Hack #13: Weather Protection

We actually do have a garage, but it's one of those 40s vintage single-car, gravel-floored numbers that barely fits a regular car. Rather than putting a car in it, my son and I built a climbing wall. That's really a much better use for it, anyway.

Here's our wall:

The thing about living in the Pacific Northwest is that moss grows on everything that isn't moving, and/or isn't covered up. We weren't diggin' the thought of that on our new teardrop, so we picked up one of those huge temporary structures from Costco. In order to make room for it, I needed to reroute the fence between our yard and the yard and fenceline of our little rental house behind us (in which our son and his family live). That way, I could place the structure in the most invisible spot (from the street) between our garage and the back lot.

Here's the new fence:

El Producto Finito. (The whole shelter is in that cardboard box.)

It's in that gap on the other side of the fence that I put up the structure for the teardrop.

Once I was done building the fence, I just had to put up the Costco "temporary" shelter. It's great, because it cost under 200.00, was easy to set up, and allows me to work on the teardrop in lousy weather without having to wait for the sun, or hassle with removing a cover. 

In anticipation of wind, I also anchor the frame of the shelter to the frame of the teardrop using three "trucker's hitches" (not pictured here). Works great in the wind we've had so far!

Here are a few pics of the shelter, and the teardrop inside its new non-traveling home:

Three vertical zippers in the front enable the shelter to open wide so that I can back the trailer in.