To end the times of living in my car, a tiny wooden cabin was purchased. It will serve as temporary home, and later as visitor's cabin. It arrived in the form of a truck loaded with wooden boards, insulation material, roofing, a bathtub, and lots of other materials. Here is my future little cabin!
The next day, the three workers started by measuring the ground levels at the construction site.
After setting the foundation blocks, the place looks a bit like a cemetery!
The floor structure is laid down.
Under some fog, floor planking proceeds, while at the same time the wall structures are built.
The external wall structures are almost ready.
Now the roofing structure is added, and the thing starts looking like a house!
The roof gets its cover. Aluminium-zinc plated steel, with some fiberglass under it for sound damping (otherwise the rain gets too loud for comfort!), and tar paper for condensation control.
Under the roof, the electrican and his two sons installed all the conduit and wiring in a matter of two hours.
Meanwhile, the other workers are paneling the outside, also using tar paper to stop wind, water and condensation.
Even some of the details have already been added.
The inside is still a bit tarry black!
But then the styrofoam insulation and inner planking is added.
After just barely one week of work, the house looks like this! It shall be finished in another week.
The plumbing for cold and hot water, and gas, has been installed. The water pipes have some slope, to allow draining them if the house will not be used in winter, to prevent freezing and pipe bursting.
The windows are being installed.
The last finishing touches, and the house is ready!
The three workers built the complete house in exactly ten days!
After completing the house, we held a barbecue with the workers, their boss, their families and me.
And then I moved in, even if my furniture is still in my old flat, 1300km away from here. This is my bedroom. Sorry, I still mean my "sleeping bag room"!
The kitchen is still a bit simplistic.
Since there is no running water yet, I had to shower using my car shower: A contanainer with 12V electrical heater and a shower head!
But then I installed water! That story is here.
I soon planned moving my stuff from La Serena to my paradise. So I travelled there, and contacted several moving companies. Most had no truck available anytime soon, and some had but were asking outrageous prices. Finally I got a reasonable price, and a promise to immediately send a truck, from a company in Concepcion. I had to pay in advance. And then, the truck didn't come. When I called, the secretary told me that it had a problem and would certainly arrive next day. Oh well. Next day it didn't come either. Nor the following day. At that time, the secretary was asking me to stop calling, because there was nothing she could do to make the truck come! When I kept calling, she offered to return my money and dissolve the deal. Oh well. I said yes and started looking for another truck.
My friend and ex-workmate Jorge owns a truck, and normally has it carrying fruit and other stuff. It's an open truck, certainly not the best for moving my belongings over dusty roads! But at least Jorge is reliable, and the truck was available, for an acceptable price, so I said yes.
I had already started packing. Here is my former living room, some things still at their usual places, other things in boxes, antennas on the floor.
The big desk in my radio shack was already halfways dismantled:
Meanwhile the boxes were piling up.
We took an afternoon until night, and then most of the next day, to finish packing everything and load it on the truck. As work progressed, it looked like the truck would overflow much before the flat even started getting empty! Well, I have to admit, I like to collect stuff! :-)
And here you can see the truck, loaded and being checked up for the long, long trip!
One of the biggest worries was how to pack my model airplane. In the end, we didn't pack it! I just tied it on top of the truck, above the canvas cover, using a table as support structure. With the tail well aligned to the airstream, there should be no problem!
Another worry were my satellite crossed Yagi antennas. They also traveled atop the canvas, behind the plane.
We arrived at my paradise after driving for 24 hours, with just three hours in between for some sleep. So excuse me if I don't have any more photos from the trip! We were just too tired. A help party from the Radio Club Temuco came up and unloaded the truck. Without them, we would have been in a big problem, because both the driver and I were too tired to do much useful work, much less unload several tons of fragile cargo!
How many things were broken, you might ask? Well, the model airplane arrived in perfect condition, the antennas only lost a few elements, my several hundred radio tubes arrived in perfect condition, the CD collection too, the CD cabinet was scratched a little, all glassware arrived well, even a very fragile antique burner. But my sofa was broken in half! Go figure!
And now I have to add a nasty comment: The moving company from Concepcion kept delaying the return of my money. Only when I started legal action, on the last day of the time span given they returned it.
Back to Implementing my paradise.