And Here are the Curtains

Ok so I finished the curtains and I'll be honest I am not 100% happy with them, but they were affordable and look good. Eventually I guess I'll make a new set, but for now, the trip the next year they'll do. SO here are the pictures of how they look.
Next time, I'll line them, I'll use pleat tape, I'll buy new T clips and G clips. I won't use snaps or I'll use different snaps. But I think especially in the pictures they look pretty good.

Before and After

Steve is particulary pleased with the new countertop in the kitchen area. it was very affordable and from some nice twist of fate looks great with our floors. It should be durable and we had so much left over from the cutouts and the length I was able to make a sink cover for the sink out of the same butcherblock. Having the sink cover means I can do all my work and chopping on it and leave the counters clean. We added a couple of inches to the left of the sink. We tend to set keys drinks and any junk on that lip. We also thought we could put cup hooks on the bottom to hold dog leashes and keys that don' t make it to the cup hooks on the over sink cabinet. We are still deciding whether or not to add a new flip up counter extension as we never used the old one.

Starting to look like a Trailer

Well after 4 days of long hard work the trailer is looking like a trailer again. Some things took longer then we thought. We spent all day Friday just on the countertop in the kitchen. We had to unscrew the cabinets and rehang them. Even the Pantry was done, undone and redone. The couch went in easily though. We got one folding table in and the weird corner cabinet. We are unsure of putting in the other table but like the cabinet over the sink they are both not neccesarry and we don't like either. Although we don't like the holes in the walls they left behind. I finished my long hours of sewing and have the curtains done, but not hung. I should get them put in Tuesday. I did some final work on the couch slipcovers and they are on.. Really on until we can reupholster them. We are missing a major part of the shower door. Major enough it stopped us in our tracks. We'll have to find it silly thing. We bought new towel bars and a new shower faucet, and cleaned things up. We will have to fix the drawer guides in the bed before we bring the trailer back. We have reservations and it will get done. The list goes on and on and may get bigger on the trip but we will make our trailer perfect.

Another Weekend More Work

Ok so this weekend we brought the trailer home big surprise huh? Well we thought we'd do tons more work inside and had a game plan when we realized after putting one half of the back wall in that we needed to put the shower front in first. Well the shower front had water damage as did lots of things so We built tons of new stuff for the trailer. We stained and polyed, painted an fixed what went wrong. For example when taking out the kitchen cabinets the back half of the cabinets weren't held on in the back all the staples had popped out and were flopping about in mid air. So the backs of the cabinets needed to be repaired. The bedroom had carpet covered boxes to hide wiring so we built new ones. We built a new one for the bathroom as well. I took a picture of the damage to the box in the bedroom on the leak side even it was disintergrating. We rebuilt the dinette backs from scratch. Yes they are heavier but sturdier and no more funky upholstery. Which I also took a picture of. That way you all can see how bad it was. We did get the kitchen cabinets back in and one half of the dinette. Sadly I didn't take pictures but next week I bet you won't recognize the trailer. Which is good because we have two weeks and we need to clean it. The trip is planned all of our stops and our routes. We are breaking a cardinal rule of RVing by going out with no test trip but oh well....

Kids in A RV Candy Store 5-10-2006

Ok so parts came for the Trailer, a new sink and toilet. They are so nice and pretty. The sink is white but that was the only color we could find. The original sink was white so I guess it's all good. The shower and toilet where both bone and bone they are now. Steve couldn't unearth the old toilet from the black hole that is our garage so I don't have a before and after, but it's new china and taller then the old one, with no stupid fake leather seat inset. I could never get the old sink clean no matter what I used.
Oh We also bought two new safety detectors carbon monoxide and LPG detector. Safety first, well after the great looking floor and toilet you know :) Even Daniel likes the new aditions to the Trailer. Steve had to tell him he couldn't pee in the toilet until it was in the trailer. Funny it smells like formaldhyde even new.

Stiff and Sore May 5-6, 2006

Ok so we brought Long Dong home again this weekend and got to work. Thursday evening we just snapped and griped at each other so not much beyond prep got done. Friday morning dawned clear and cool and the flooring went surprisingly well. We had some weird cuts but we handled them easily with little waste. By the end of the day we were about 60% done and very happy with a job well done. Steve was done in and although I could have pushed through to get it done, I decided to err on Steve's sore muscles. Saturday to was a beautiful day but the bedroom which seemed to need no complicated cuts and we would get it done quick wanted to prove us wrong. We soon got the flooring in all but the last two rows when we found that to get the floor in the back cabinet needed to go in first. Which made us remember the "gargae" area needed to go in before the back cabinet. I guess that's why we took the cabinet ot to begin with. That is where the truoble began as that cabinet was one pain in the butt. We got it in but it was at leat an inch and a half higher then the right cabinet. Then looking at the right cabinet it seems that some screws weren't even installed in the cabinet to hold it in to the wall from the factory. Not to much of a surprise as we'd had seen empty screw holes in demolition. Some lowering here and some raising there we got the cabinet in, the bulk of the trunk area and the rest of the floor. It was MARGARITA time.
Oh yeah the floor is AMAZING, it looks great, it'll be a shame to cover it with sofa, dinette and cabinets etc. We did so good on not wasting that we have 4 boxes of it left. I guess I'll be getting rid of it on craigslist. It's good to have hard days of work with a wonderful floor to show for it. Oh as for finding the floor, it found us $4.99 a box on sale, that's $.20 a sq ft. No it wasn't stone or matched the cabinets perfectly but the color was good and that price....
Next week we work on cabinet repairs and re-doing the dinette and getting it all back in. Steve has ordered a new bathroom sink and toilet, and Monday I'll be sewing like the wind to finish the new curtains for the living area.

