Gypsy Wagon, Part II

After RanchHand's trailer frame was built, he and Dave began building the wood floor for the wagon. The base of the floor and some insulation sits inside the metal trailer supports, and is flush with the metal frame. The wood floor then covers the metal frame and insulation.

(Number One, "helping.")

Once the floor was in, RanchHand and Dave began working on the frames for the walls. The wood walls had to sit inside the metal framework, a fairly close fit so the wood could be bolted to the metal. This involved some accurate measuring and re-measuring, lots of discussion and even a bit of father-son bickering. You understand.

RanchHand & Dave

They built the walls off of the wagon frame, which meant that it needed to be lifted into the metal frame on the trailer a few times to make sure everything was the right size before it was finally attached. Lifting the whole thing on and off took about four guys.


Dave primed beaded board before putting it on the outside of the camper base, which will give the camper an authentic "gypsy" look.

It turned out quite nicely. I really like bead board.

Here is the template they created for the door wall on the end.

After the camper base was completed, things started moving more quickly.

Stay tuned for more!

Gypsy Wagons

RanchHand has built several gypsy wagons, and his son Dave decided that he wanted one too. RanchHand and Dave have been working on building Dave's gypsy wagon all winter long. (It's about time for these posts since the wagon is getting close to being done, but I'll still break it up a bit so it's not too long).

RanchHand has a love of making gypsy wagons. He likes the style of them and the fancy little details, which may seem incongruous because RanchHand is a big guy. But he has been a woodworker for more than 30 years, so he's got some skills.

I haven't seen the first gypsy wagon he made. He ended up giving it to a mother and daughter who were friends of his.

The second wagon lived in our barn for a little while, then found its way to RanchHand's youngest son and his wife. I don't have any pictures of that one either, but I can tell you it was the first gypsy wagon RanchHand made with a collapsible frame. That's right, he made the thing from scratch and it folded up for travel! It's really quite amazing. It actually works!

Below is the third wagon RanchHand made. They are all so cute with the little details, and quite practical; this one folds up too!


Each camper has been different than the one before, as he tries out different ways of raising and lowering things, improves on ideas and changes or discards others.

You can see how this one folds down to make it better for traveling.

This wagon lives in front of RanchHand's little house,where it is used for a guest house. RanchHand also hauls it up to the mountain during the summer so he and Wifey can stay in it.

Last year, CG hired RanchHand to build a Cowgirl Camper for her, and he whipped up the one below in a little over a month. Stylistically, it is simpler than the other wagons he's made, and is "boxy," which is one reason he prefers the style of his other wagons. This camper doesn't collapse either, but it suits CG's purposes just fine, by giving her a nice little private space away from the cowboys and the dirt up on the mountain.



To start these wagons, RanchHand hires a guy to make a custom trailer first. This way the things will travel smoothly, be safe going down the road, and it's just smart to hire out the base of the project unless you happen to be a custom trailer maker.

Here is the frame they ended up with for Dave's wagon:


Those four vertical posts will support the wagon walls and frame, which will be entirely made out of wood.

In the next Gypsy Wagon post, you'll see the wood floor go in and part of the walls go up!

Sheep Camps

Back in January, I told y'all that I would elaborate on the winter projects of both Number One and RanchHand. Well folks, the time has finally come...

Number One received this sheep camp for his birthday several years ago, and has been planning to strip it down to the frame and refurbish it.


He's been thinking about designs and methods and details, and the camp has been sitting outside the barn for a couple months now while RanchHand works on his project. As you can see, he has his work cut out for him.


Soon, he'll move it inside the barn and get started. Someday, it will be a lovely little guest room!

Number One also has his eye on another old wagon frame--the one that got carried away in The Flood of '07. Aapparently I didn't blog about it here, but rather on our private family blog, so here is a picture of the heavy old wagon just a-floatin' away.


Here's where it landed in the trees. Can you see it?


I honestly didn't think it would be easy for Number One to extricate the wagon from all the flood debris in which it came to rest.


Number One did have to lift the wagon up with the forks on the tractor to free it from the mud and tree limbs, but he said it wasn't too bad.


Once he had it pulled up out of the mud, he was able to tow that wagon up to the barn as well. Now it is standing in line, waiting to be made into a sheep camp. Someday, the wagon will be a guest room as well!

After Number One has practiced on those two sheep camps, he will build one for us, from scratch, that will be able to travel to the mountain and beyond...

Log House BEFORE

I honestly don't know how much longer we can keep calling our house "The Log House." The logs were covered with bat and board last summer, so unless you've been here before then, you wouldn't know which house on the ranch was made of logs. But that is beside the point.

Work on Phase II: The Interior of our addition on the log house has begun, and if I don't blog about it NOW it will all be over! I can't believe how fast everything is moving along. We thought the work would begin on February 2nd, so we were rushing to move into the bunkhouse, as you may recall. But it actually started about a week later. Luckily there was plenty of time to finish up moving and cleaning and take these Before pictures.

This is the living room BEFORE. And yes, there are some odds and ends that we just didn't know what to do with...luggage, some other stuff. But this gives you some scale to demonstrate exactly how, um, spacious it was...

Directly through the living room is our kitchen (right, obviously) and dining room (left). The sliding glass doors used to lead outside. I took this picture standing near the front door, as tight into the corner of the living room as I could get. You understand when I used the word spacious earlier, I was being facetious.

Below, looking through the living room in the opposite direction, the boxes and table are in the old dining room, and the hallway leads to the three teeny bedrooms, bathroom and laundry rooms. Still more odds and ends...an old (perfectly good but outgrown) car seat, and to the right of that you can see the porthole that used to take the wood stove chimney up and out of the house. Now it just leads into H-Bomb's old bedroom (and yes, a small child can fit through there, but we've discouraged it).



Above, and a couple pictures below, is our old kitchen in its entirety. Hard to believe that this little kitchen launched The Bad Girl's Kitchen recipe blog, and most of the fabulous recipes therein. (wait until you see our new one!)




Finally, there is the old playroom, which the boys call "H-Bomb's Old Room." It has taken turns as a nursery/guest room/playroom/workroom, but now it will become the sitting area in our new master bedroom suite.


We might have to change the light fixture though...


We aren't doing anything in the existing bathroom but adding a tube skylight and an exhaust fan, and the laundry will be untouched as well. The existing master bedroom will become the boys' room, with plenty of room for bunk beds and toys, and the existing boys' room will become a guest room/office type space. I think. We aren't changing anything in those rooms either, although they did get new windows last year in Phase I.