Showing posts with label Trailer Redo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trailer Redo. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Trailer Update/Removing The Decals

I'm taking a break from our posts about France and I'm back with another trailer update.
We are getting excited for some cooler, camping weather.
We've had a terrible heatwave so camping hasn't been our top priority.

Did you ever get a song stuck in your head? 
That is what happened to my husband during our next project on the trailer. 
"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. 
Merry, merry king of the bush is he. 
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Gay your life must be."

Painting the trailer was difficult but at least it was inside and I could turn on the air conditioning. 


Removing the decals was terrible. 
The trailer had an Australian, Outback, Down Under sort of feel. 
Hence the reason Bill was singing the song. 
I'm not sure why since it was manufactured in Mansfield, Texas. 
It seems like they could have chosen a theme a little more connected to camping in the South West.


After 8 years in the elements, the decals were peeling off in spots. 
I wanted them off. Bill was non-committal about the ones that weren't peeling. 
I am a picker. This may be more than you want to know but if something is peeling off,
I just can't leave it alone. 
Scabs.
Sadly this is true. I hope I haven't grossed you out. 
When we would go out to look at the progress I was making on the inside,
I'd start peeling stuff off of the outside. 
Some of it peeled off with no problems but it was weird.
How well it peeled depended on the color the decal, the area of the decal, and the type of decal.
The bronze color seemed to peel easier than the blue. 
 The Outback scene was almost impossible to get off. 
The front logo on that fiberglass stuff was the worst. 
It also depended on whether the decal had started to peel off on it's own.
 Oddly, those that had started to peel off were harder to get off than the ones that were still firmly attached. 
We went to the internet and looked at YouTube videos but this is a trial and error process.
No two types of trailers seem to be the same.
We saw something about a heat gun. It worked pretty well for most of them. 


Sometimes the glue came off with the decal. 
Sometimes it did not. 


We went back to YouTube for the next step. 
One method, which turned out to be Bill's favorite, was a credit card and WD40. 
There he is humming Kookaburra in his head. Bless his heart. 


I tried Goo Gone. 
I stopped that right away because it removed the bronze paint. Yikes. 
That would have been another can of worms.

I needed a break and a dip in the pool.
I needed to sleep on it.
Some of my best ideas hit me when I'm dozing. 
I woke up the next morning thinking about Sticky Tack. 
At school we had cinderblock walls. We couldn't hang anything without Sticky Tack. 
It is a blue, sticky stuff available at the office supply. We used it to hang children's art or bulletin board characters. 
If its sticky residue stayed on the walls once the art was removed, we used more Sticky Tack to remove the residue.
I brainstormed about something sticky enough to stick to the decal residue as it was being pulled off of the trailer.
I decided to try duck tape. 


I stuck the duct tape onto the glue residue. 


Then I used the glue gun to reheat the duct tape to soften the residue. 
It worked! 



It was time consuming but I do believe that I got almost every bit of residue off of the trailer. 








We love it. 
The classic shape is highlighted now that all the swoops, swirls, Joey's, and gum trees are gone.
 Thanks for stopping by, 
Katie

For all other trailer updates click on the links below.


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Saturday, September 2, 2017

As Boring As Blood Pathogen Training/Carpet and The Mattress For The Trailer

Most of my regular readers know that I retired from teaching in May. 
I made the decision in January which was heart wrenching. 
In February, I realized that one the "bright sides" was not having to endure anymore blood borne pathogen training. 
I don't know if you've ever had to sit through one of these training seminars. Boring.
I guess they assume that teachers will start touching blood in between refresher sessions because this training has to be done once a year.
Maybe they know that teachers would give their own life for a student so therefore expose themselves to blood if it were required to help a child.
Who knows?
This post may be as boring as Blood Borne Pathogen Training but it is necessary to get to the wonderful reveal. 
There was carpet next to the bed. The area under the bed was chip board.
We needed to re-carpet because of the winter long mouse party a few years ago.
We wanted to put carpet under the bed as well to possibly improve comfort. 
Bill went to Home Depot and got a few samples.
We picked out a nice dove gray that coordinates with our other elements.


