More of the inside

Just a few more views of the almost completed inside from our camping trip.  The curtains are perfect and beautiful thanks to Grandma.  The camper is at storage now but when we go pick it up I will take better pictures of all the curtains. 

We're back!!!

Hello all!
We made it thru our first camping trip in one piece.  Althought it did start off like this...

(Note the intense concentration signified by the lack of modesty in showing the underware.  :P)

And some more of this...

We noticed that the trailer lights didn't work at all soon after we left the house.  We stopped in Monticello and at least got the Brake lights working.  I guess we will have to put that back on the the To-Do list.  "Fix stupid lights"

Everything worked pretty well otherwise.  We learned quite a few things along the way though...

1.  Paxton likes Cake!

2.  Paxton REALLY likes Cake!



3.   Everything that is green......is POISON IVY!

4.   If your fridge moves, you need a lock.  Lesson learned!

5.   No matter how beautiful the beach, or the sand mermaid, biting flies WILL ruin it ALL!



6.   One of these will go missing. (Make sure you ask him where it went!!!)

After all that work to get the camper ready for our trip, I am now burnt out!  So I will give it a while before I start working on it again.  We'd like to get the floor down.  Don't worry Grandma, not carpet!  :)  Call that another lesson learned from our trip.

As soon as I get more done, I will update the blog!

The BIG push!

I am working like a fool right now!  We don't have much time to go until our camping trip, so hopefully we will have a camper to go in!  :)

We've been able to cross off some exciting things from our "to-do" list.  The electrical is nearly done.  We just need to order 1 more light that we added later.  As well as make all the wiring at the panel nice a neat.  But having the electrical done allowed us to see all the lights work!  How EXCITING!  It wasn't all peaches and cream though.  After I got the new electric panel hooked up and installed it kept tripping the breaker in my house.  Arrrgh!  It only took me about 4 hours to find the issue.  It ended up that they style of 30 amp plug that I bought from Menards was a hunk of junk.
As you moved the plug around, one of the contacts would wear thru the insulation on another conductor and make a tiny pin sized cut that would eventually short out.  Once that was all figured out it went much better!

We also put most of the cabinet doors back on.  Looks GREAT!!

Finally I rebuilt the door.  The only thing I re-used was the aluminum.  The rest was very rotten.  Now it blends in nicely with the rest of the interior.  We used the old back splash above the old stove to make a cool looking kick plate for the door. 

OH!  I almost forgot about the upholstery!  We got a quote to do it.  $870.00!!!!!!!  Man, I about fainted when I heard that.  I think for now we're going to buy the foam on our own and use that until we figure out what to do.

I very excited about the "BIG Push", but man is it expensive!!!  I took it to 5 Seasons Tire and they said the tires are SUPER old and need replaced asap.  I'm also going to buy a spare and have the bearings re-packed.  Say adios to $370 bucks!  I've been putting off some the expensive stuff till the end, and the now its time!  ;)

Shellac + Birtch = Coolness!

Oh WoW!  Now I understand why they put shellac in these trailers!  It really makes the natural wood grain stand out.  I bet if you put on a TON of coats of clear after the amber it would almost give it a
3-D effect.  So far I've put 3 coats of amber on all the new birch, and 1 coat of amber on the existing birch.  I'm pretty happy with how close the new and old look.  Now, I know I can't get it 100% perfect, so I'm looking for reasonably close.  I may do 1 more coat of amber on the new birch, but I'm undecided as of right now.  Either way, I'm going to run everything over with 0000 steel wool, clean it, and do a final coat of Clear Shellac on everything. 

Spraying the shellac was quite and experience in itself.  Thanks for yet another good tip Chuck!  I must admit I've thought about blowing up my trailer, but never with me in it.  So....I setup fans the best I could to get the air circulated and prevent spontaneous combustion.

  I had some problems with the spray gun for the first coat.  Lets just say it was a very THICK first coat.  But I found the problem and the following coats went much better.   Time for a mini rant....  Why can't anybody sell the Bullseye amber Shellac in GALLONS?  Its like double the price when you have to buy it by the quart.  Arrrgh!   I feel better now.  :)

I can't wait to be done with this stage!!!!  I'm looking forward to getting the lights hooked up, and the electrical setup.   Lets just hope it all works since all the wiring has been covered up now. 

