Our first build - a vardo

[kudzu]

Lovely!!

[flbikejunkie]

Impressive!

[lgatlin]

Now that the roof on the house is done, and all the tools resorted and restored, we wanted to get the roof on the vardo sorted. We went with a canvas/TBII method -- first we skinned the whole thing with plywood, running it in 2' wide sections down the curved sides, covering the seams with 2" wide strips of plywood glued and nailed. Caulked the whole thing, then got some 4 x 8' tarps from Harbor Freight to use for our canvas top. I liked how heavy the canvas was, and the 4' wide strips matched our spacing.



Gluing it down went pretty smoothly, we have little bits here and there that we had to piece, but since it's all going to be overhead, mostly out of view, we didn't fret too much about the little patches here and there. We did the two curved sides, then ran a piece over the center.



Before we ran the center piece, we first did the overhang of the skylight and the curve where the center panel meets the sides. This is where most of the patchwork went, but again, from the ground it's not visible, so as long as the patches covered any seams, we were A-OK with it.



In the pic above, you can see the wire stub we left - we ran wire up before we finished off the roof, we are going to add solar panels on the top of the skylight, so again, no worries about seams since it's not visible and it'll be covered up with solar panels. We also added the curved end boards, pieced from 1 x 6s, and ran the canvas up on those, as well as on top of the side boards. Before we attached the plywood, we ran some freeze/thaw for the bottom 8" as a way to help keep moisture out.

After we got the canvas all adhered, I painted a coat of thinned TBII over the whole surface, and inspected the adhesion. The only place we struggled with was the concave curve at either end of the skylight, as the canvas shrank with moisture, it wanted to pull up there, so we weighted that down with sandbags overnight while it was wet, and it was all glued down nicely this morning. I coated the whole roof with acrylic gesso, which is what us artists use as a primer for painting on canvas - I had a gallon of it, and it's acrylic and nice and thick, and meant to provide a stable barrier for oil paint and acrylic, so I figured it would be a good start. I also gave it one coat of exterior latex that I had around the house, and I am hoping to give it two more coats tomorrow.



originally, my idea for the final paint job was an overall pattern, but I really like the ridges, so I have a new plan that will incorporate those. With any luck, I'll get the roof painted this week, unless it looks like it might rain. We also fitted the stained glass into place in the sides, using the same cool hinges - those were so great, I so appreciate the suggestion! I ordered some really cool latches but am making adjustments on how to install them, so the windows are still being held in place by a temporary toggle.

Since we couldn't work on the vardo last week while we were getting our house roof replaced, I brought in the doors and did the decorative paint on them, working at the kitchen table. Last I posted, you could see how ridiculously red those doors were -- but I knew they'd get toned down. Here are the painted doors, I laid them down together on the driveway to see how they look together --



I am going to do the same type of flower painting along the black upper boards on the vardo, and I have a lot of stencils I want to incorporate as well. The birds are a favorite subject for me, so I had my husband pick two (he choose blue jay and cardinal), and I chose two (crow and seagull). The visual theme for the paint on the outside will be nature, with lots of flowers, birds, butterflies, etc --



The top still has a space open for a mosaic:


I have a cheapie brass pocket compass coming via ebay, and I'll find other fun bits and pieces to put up there, and then I'll use black grout to fill in the spaces. After I got the decorative painting done, I gave it a coat of spray acrylic to protect the paint, then washed it down with a thinned coat of black paint to give it an antique look. That toned down the red considerably, and I'm happy with the doors. The strap hinges I have will cover some of the flower painting, but that is OK.

I also did a little testing out of some of my stencils - I added some clouds (my husband's idea, it was a good suggestion) to the sun/moon, and added the borders as well:


I still have to paint the soffit and the end board here. I also added some gold highlights and tried out a couple of stencils on the window next to the door:



So ...that's where we're at this week. My goal this week is to get the roof painted, get those windows made for the skylight, then install the door and get this place weather-tight. We've also picked up a couple of furniture pieces free on Craigslist that we'll be re-purposing for the interior, so that's a fun project in our future, after we figure out the layout and the electrical --

[dales133]

Verry nice.
Glad the hinges worked again for you.
If you need help with the latches ask away.
Artwork and roof are both looking awsum

[lgatlin]

If you need help with the latches ask away.

OK -- any suggestions? I got these:

http://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/window-hardware-rat-tail-casement-latch?sc=12&category=81


I had to add a small wooden piece to the bottom of the window frame to fit them. But now my problem is that the "tongue" that catches is too long to fit the included strike plates (they're meant to have more space between, but for my application, they are a little more flush). Even mortising them in leaves them too close to fit. I'll have to send pics if this doesn't make sense. anyway, if you have any other ideas, I could always use these elsewhere. I really like them, they're whimsical but I'm getting a little frustrated that every solution I come up with seems to have yet another issue!