It was around $10.98 a square yard.
I really can't remember how many square yards we got but we had plenty.
Bill calculated how many yards we needed because it was math. Math makes my head hurt.


He did a measurement and cut it.


He took it to the trailer and tacked, stretched, and trimmed it all around the perimeter.
We stretched it as much as we could but we didn't have one of those carpet stretching tools.
We used the electric staple gun he got for Christmas.
I love this thing.




Cutting carpet is a little nerve wracking but it does have a little give if you make a mistake and need to pull it tighter to the wall.
We used a razor blade knife.



We didn't do the closets. The mice didn't have their wild dance party in there.


Next to the couch there were some very groovy drink holders made out of plywood and covered in the palm frond fantasy fabric.


They were not permitted re-entry into the trailer.
They didn't really hold anything but a bottle of water and Bill needs a spot for his coffee.


We were going to make some nice teak trays but we were nearing the point of, "I'm over it."
We decided I would carpet the area next to the couch.
I should interject at this point that I wanted to take the couch out and put in a regular loveseat but the slide out mechanism made that impossible.


The strange fold down couch bed will have to do but at least it has nice new carpet next to it.

Bill ordered a new Memory Foam mattress, mattress pad and sheet set off of Amazon.
We tried to shop local but they didn't have what we needed.
We got the Zinus Sleep Master Ultima for $379.48.
The mattress came all rolled up and shrink wrapped.
It needed to be unrolled within a day.


The mattress pad came from eLuxury Supply.
This company had a hand written thank you note inside and is owned by a veteran.
 They were amazing to deal with.


We really hope this is way more comfortable than the old bed which came with the trailer.
We should have gotten an upgrade years ago.
Hopefully our backs will notice that this is an upgrade from the old mattress.

Gray and black Camper Queen bed, White paint.

Gray and black Camper Queen bed, White paint.

That is it for now.
Thanks for sitting through this post.
I appreciate you all so much.
Thank you to those that take the time to leave a comment.
I try to eventually email you back unless you are a no-reply blogger.
If you are a no-reply blogger, please know that I always read and appreciate very comment.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Maybe you get to go camping!
Katie


Read about Primer.


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Friday, August 4, 2017

Recovering The Sofa For The Trailer

The sofa in our little camper is finished. 
It is a cutie.


The neighbor came out to see the trailer that we had parked just to the right of his driveway. 
He'd worked in the manufactured home industry for 30 years. 
I lamented on the hideousness of the fabric to justify the fact that I was ripping out almost pristine upholstery.
Pristine until you take into account the dance party that the mice had one winter.
After he recovered from the realization that we didn't park our mice infested vehicle in front of his house, he mentioned that typically those in the industry tried to spend about $1.00 a yard for the fabric.  
Well, that explains it! 
Palm frond collage? No! No! No! 
I'm opposed to the use of palm fronds except on Palm Sunday or for homes situated near the beach.
I make an exception and allow their use in summer decor if a beach trip is planned or has just been taken.
I am very strict about these guidelines.  
Palm fronds in a camper in the middle of Texas?
NO!


I've done this a little backwards. I should have found the fabric for the sofa before I found the fabric for the windows but I was trying to do what I could while Bill was at work.


I wanted his input for the sofa.


I hit every fabric store in town except for one.
We took a break from the flooring to go have a look at a little local shop that has been in the Town of Pantego forever. 
He has current stock but he also has some stock from about 20 years ago. 
Think big puffy florals and fruit motifs.



I had this fabric and I loved it!
Styles have changed haven't they?


I originally wanted gray denim which I thought would wear well. 
He sold 30 yards of it the day before. It wasn't meant to be, I guess. 
We found a gray that would coordinate with the curtains and the flooring we picked out.
We purchased 6 yards. We spent around $150.00 for it and the accent fabric for Bill's lumbar pillow.


