Through my window...

... I can see there's more than you and more than me. Through my window I can see our wildest dreams could be so real.
- Bunkface

 

See? Maybe a mountain on this side, to make it right? While I reach for the spices, the moon rises...

 

Or over here a rising sun, while having breakfast with our son. And a beach, right in our reach...

- Yours truly :)

You've gotta use your imagination for a while still to see through, but not for long. We just ordered three windows (Seitz S4) from Germany and they should be arriving soon! In addition to the kitchen and dining area windows, we ordered a small one for the toilet, to give the illusion of space in that 1m2 booth.

Can't wait for Riku to install them! :) We would have actually enjoyed the sun already while working had we had the dining area window, since that side is facing south.

Here's an example of our window:

 www.woelcke.de

The windows have integrated curtains and mosquito nets. We are also considering the fridge and stove in the picture.

Have a great week!

/ Tiina

Planning planning

Last weekend we finally got round to marking all the spots of the structures and furniture inside the container. We have a nice layout made for us by the local carpenters and we decided to test it in real size. The weather has been great for the past week and the morning sun warmed up the top of the container wonderfully when we were inside at 9 AM :) The light was good even without any windows or lamps, the spring in Finland can be pretty awesome (or maybe it's just that it comes after the dark winter...).

Checking the measurements on the iPad

Morning light

Making sure the bed is big enough

Here comes the kitchen

Inspite the pics, I actually helped :) Next phase: measuring out the perfect sized windows, and then getting some to Finland!

/ Tiina

Truck at the shop

There has finally been some progress in the project after a slowish winter. We took the truck to a guy we know from the Volvo circles.

There it goes!

And there it is, at the shop

The container followed on a trailer. Our guy designed and built the subframe and we are really happy with the result! The subframe sits on a three-point mounting with the pivot at the back.

 

Of course the colors could possibly match even better...

The truck itself got some taking care of as well. The front middle seat was installed (it was lacking, but it'll be nice to be able to travel with everyone in front, if we want to). Also the back supports of the other front seat and the back seat were missing and got installed as well.

Our guy took the combo to the vehicle inspection, which is mandatory in Finland. Suprise suprise, it didn't pass!

So now we are waiting for some magic to happen :) Hopefully at the next inspection everything will be OK.

We will start working on the container when we get the truck back on our yard and the weather warms up a bit. We had a warm winter and now a slow spring. We bought 3D-plans for the interior design from our local carpenters, so we have great guidelines and measurements to start working with. The next purchase is probably going to be the windows.

Hopefully there will be some developments soon!

Have a great spring!

/ Tiina

Finally: it's clean!

The cleaning of the container wasn't as quick, easy or nice as we'd hoped. Naturally. I wanted to do it all myself, but after scrubbing the walls and the tracks (which really killed my fingers), the roof proved to be a bit much for my strength. I cleaned it though, but the result wasn't satisfactory, so Riku had to come in after me and scrub it again...

The walls I managed with one washing agent, one cloth and a screw-driver, but the floor wasn't co-operating as much. After a few hours of testing two different agents and a sponge (on one square meter of floor) we decided to wait over the weekend and go buy some real nasty stuff and a better sponge. Happily we know someone who used to work as a cleaner, so we got a good tip.

Well. As you probably guessed, the floor doesn't quite look as new. It will be nicer to walk on the floor from now on though. The water was pretty black...
But I finally got rid of that project. After being satisfied with the result of the final cleaning agent, it only took me two hours to clean the floor. On all fours of course. (I could definitely relate to Cinderella, after reading it as a bedtime story for a few nights...)

Before (the part next to the floor is already cleaned):

After:

  

Yep. Definitely worth the effort :)

Container clear-out

So, the keys arrived and we got a peak into the container! It was pretty full of stuff. This pictures the stuff inside after the desks and shelves were removed:

In total Riku cleared out four of these drawers below, several shelves, desks, lamps, heater and lots of electrical stuff (including a 60 kg transformer). Some of them went into storage, in case we figure out a way to use them in the final product, some Riku sold as scrap metal.

There were four of these mounting tracks, bolted into the walls and floor. We will probably think of some use for these in the future:

After the clear-out Riku cleaned the floor from all the screws, nuts and other small parts. They amounted to one bucket and it appeared to be my job to sort them.

This is how far I got on the pre-Christmas Friday. Then Christmas got in the way and the bottom of the bucket is still waiting for me.

Now we are in the middle of cleaning the container. We are thinking about whether to paint it or leave it the lovely pastel minty color...

The mounting tracks are a pain to clean, but I'll get there. And the floor will be an interesting challenge...

/ Tiina

How it all began

Time to start!
First, who are we? I'm Tiina, a museum educator who doesn't know that much about cars (or trucks). My husband Riku has just gotten his truck driving licence. Our son is Leo, born in 2009, very much into trucks. We live in Espoo, where there aren't that many fire trucks converted into adventure trucks. Hopefully one day there will at least be one. We are novices at this kind of thing, but hey, one's gotta try and follow one's dreams! Right?

We used to own a Swedish military Volvo C303. Riku drove some off-road with it and I stood by in the forest and was afraid for him. It wasn't exactly what we wanted though and was quite (read: very) expensive to use. So we sold it and started looking for a true off-road truck. And the offroading will be a little less intimidating :)

Here is the Volvo:

I think the first spark for an adventure truck comes from Riku's childhood. We didn't actually do anything about that spark until the winter of 2007 when we visited our friend in Arizona and drove up to T-Lo's to check out his cool place. And this is where the spark has gotten us:

After years of considering the options, we decided to try and do this ourselves. We found a very nice fire truck from North Carelia that we went to check out two weeks ago. And a lucky coincidence was that also a great Bundeswehr Zeppelin container was for sale in northern Germany. So now Riku is coming home with the truck and the container should be on our backyard in a couple of weeks.

Welcome to an adventure of (our) lifetime!

- Tiina