Paint and Push
Above all other lessons learned over the five years, the most critical is paint. Paint now, not later. Not tomorrow, or next week. RIGHT NOW. If the project doesn’t get painted right now in a heavy coat of primer, it may never get painted. Primer will help ward off the rust for sometime but raw metal is doomed from day one.
The Shop Box windows and doors were painted red rust primer five years ago and have never been repainted. They need painting but they are in better condition than the support beams installed last summer on the concrete pad that have never been painted. They are terrible. We were going to paint them the month after they were installed but then life. Now a year later and there is still no time to stop to fix them. What is the lesson? Paint. Now. Yesterday would be better but now is second best.
Only the fabricated beam flat bar were raw metal, all the other areas being painted were to coat any scrapes in the original paint. Since it could be a few days before the bottom of the beam is installed, we paint today. This will mean that the areas where the bottom flat bar is welded will have to ground clean first but this is extra work I am willing to complete. Being located under the box means the chances of seeing the rust are slim to none.
Next the edges of the box from top to bottom are painted. Heavily. These flat surfaces will not be visible once the boxes are pushed together nor are they able to be painted later. Boxes are not welded at the ends. Could this be a problem if water seeps through to the inside? Probably and that is a worry for another day. Since this cannot be seen on the other two boxes I have no reason to worry about rust on the inside of the edges.
Rust at the corners on the other hand, that is a never ending battle. Corner lift points are in a constant state of deterioration. Getting a brush inside the pocket is difficult and since it sits on the flat framework there is no place for the water, rust, and salt to run off too. So when I say we slather on the red primer, I mean this literally. We might as well have used a BBQ mop for the slop of the paint needed. You can see the thickness in the first picture. The dusty red is the first layer of primer on the framework from back in May. The new paint stands on top of that. Does this mean it takes forever for the red rust primer to dry. Absolutely! Totally worth the time it takes to dry.
Hours later after the paint was dryish, hello its like a thousand degrees outside so it doesn’t take long, the boxes were ready to be slide together. All the other boxes slide into place on the framework. In hindsight, the Conex Slide always went relatively smoothly even if I did age years each time from the stress and stomach cramps. Even the east box of the Dwelling went easy. For whatever reason, the last box did not want to slide. Instead it wanted to stick and then release causing a massive movement when it should have only moved inches resulting in not centered boxes. NOT CENTERED BOXES! Honestly, if I was one of those people who threw up when stressed I would have tossed up my toe nails during this “slide”. Using the forklift is nice but it doesn’t have brakes and makes moving forward a little challenging when the movement is small. After a positive affirmation by both the Planner and the Kid I was ready to move again. Eventually, ever so stressfully, the box finally reach its last push into place.
Its final resting place and the boxes didn’t match on floor height inside. I would like to say that is a first but it happened on the Shop Box, too. Unlike the second box of the Shop Box, these boxes touch the framework but are not dimensionally the same in floor height. And like before, a plate will be added between the corner pocket and the framework.
All that left now is to tack the corner pockets that are in the correct location, clean up, and enjoy this moment.
In case you are wondering, I placed a twin mattress in the bedroom for reference. It may be only 640ish square feet in measurement but to Boxes in Fields this is luxury at its finest.