El Ranch ISO

Trailer detour

We firmly expected to be knee deep in container world by now.... However, there is this tiny detail  about ordering and manufacturing the necessary elements. It seems that the manufacturing people can't wave a magic wand to get us everything in 2 days. Hmmm. Bummer.

It is going to take about a month to get the SIP panels and we have not yet been able to weld the frame due to the county-wide burn ban. We should be welding within a week or two but we are now facing scheduling hassles as access is impossible when it rains. We need rain and are happy to see it, but getting trucks to the site is impossible for 2-3 days after moderate rain.

The containers have been purchased and are sitting in a yard waiting to come to the site.  We will have them delivered as soon as we get the Bobcat out there to make the access a little wider. Even then, the roll-off truck will not be able to get all the way to the building site. We will have to tow the containers the last 1/4 mile. There are a couple of options for doing that and it shouldn't be difficult to do. If we have to rent a lift, we found one for $300 per day that will work but right now it looks like we can just pull them in. We will decide what to do after we see how skillful the delivery driver is and how far away they end up after he dumps them.

So, we have decided to use the time to gut the nasty trailer. Apparently, there is a whole community of fans of 1950's travel trailers. There are many resources for information on restoring them. We don't really want to restore the trailer, we're just interested in gutting it, making it water tight and semi-clean inside so that we can use it for storage.

That's the plan anyway.

A Whole lotta lot

This is what we started with-

The lot is on the edge of a very large 12,000+ acres) ranch property about 110 miles West of Dallas . The cabin site is at the lakefront and is about 1 acre. There are no paved roads for the last 2 miles of the drive across the ranch. There are gravel/dirt roads but the last 200 yards is very difficult to reach without the use of a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Click on photos to enlarge-

Someone left a 1951 Glider Travel Trailer on the property. It has been sitting undisturbed by humans for over 15 years. However, it has been frequently disturbed by non-humans. They lived, they procreated and some of them died there. The trailer is disgusting but makes a handy marker when wandering around looking for the place. Verdict- Keep until no longer necessary. Possibly gut and refurbish provided a ample supply of laborers agree to enter what is basically a toxic waste dump environment for low pay.

The site is about an acre. It faces the lake and the view looked like this before it was cleared:

The lake front looks like this:

Drawings? NO WAY!

So, do we have a drawing? Sure we do. This is the best we can do. In our mind's eye, it's really cool. We swear.

El Rancho ISO is here

The El Rancho ISO project, also known as La Casa Bighair is underway.
Goal- make a decent playhouse out of 2 20' retired shipping containers, some other stuff and a bunch of mistakes. Our motto? "WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN ARCHITECTS"

(*****Dear Architects,

PLEASE do not misconstrue the comment above as an indication of disrespect for your profession. I am a professional too and many people disrespect both me and my chosen career on a regular basis so I know that sucks. Anyway, my point is that I want to make this up just to see if I can do it. Probably ill advised but whatever. I'll call you later, after I get myself into trouble. That's what MY clients do so it only seems fair... FYI)

The whole idea of re-purposing discarded containers as housing is an area of growing interest.  We like the idea of making all of this a low impact project that can be removed with little trace that it ever existed. We will be using solar energy technology, green building techniques when possible and if we feel like it and we generally want to experiment with any idea that pops into our little head.
(DISCLAIMER- the use of the word "we" is generally a royal we as it is actually I because none of my typical "we" people want to help me with this idea and are sick of hearing about it.)

There is really only one question that counts....

If a container falls apart in the wilderness, does it make a sound?

So, you want to see it huh?
So do we. We're getting there.

We will attempt to keep a progress diary on the march to completion.

First, a little history...

Items on hand-

1 acre lakeside site complete with boat dock
1 surrounding ranch- large size, even for Texas
2 20' ISO Shipping Containers
Some oilfield pipe of various sizes and shapes
Access to welding equipment
Some bags of concrete
Rattlesnakes (quantity unknown)

Photos of lot to follow