conceptualizing a vardo - plumbing

a great place to start looking for things designed to take less space: travel
but i don't mean travel sized shampoo and toothpaste. if you want to make a compact well equipped travel vehicle, like a vardo-not-the-own-in-sweden, look to the history of the travel vehicle
TRAINS!

please take a look back in time with me at the pullman car

http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/pullman-fold-down-wash-basin-vanity-sink-railroad

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pullman-office-desk-and-sink.jpg



that's right - fold up/down sinks. i mean, if you have to make a teeny tiny itty bitty bathroom, why not move things out of the way when you don't need them? a sink that folds up into a few flat inches is ideal.

this reminds me - there's a row of cabooses here in town on the side of an embankment on unused track. currently they are graffito canvases but i wonder if i could ever find the owner and afford to buy one?.... *google* - huh, looks like there was an article about them just a couple of weeks ago and they are for sale

http://www.newsobserver.com/midtownraleighnews/story/1660789.html

clay and trees

things i noticed i have in abundance: clay and trees.
and a bit of space with some shade.

my thoughts on this include seeing if one of those two downed [fallen, not cut] trees lying back in the far end of my long rectangular half acre are still useable for support.

i'd really like to take a couple of those young trees out there and build a log bench set in cob between them and splice opposing branches into each other. obviously i'll need to find two or three young trees with similar growth schedules.

and not too far away a cob oven/fireplace.

of course first it has to be cooler weather out and maybe even into fall so some of the scrubby underbrush and toxic horse nettles die off. and i need to find the edges of the septic tank and drainfield- would be rather silly to build a clay oven on top of a drainfield!

good thing bales of wheat straw are less than $5 around here

repurposed

my kitchen is big. i like that about it but also, it can be inconvenient.
i found that when i had accidentally left a couple of storage bins stacked in the middle that they were in just the right spot for a kitchen island. so they stayed. and stayed and stayed.
i thought.... i should just see about a real one.
checked craigslist for free ones, thought about building one but all the wooden pallets i could find posted were gone before i got there.

then i did my usual weekend thrift store run to look for cat carriers and bookcases.
and there it was



once upon a time it was a dresser. the price tag labeled it a dresser [as well as showing it marked down by $10.] it was in between two other dressers.

but... it has a towel bar and kitchen countertop style top!.... huh? the cashier said it was marked down because it had been there a while, no one wanted it because of the countertop and the towel bar. i told her it was going to be my new kitchen island. she said that sounded about perfect since it had come out of a dorm where it had been used as a mini kitchenette center - which explains the burn mark on one end of the countertop.


it even looks good with my cabinets. perfect height since i want it to be taller than it is now and intend to add wheels.

the drawers are exactly tall enough to hold my measuring cups and corningware. [the poor corningware and baking dishes had been living at the cabinets at the far end of the kitchen]


so now i have a place to put the things that don't fit in the other cabinets near the stove, a piece of countertop wide and deep enough to roll out dough on and a place to put my laptop when i need to research a recipe that still keeps my keyboard away from spills and splatters.

reminds me of the time i used the frames for underbed drawers as display shelves/bookcases by standing them on end. always see past what it used to be or what it's intended for and see what you can make of it