Planning and getting started!
So we had a list of stuff we wanted (see the last post, some sensible and other frivolous!). Now was the time to get planning the layout. Now I can procrastinate with the best of them and could probably spend months tinkering the layout. Sometimes you just need to get on with it, in the immortal words of the famous sports brand - Just do it! You can always make adjustments later, after all I doubt a project like this will ever be fully complete.
We knew the first job was to strip out all the horsey paraphernalia! This would give us a blank canvas, check for horse wee damage and remove a lot of weight! We managed to sell all the stalls and heavy rubber mats - so more money into the build pot! The back 2 floor sheets were rotten so had to be replaced along with the wood for the ramp. We used 25mm ply for the floor but didn't go for Marine ply as it was double the price. We sealed the wood so hopefully should last a few years. There were some patches that needed repairing where water had rotted the side panels but we could just cut out and patch as we would be covering with insulation and then thin ply. The best thing about doing something like this is you get to ask for tools for your birthday managed to add a 900w generator, fantastic multitool and a nail gun to the collection - still all the gear - no idea!!!
One of the reasons we chose a horse lorry over say a removal lorry is they tend to have a habitation area already. We did toy with moving the wall between the habitation area and the horse area but it turned out to be a bit structural. At one point we even considered creating a 'hallway' opposite the side door so we could have a large cupboard. As part of our discussions about layout we decided we would like to have a shower as well as a toilet. This meant there wasn't enough room for the hallway and a shower so this idea was shelved. One of the major issues is the amount of storage when you build your own vehicle. The kitchen units were in fairly good condition and the worktop was solid wood. We did need to move the kitchen to get insulation behind the units. Of course the worktop didn't go back exactly how it should but then they never do!
While Rachel was going through her treatment there was definitely an element of therapy about making BoobyDo. You are constantly researching stuff, thinking about stuff and there is invariably a lot of things that need twatting with a massive hammer! It was hard going, we were building without power other than a 900 watt briefcase generator and during the winter on a muddy dairy farm. At one point Rachel turned to me and said “I would hate to see the project we took on if I wasn’t having Chemo!”
Obviously after a diagnosis like Rachel’s there is a lot of anger and the words ‘why us?’ get uttered a lot. Of course the obvious answer is why not us, what makes us so special that stuff like this shouldn’t happen. So tinged with these feelings and the utter frustration of doing stuff every day you have never done before we were massively excited about what adventures we could have. I constantly say that converting BoobyDo is equally the most frustrating and most rewarding thing I have ever done.
As I said above we did toy with stripping out the internal wall between the habitation area and the horse stalls. But when we realised this was helping with the structural integrity. The false back wall position was dictated by the dimensions of the ‘Big Green Egg’ Komado style grill we had (much more about that later). This just left the decision of where the bathroom was going to go? The two options were opposite the side door or against the rear wall. So to finalise the layout there were 2 major options, using software like sketch up or just getting some large graph paper out. Even though I am an obsessive geek I really couldn’t afford the time to have a learning curve for the software. Ours was a fairly simple layout, unlike a smaller van where there is a myriad of options. So out came the graph paper and on with the layout as I had enough to learn without adding a software package to the list!
Before doing any building we had some wood to replace, so while the floor was up we decided to rub down the tops of the chassis rails and cover them in Waxoyl. This is one of those horrible but necessary jobs. If I was to do this again I would use an angle grinder with a stripping wheel and prime the metal and then waxoyl it.
And finally one of the best moves we ever did was to go round all the builders merchants and suss them out. The first we tried made us feel stupid and constantly said things like ‘your doing what!’ Or ‘it’s not called that’ so we didn’t got there very often. We found an amazing builders merchant that would talk us through what we were planning and even suggested other ways of doing it. He was constantly recommending things that would work just as well but were cheaper. They even had free delivery to the farm we were working on. Having a builders merchant that doesn’t make you feel stupid is a godsend! Anyway that is the planning and prep done so next stage is get on with the build!