Bus Build - Part 2
Week two (August 21-27, 2018) of the build was full of excitement, lots of measuring, and crawling on the floor screwing in countless amounts of screws.
I began this week with installing new insulation in the half wall below the windows. Thankfully I was raised in a family that owned an insulation contracting business and installing this sort of came naturally to me. The difficult part was sitting on the floor in a bus that was baking in the 95º weather. It was ridiculously hot inside the bus this week while installing the new interior. It was nice to start to see progress with this build when I got the plywood over the insulation. Seeing what a finished product will look like is always satisfying.
Making these cutouts was not on my list of tasks that i was excited to do, again it was a part of this build that I was unsure of how a finished job would look, or if I would just be wasting my time. Again it was me running all the possible outcomes over in my head before committing to a design we liked. I was so thankful that the existing cutouts were easily removed to be traced because the thought of measuring and cutting new shapes would have been a nightmare.
The pictures show what it looked like before and after the new inserts were installed. The current Blue Sparrow Truck has pallet wood installed behind the prep area and it is an aesthetic that most people compliment on when they eat at the truck. We wanted to carry over some of the feel of our other truck into the bus, and I think this was a nice way to do so. I typically don't like the printed designs on wall board, but this on seemed to fit what we were going for. The product was really easy to work with and the window trim was still flexible enough to pull over for a night fit. Once again this is something that I never would have been prepared for, but I'm happy with the results.
Getting the new floor installed was a fun adventure. The tin snips in the picture above made the job easier and also game me forearms of steel. I know there are better and more efficient ways of cutting metal (i.e. nibbler, circular saw, etc) but these are what i had on hand, and there is something satisfying about cutting through 30' lengths of metal with giant scissors. This was also a throw back to the business my family use to run where we would have to install gutters, soffit, and facia and cutting aluminum was an everyday thing. I like that it is like a puzzle that needs to be cut and build properly to fit right.
We were able to salvage the original trim that was holding the green flooring down from post 1 and we are glad we did because it looks great with the new flooring. This is a roll out metal diamond plate floor that we researched and love. It will make a great floor for the kitchens to be installed on. It also will make cleaning easier when we get this bus up and serving food.
One of our goals for this bus is to keep the original look on the outside as much as possible. It is a classing looking vehicle and we want that to be something that people can connect with, The inside we are hoping will become a fully and easily functional kitchen.
At the end of the week we were blessed to have two friend JC and Becky come out to the bus and bring us a large sampling of their favorite Mediterranean food. I cannot right now remember the name of the place, but when I do I will add it back to this post. This food was delicious, it was also the first meal had on the Blue Sparrow Bus. These two are awesome people who visit the current food truck on a weekly basis. We are so thankful to have people like them interested in our next adventure.
Stay tuned for more on this fun build! Next up I am going to be sanding the ceiling and the walls, treating the wood with stain and poly, and moving equipment in.