Maybe I should change the hair color on my Driver License to Amber...

Let the countdown BEGIN!

JULY 21st!  That is the offical "leaving for camping trip" date.  So it had better be ready or at least usable by then.  It just hit me this last weekend how little time we have left to work on it.  So its time to DIG DEEP!   We have to priorities to get it usable by then....

Priority list:

1.      Air Conditioning  (no need to explain this one, right!)
2.      Shellac, Shellac, and more Shellac.  (We're thinking about spraying it on to speed things up)
3.      Finish electrical.  (Install Lights, switch, outlets)
4.      Order foam and cut so we have something to sleep on!
5.      Rebuild the door.

Hmmmm, after I made that list I have my doubts if I can get it all done by July 21st.
I really hope that we can!  I think that tomorrow night I will get all the woodwork done so on our day off on Wed. we can start filling holes and shellacing.


I started installing the A/C just to make working on it possible in this heat.  Its basically a huge solar oven!  So after about 3 hours @ 350 degrees I'm cooked.  You can see the basic plan for it in the pics.  The ultimate plan is to install the HD drawer rails and a locking system to let it slide in and out.
Also I have to make a duct system to get the air seperated and try and circulate the air. 

Here are the newly installed upper cabinets...

This is the lower kitchen cabinets.  Tonight I modified the bottom drawer to be short enough to fit.



Finally got the end piece made for the bench.  I like the look of it since it appears kinda orginal.

So here you can see my latest issue.  As you can see I had to buy "pre-stained" molding for the corners of the paneling.  Its a foam-ish type of material.  Its the only thing that I could find to make the bend.   You can also see the new trim above the window to hide the panel seems.



Sorry for the delay, enjoy the pics!

Sorry we haven't posted lately!  Its been reallllllly busy.  We have gotten some work done on Bob though.  I'm nearing finishing all the rebuilding of the inside cabinets, benches, and rear couch/bed.

We also had someone come and take some measurements for making all the cushions.  I will be scared to open that estimate when it come!!!!


But here are the pics, sorry I don't have much time to write much.....

Bob is starting to feel more like a camper!

More and more of the inside work is getting done!  So now, I have most of the kitchen cabinets in, and most of the closet cabinets in.  Its really exciting because now its starting to feel like an actual camper again!  The closet part was MUCH easier than the kitchen cabinets since I re-used the old cabinet face.  The only think I had to do was cut off 1/2 inch to compensate for the new subfloor thickness.

Also, I had another round with the router.  And, thanks to the advice of Chuck, it put in a new bit and SHA-ZAM!  It works much better!  (thank you, thank you, thank you!)  So with my renewed confidence after the Coach Chuck's pep-talk, I was able to recreate the decorative detail on the sides of the closet cabinets.  I'm not really sure if they have any actual function, but I thought it would be nice to keep that original detail.  One of the told closet sides had been damaged, so I was able to cut out the other and use as a template to cut out the new ones.  I was really happy with the results.

In the lower right opening of the cabinet is where the original fridge was kept.  Since we moved it over to the kitchen side, we're going to make a "cubby hole" to store stuff in since I don't have a door.  Maybe a place to keep the heater?  Otherwise we mostly kept the same layout.  I'm surprised at just how much storage this camper has.  Especially since its only a 16 footer.  But I suppose it helps to travel light.  If you try and bring the proverbial "Farm", you'd probably run out of room VERY quickly!

Another bothersome problem that I've recently found is with filling the new freshwater tank.
the setup is supposed to be that you pour water into the Bargman Gravity filler on the outside, and water runs down a tube and fills the tank.  The original tank was missing.  Probably rotted long ago, so I had to buy a new 10 gallon tank.  But the inlet port sits higher than the gravity filler on the outside.  And the previous owner had installed a awesome Bargman Gravity filler that looks great, so I really want to use it.  But I don't want to cut another hole and raise it either.  The only thing I could think of is a hose that is smaller in diameter and can put fed up the filler, thru the hose and into the tank.  It may not move as much water, but it will make air escape easier, so possibly it will fill just fine.  I dunno...  I have a few more weeks to ponder it before I have to make a decision.