

The work involved several days of me under the house and Cynthia inside the house, the two of us fishing, running, and pulling about 500-feet of wire. After all that wire was placed, I spent the better part of a week wiring all the plugs, switches, and lights, and installing the switch-plate covers. The results are illuminating and it feels very good to be able to walk through the house and turn on any light we want. Cyn is thrilled to no longer have to trip over extension cords.

I may have mentioned this before, but many years ago when I was in my early twenties, I helped an older electrician by pulling wires and crawling under houses, doing the work for him that he could no longer do because of his failing health. In the process he taught me a lot, including the principle of “a path of light” through the house. So now, thanks to Ernie, we can walk from room to room to room, switching off one light switch and turning on another without ever being in the dark.

Following are some photos that show the completed electrical work:

The lights over the sinks in the master bathroom are working.

A switch on the wall as you enter the bathroom turns this light on by the toilet.

At this point in construction even the smallest items make a huge difference. It is so good to see the switches and the metal covers in place rather than the gaping hole in the wall. By the way, we used safety grab bars for our towel bars; the thickness of the bars separate the towels so that they dry better in this humid climate. Plus, they just look industrial, don’t they?

In the master bedroom there is a lamp on either side of the bed and a hanging lamp over the chair. The lamp over the chair turns on from either of the two entrances to the room.

A strip of LEDs provide general lighting in the loft. (Cyn says don’t pay any attention to the chaos of the boxes, they’ll be re-organized soon.)

To light the stairs, I bought ten, truck side marker LED lamps and mounted them under the hand railing. I ran the low-voltage wiring inside the square steel tubing that the railing is fabricated from.

Here is a photo from the bottom of the stairs. The lights make a good night light and consume almost no electricity.

The mass of spaghetti wiring under the microwave counter in the kitchen is now organized and nicely tucked into a large junction box. A sharp eye will see that the Romex connector at the top of the box is upside down — there just wasn’t enough room under the counter to install it correctly. But at least I installed one!

The wires in the junction box go to and from the new switches that control the kitchen lights and the exhaust hood over the stove. I used waterproof exterior electrical boxes because they look so much better than the standard electrical box. We used a lot of these boxes in the house and they AREN’T CHEAP!

Eight of Cynthia’s red kitchen lamps are now controlled by switches. Here are three of them. The open kitchen cabinets make a good segue to the upcoming cabinetry project. Stay tuned for a few more weeks.

I took this photo from the second bedroom, looking through the laundry room, the master bathroom, and into the master bedroom. I wanted to show that the light in the master bedroom is working. Also, I don’t know if I have posted about how we used safety grab bars for door handles.

You can see that the lamps in the living room are working. Also, I installed a light fixture high on the roof support column. This lamp illuminates the photos in the concrete frames and is controlled by a switch on the other side of the column.

Looking from the front door, here is a shot of the dining room and living room with all lights working.

Back in the kitchen, there was a big-ugly-stinking-mess at the shelving and electrical panel to the right of the refrigerator:

Using my homemade, DIY sheet metal bending brake, I formed some aluminum shelving and also a cover for the electrical panel. To cut the aluminum, I set up shop in the carport:

My shop is a mess, but I had just enough space to bend the cover for the electrical panel:

Here are the shelves and panel cover in place:

The shelves hold the house phone, the wifi printer, and the monitor for the security cameras. Later I will stain the wooden baseboard the same color as the floor.

The door can be opened to access the electrical panel:

So with just one or two tiny electrical details left to do, I can almost cross this one big task off my list. I consider the electrical work a success — I had just two small issues to figure out — I transposed two wires on one three-way light switch, and in the bank of switches in the kitchen I inadvertently screwed a switch mounting screw into a bunch of black wires, causing a dead short when I flipped on the breaker. Once the smoke cleared, both issues were easy to figure out and fix.

Next week I have some more aluminum to cut and bend to make shelves for the little office, plus make a few remaining shelves for in the walk-in master bedroom closet.