This morning I put the 5th coat of paint on the roof. I've got a lot of reports due at work so I may not get to the decorative painting til later in the week, but it feels solid and smooth, and I hope, watertight.

[dales133]

Id need some pics of how you want to install it.
It needs a million the thickness of the lenth of the tounge on the latch itself at least to use the raised striker plate or alternately a decent thickness sill to use the second option but you should be able to make one of them work without to much troble

[noseoil]

Can the tongue be shaved (re-profiled) to allow for the smaller space & still have enough grab to work? A grinder might take care of it if done carefully. Is the radius too large now with the block in place?

[S. Heisley]

It just keeps getting better!

[lgatlin]

So here's what I have -- I made a small addition to the bottom of the window frame, so I can attach the latch. But the tongue is too long. I've marked below where the groove would need to be cut -- which is substantially longer than the groove in the plate. I'm thinking of shaving the tongue off some -- using a grinder -- or, just cutting a groove into the sill. I've got the thickness to work with there, so that won't be a problem. I think I'd need to add a metal plate at least at the outside edge.


The nice thing is that this wooden addition gives me something to use to pull the window shut. I think even if I shave the tongue off some, it'll still be a challenge to get it to fit into the slot, since the pieces are going to be so close, but I might have to give that a try.

[dales133]

If you have a router you could route a slot easily,you could even do a combination of both cutting a slot and cutting a bit off the latch then rounding it off again.
Looking good tbough,your on the right track

[DrewsBrews]

I thought all this had been thoroughly tested

[rebapuck]

I love everything you've done. I wonder if you will enjoy using the vardo as much as you have in the making of it.

[lgatlin]

I love everything you've done. I wonder if you will enjoy using the vardo as much as you have in the making of it.

I was just thinking that yesterday. I personally enjoy the building/decorating part, and my husband likes the problem-solving and the buying new tools part. When we don't have a project of some kind or another going, we get kind of stir crazy -- so I wonder if we'll ever kick back enough to really just relax in nature and enjoy it!

[dales133]

I'm gonna be stir crazy when mines finished...

[lgatlin]

We got the canvas up and 5 coats of paint on -- the texture is minimal, although in pictures it looks like more texture than it actually has. The final coat of paint was a cream color, which is the background color for my design. I originally was going to do an all-over diamond pattern in tan, but decided to rework my idea because I wanted to accent the bands. So I figured my diamond size, then painted all the diamonds on with some leftover house paint in a darker brown -- and it looked kind of stark. So to soften up the diamonds, I decided to stencil over them with the tan I was originally planning on using. It might have made more sense to just use the tan for the diamonds to begin with, but I seem to lack both sense and the ability to do the easy thing. So I cut a stencil to match the diamonds. here are some of my stencils -- some I bought, some I cut:


I made the strategic error of letting my husband pick the blue for the bands. He likes much more intense colors than I do, and it looked a little like electric blue coming down the bands, so I had to tone them down and blend some black in. Here's what the finished design looks like:



I added a green leaf stencil to the blue - -the green is close to the same color as the body of the vardo. So this took about 2 days more of painting than I had figured, what with filling in about 130 diamonds in with stencils, adding in little details, and doing a ton of touch ups since I'm also a pretty messy painter. We've been having heavy dew and I painted a little too late one evening, and when I went out the next day, much of the blue had run down and puddled on the ground. Grrr, so I had to repaint that, too. But I got it all finished this afternoon, with plenty of time in the sun to cure, and time for a coat of poly over the whole thing. hopefully all the paint will remain on the roof tonight. (up until last night, I hadn't had any problems -- in fact, although the entire roof was wet, it was clearly beading up and running off. It feels completely watertight -- there was water standing in one small grove and on the flat part of the roof, in a little puddle. yay!)



So now I have a ton more paint to do on the upper borders -- I need to tape lines and get those tidied up. Like I said, the texture isn't as pronounced as it is in this picture above - it feels much more rubbery than it looks in this picture. I had no problem keeping clean lines (well, clean for me).



Still have to get the windows for up top made, and I am hoping to get the door hung tomorrow. We also have a lot of weeds growing in the front yard, so I may have to take a day to get that taken care of ---

We've had some curious neighbors stopping by. They can see a hint of the project over our fence, and they are wondering what in the heck we are up to. We always invite them in to take a look, they usually leave a little dazed. The guy next door said, "You're going to camp in this?" ummm...yep, that's why we're making it. Doesn't help that there's no interior, and just the foam insulation. The neighbors across the street have been enjoying the development - they're retired and seem to be using their kitchen table as a lookout to watch us work. I think we're going to have to have an open house after we get this finished.