Camper/Trailer stuff is a little odd. 
The fabric was held on by rings rather than staples. The upholstery guy said he didn't have anything like them and that they were probably fabricated at the manufacturer.


He agreed with me that sewing the new fabric onto the existing fabric was the best way to go. 


That is what I did. I wrapped the new fabric around the cushion and sewed it to the the underneath side.
It took a little longer than the Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightly - not that 8 hour movie put out by the BBC.
After it was over, I turned on Going RV so I could look at more $1.00 a yard fabric selections.
Couldn't they upgrade to $2.00 a yard?
Just sayin. 
I felt wonderful about our choices after viewing an episode or two.


It was pretty easy going once I found the best needle and thread for the job.
The needle had a slight curve.


The thread had to be heavy duty to hold the fabric in place.



The false front of the sofa was easy because it was stapled.





Bill was able to reassemble the sofa by attaching the back and bottom onto the pull out sofa/bed mechanism.

The front was screwed into the plywood base of the sofa.











You have gotten a sneak peek at the finished product but please come back for more about our trailer.
Have a great day.
Katie
P.S. Thank you for your prayers about our "lemon" situation.
I'll have such a praise to share next week.


Read about Primer.
Read about Paint. 
Read about Curtains. 
Read about flooring. 


I'll be sharing at these fun parties, if I have time to link up.
Dishing and Digging It @ Life and Linda, 
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Monday, July 24, 2017

Flooring For The Trailer


Our little trailer update is coming along. We have a few things to address and then we can put it in storage until our first camping trip.
It has got to cool down a little before we go camping.


Everything in the trailer was so brown.
So brown. 
We decided early in the process that we wanted to replace the brown floor. 

Before:


That isn't dirt. It's just designed to look dirty.
Special!
We did our research and then we headed to Home Depot to look at wood-look vinyl planks.
Anything else would have been too heavy since we are pulling this behind our pick up truck.




Our first choice was the brown one in the top of the picture below.
We quickly ruled it out because there wasn't enough for our project and Bill wanted to begin the next morning.
It also just seemed weird to put brown back in the trailer after pulling all the brown out of it.


We've never had parquet flooring in house.
 This style of flooring was "out" for a long time but I'd heard it was making a comeback.
 We both liked it in gray and it was in stock.
Perfect.
We picked up four boxes @ $29.99 each.
We checked the dye lots on each case to make sure they were all from the same dye lot.


Bill used a razor blade knife to cut the flooring. When the trailer was made the flooring was laid before walls or anything was built into the trailer so the flooring ran under the studs, cabinets couch and bed.


It didn't take him long to remove the old flooring.


The home center assured us that we could lay the peal and stick tiles directly on the chip board.


I have no patience for finding the center, snapping plumb lines.
Bill is much better at that type of thing. I place the blame solely on my High School Geometry teacher. The grades he gave me have shaken my confidence in this area.
All those theorems to memorize.
Terrible.


This is TrafficMASTER 12 in. x 12 in. Wood Parquet Residential Peel and Stick Vinyl Tile.
30 square feet a case.
It was around a $1.00 per square foot.


Most of the tiles for this project had to be cut. There were very few whole tiles.
He worked until lunch on Saturday and until two o'clock on Sunday.


I think the slide out leaked at some point so we had to bleach one area of the flooring and let it sit over night.







It's so cute.
I love it with the black cabinets.


We ended up returning two boxes of tiles so this part of the project was only $60.00.
Well worth it.
I'll be back to talk more about the couch.
Have a wonderful day.
Katie
Update: We had a leak and two of our tiles popped up. I'll let you know if they re-stick on their own or if we have to replace them.
The leak is coming from our sky light in the bathroom.
I'll update that as well. 
Read about Primer.
Read about Paint. 
Read about Curtains. 


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