In other news, I spent a lot of last Sunday modifying my new GoPro camera. GoPros can take excellent quality photos and video, but the fixed lens gives somewhat of a fish-eye effect. Also, the focus is fixed so that the foreground and the background are always in focus. But a modification kit exists called the Backbone Ribcage that removes the stock lens and allows for using virtually any other lens made for photography. Of course I had to give it a go. Here is what the modification entails:

Here I am readied to do surgery. The original GoPro is at the bottom left. The other parts and pieces are for the modification:

Here is the camera all torn down and ready for the rebuild:

I drew little boxes around the screws that I removed and labeled them for proper reassembly.

And here is the final product with a nice little wide-to-telephoto lens:

Everything worked well, but when I tested the camera, the video came out black even though I had removed the lens cover. I sent a quick email to tech support and heard right back from the owner. He told me that he once made the same mistake — the iris in the camera was shut completely down, preventing any light from hitting the sensor. Duh Fred.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

350 Pounds Of Concrete Hanging On The Wall

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Fred at Shipping Container House in Panama

As I mentioned in my last post, the long shipping container wall in the living room/dining room/entry was calling out for some art. So Cynthia and I looked through our photos and found eight pictures of flowers that we had taken around the property. I uploaded the photos to AllPosters.com and received the prints a couple weeks later.

Now what to use for frames? Easy would be to buy some frames off the shelf at Machetazo or other local store. But as you know, this whole house project isn’t about easy. So, NO!

But what? With our concrete counter tops, benches, and shelves, well, why not concrete picture frames? That sounded exciting so I got right to work.

Last time, I posted the following photo of the form work for our concrete picture frames. I still needed to apply some strips of wood to make a recess in the back of the frame to receive the glass and pictures:

After I had the forms assembled, Armando mixed a rich (more cement than normal) batch of mortar and placed it in the forms.

Two days later, I pulled the forms. The new concrete frames looked quite good, but they had air holes and honeycomb here and there. They looked even better once we applied a coat of dark-gray grout to all the surfaces that would be seen. When the grout was dry, I sanded the frames smooth.

Next, Cynthia and I, each with a sponge, walked around the table a dozen times applying 24 coats of sealer as we made our rounds around the table:

Cynthia is putting the first coat of sealer on the first frame. Notice how the sealer darkens the grout that is spread on the surface of the frames.

The next photo shows the frames all sealed, although they still need to be fine sanded and one more coat of sealer applied. These things are heavy — fifty-pounds each! My next step of the process was to drill holes in the tops of the frames, tap in some plastic expanding anchors, and screw in heavy-duty hooks.

Now with the frames ready for hanging, I moved inside the house. Armando and I screwed a 20-foot length of sliding door track high on the wall.

We chose to hang these frame-beasts with chain hanging from wheels that I inserted into the sliding door track. Here is a photo of the wheels:

Note to self: Get a manicure.

Cynthia and I cut the chain and set the glass and photos in the frames.

With everything assembled, finally, we hung the frames on the chains and we were done.

Here are some shots of the photos mounted in the frames and the frames hanging on the wall:

The largest photo is 16″x20″ plus the two-times the width (almost 4-inches) of the frame, making it about 24″x28″. They are BIG but the wall can handle it.

Here is a panorama of the entire wall:

Ignore the curvature of the panoramic photo.

Now, isn’t that better than a huge blank wall?

We couldn’t be more pleased, and the whole project — enlargements, glass, wood for the forms, screws, sand/cement/sealer, door track, wheels ($14 each and we needed 14 of them), chain, and miscellaneous bits and pieces, and Armando’s labor sits at around the $500 mark plus about six person-days of work. It couldn’t have been easier!

Plus, we have one photo/frame left to hang in the half-bath off of the living room.

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

A Shipping Container House in Panama

How we're building a shipping container house in 200-plus easy blog post steps.

Tag Archives: expats in panama

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Featured

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Hung Out To Dry ~ Kitchen Cabinet Doors

Kitchen Cabinet Progress

Watching Wood Dry

Birdbath 2.0 Plus Kitchen Wood Procured

Essentially Electrifying

350 Pounds Of Concrete Hanging On The Wall