Quick Fixes

Ok so what should we do to the trailer now? Well the beveled mirror panels on the cabinets doors were just plain tacky so out they went. The cabinet hardware was an easy fix also, The gold southwest style handles didn't match anything in the trailer. The sink was only 4 inches deep and washing pots horrible so a new sink was needed and a faucet. It is amazing the amount of cheap outdated fixtures were in our trailer. The upholstery was harder, Slipcovers for the dinette a snap but the jack knife sofa was harder. But thankfully my sewing skills came in handy and I did my best with some cheap fabric and some great fleece woolworth blankets we bought on sale at Target. The theme was easy camping outdoors fishing. Whatever we found and thought might work. The valances may have had ten million staples but they too were recovered. We took a piar of the stained curtains to a Drycleaner and the stains didn't come out. I though why not try and dye them? I mean they couldn't get worse, So they were died dark brown. The dye job was not the best the stains still showed although not as much and they spotted. But they did survive the wash. The bedroom curtains were thrown in next this time no dye and surprise the stains washed out the curtains survived and we ruined the front curtains with a dye job that couldn't be fixed. A couple of cute wallies in the bathroom and some perfect bedding to match the theme and we were done. We then had to shop for silverware, kitchen items and other things to "live" in the trailer. We tried to stay or theme so our plates are enamle wear, and we got electric candles for bedroom ooh la la.
We also went out looking for flooring and counter options but couldn't agree of find something on budget.

Where We Started

We started with a 31 footer that Steve found in Texas. Steve had to take the trip alone to see it and get it because Daniel couldn't handle that long of a constant road trip. When Steve brought him home I got to see what we had gotten ourselves into. We also started to dream big about all the changes we wanted to make. Corian countertops, cork floors, leather upholstery were at the top of our list, but the $$$$ troll soon came and destroyed our plans and we had to get realistic. What to do now, what to do cheaply to change later, and what had to wait. We also got a list of things we never thought of changing but seeing them knew they needed to be done. The tops and backs of the dinetter were covered in fabric. Messy eating children or dirty from the joys of camping would easily destroy and had destroyed the original fabric. So those needed to be changed. The curtains were stained and we were at a loss on how to fix them without paying for new. We put on our thinking caps and went about making live with them for now changes and plans of what to be done over the coming winter.

The Bad Spot

As you can see this was just the insult to the trailer's years of leakage injury. We picked up the trailer to continue to do some work when low and behold one of our bad winter storms had ripped open the cover of our fantastic fan and let the rain poor in. Thankfully we had a sleep number bed in the trailer as everything is washable except for the air pads so out came all of the bedding and bed. It dried up eventually but the real damage is under the cabinet and carpet covered box. Years of leaking had rotted the subfloor completely. It was black and crumbling enough to push a screwdriver all the way through. This needed to be fixed and pushed our new floor and a few extras into months of work. Constant rain through April also didn't help as we cut out the floor so the leak just went all the way out of the trailer. We couldn't fix the leak or put in new flooring until the rain stopped.

April 28, 2006

Well I said demoing was done but I was wrong. Bringing the trailer home the last pocket door came flying out and was on the floor when I opened her up. The kitchen cabinets looked like they were hanging on by a wing and a Prayer and with just a couple of screws she popped out as well. The only problem where in the world where we going to put more cabinets? So the guest room has ne been appropriated the task. The garage is full, the back room is full and now my guest room is being enroached upon. I hope we get a lot done this weekend as I want to put my trailer back in the trailer and out of my house.
Here is my kitchen sans everything. It was amazing the huge amount of garbage we found under the cabinets. Staws, plastic spoons, not to mention plenty of leftover Airstream construction junk pop rivets and the rivet pins saw dust carpet. It was nasty. The surprising thing we found? a buisnees card from Somebody at Inland RV, The Airstream specialists. Makes me think we need to put a time capsul so when the trailer is remodeled again in 10-20 years they will know who came before.

April 30, 2006

Well it has been one long weekend but we have finished demoing the trailer. We even got some work done as the floor has been patched. That was A LOT of work. Grinding down all the rust spraying it with rustoleum was easy but the precise fitting of fisr a cardboard template then with the 5/8 plywood was a whole nother story. Lots of fine tuning sanding, chisling, sawing but we got it in. The channel isn't exactly the same height all the way around and the bolts and missing floor probably didn't help but we had to get the plywood into that channel. Wouldn't really be a decent subfloor it just balanced on the frame, now would it? Now it looks brand spanking new.
While Steve killed himself with the floor in the bedroom I cleaned out the trailer as best as I could. It is amazing going around on your hands an knees looking for carpet staples and pulling them out or smashing them back in. I went around that trrailer twice and still found staples I missed. I swept up as best as I could. We plan on doing a final check for high and or rough spots sanding or scaping them with a final vacuming. The new flooring should go in next weekend. This week while the trailer is away, we plan on making replacement boxes for all the ones we hacked out with the sawzall. You know on a project this large it was going to be needed.