Update

I haven't had any time for new posts lately. We took our first trip in the Airstream the previous weekend. We parked in my wife's grandmothers backyard (her backyard is 50 acres on a mountain in Mentone, Al).

We only had electricity as I haven't finished the plumbing yet. All in all it was a pretty nice first trip. There is still quite a bit of things to finish up before our next trip which is to the Springstream Airstream rally in the north Georgia Mountains in early April.

I have completed alot since my last post but havent had time to take pictures yet. As soon as I do I will make a new post.

In the meantime here is a pic from the road on our first trip:

Replacing the airconditioner

The air conditioner on our Airstream does not work, it doesn't even turn on, hum, or anything. It's a very old and ugly unit anyways. Here is a pic where you can see the old unit:

We looked around on Craigslist and found a Coleman A/C for $150 about 125 miles away. I actually picked it up in our car:

I have no idea how, but I actually got it to fit in the trunk.

I removed the old A/C and found a mess of old vulkem and other sealents:

I scraped it all off and cleaned up the opening, then installed the new A/C using liberal amounts of Vulkem.

So for $150 we now have a working A/C! It works great and looks much better than the old one.

Finished Floor, Sink Install & Credenza

I finished the floor yesterday. I had originally planned on running the laminate floor all the way back to the bathroom but I found a lot of rot back there around the toilet. What I decided to do was stop the laminate at the doorway to the bathroom, install a threshold in the doorway, then put down some peel and stick tiles in the bathroom temporarily. I have less than 2 weeks left before we take our first camping trip. I will tear the bathroom floor out next winter then install laminate.

Here is a picture of the finished floor:

I've also been working on the credenza, I had to shorten it by 4" because the pull-out couch is deeper than the gaucho was. I shortened it at the slanted cabinet next to the fridge wall and moved the entire credenza down.

I didn't like the original top on it so I made a new one out of a product called Ponderosa Pine, it is basically pine strips laminated together like butcherblock. I got a piece for 25% off because it had separated in a few places, because of this I had to re-glue one piece back together once I cut it to size.

Here it is all glued back together:

I put a coat of amber shellac on it and installed it.

You may notice in the picture that I have it pulled away from the wall a few inches. Somehow I cut it too short so I'm going to glue a strip on the end of it. The fold out table is just sitting in place for now. I hate the laminate on it too so I need to figure out what I'm going to replace it with.

I also installed the sink. First, I measured and made my marks centered on the window.

I then cut it out and installed the sink and faucet.

I then put the countertop back.

It is just sitting in place, I still need to run the plumbing so I will leave it like this until I do that.

You may have also noticed from the pictures that I hung most of the blinds. These blinds did not come with the little clips that secure the bottom of the blind to the wall so I had to buy them separately.

More on the floor and cabinet doors

I finished up the floor in the front and kitchen areas, the bathroom sub-floor needs some work so that and the bedroom are not done yet.

In the first picture you can see the pull-out couch we got. It was hell getting it through the door but we finally managed. The couch is a Queen size so we'll have a lot more room than the original Gaucho.

Most of the cabinet doors had de-laminated to some extent. I've spent the last few days gluing them then sanding, staining, and applying poly. Here is one that has just been stained and is waiting for poly.

The cabinet latches (the ones that weren't broken) were in sorry shape.

I lightly sanded the faces then sprayed multiple coats of Krylon Fusion plastic paint. I also had to paint the 3 new ones I got from Inland RV because they sent me white ones instead of brown ones.

Here are a few shots of the kitchen area with the restored cabinet doors.

I'm not happy with the color of the side of the sink cabinet, it's oak instead of walnut. I may sand and re-stain it to see if I can match it a little better.

Laying the floor

Yesterday I worked on the floor. I finished the patch near the door first. There were a few small areas of rot that I didnt want to have to tear out so I used a wood hardener on them, it seems to work pretty good. There was also the small holes by the door, for that I used bondo to fill them in.

Once the sub-floor was complete I laid the underlayment down.

With our previous Airstream I ran the flooring across from left to right. This time I want to go front to back, I think it looks much better this way.

I started in the upper left corner in the curve. To get the cut perfect I laid some underlayment down and cut it along the curve of the walls. Then I transfered that to a piece of cardboard. I then used the cardboard as a template for cutting the floor boards.



Getting the first board perfectly square was the hardest part. To get it perfectly square I started by finding the centerline of the camper, I used a marker to mark it. Then I measured 7 7/8th (the width of each piece of flooring) out from the wall right where it first begins to curve, I made this mark on the cardboard template. Then I measured from that mark to the centerline. I took that measurement up to the top of the curve and measured from the centerline towards the wall. I marked that line on the cardboard as well. This assured that the board will be perfectly squared, then I placed the cardboard template on top of the board, lined it up with the marks and traced the curve out on the first board.

This was as far as I got last night:

The flooring is called Spalted Maple. I'm hoping to have it finished today.

Painting & sub-floor work

The painting is almost complete, I have a little more cutting in left to do and it will be done.

I also began working on the sub-floor. I cut the sub-floor along the frame then put in the new piece and secured it with self tapping screws. I had to drill pilot holes first though.

The small rotted area next to this will get some wood hardener then bondo. there is one other very small area of rot up front that will also get some wood hardener and bondo.

The rear of the camper has a potential issue as well, the sub-floor directly in front of the sink flexes a little bit. I've also noticed from the side profile that the rear looks like it might be sagging a bit. I'm hoping it's not but it looks like it might have a small rear end separation issue. I'll be digging into that next.

Rebuilding the cabinets

The little time I've had over the last week on the Airstream has been spent on rebuilding the cabinets. First I rebuilt the sink cabinet, I re-used the cabinet front from the ell and used oak 1x2's from the Safari I sold recently (they didnt want any of the interior so I have a lot of spare parts to work with) for the bracing.

With that done I turned my attention to the cabinets on the other side. These entailed quite  bit more work. First I took the stove cabinet face and cut it down to countertop height.

Then I took the top rail and attached it to the top of the new piece, this will make a drawer opening.

Then I cut the cabinet side down to match and re-attached it to the front then reinstalled the cabinet back in place.

With that done I started on the fridge cabinet. The fridge we are putting in here is smaller than the original Dometic so I need to build some extra framing.

First I cut down the upper cover plate that used to go above the fridge and stove to fit over just the fridge area, a microwave will be going on a shelf above the countertop.

Then I cut out a new wall out of 1/4 oak plywood since I couldn't find any walnut and I installed it using a spare metal track and then installed the upper cover plate.

Next I built the platform that the fridge will sit on and installed oak face frames. I used a 3/4" piece of plywood on top of the framing with a 1/4" piece of oak plywood over that.

Then I installed the cross pieces.

With the cabinets finished it was time to sand. It took an entire day to sand everything down. Once everything was sanded I began the staining process. I'm using Red Chestnut from Minwax. The original wall panels and cabinet faces are walnut veneer and solid walnut respectively. I'm having to use oak for the new parts. I dont like having to do this and as soon as I can find walnut I'll be replacing the new parts.

The next day I applied a coat of poly to everything.

Yesterday I cut the butcherblock countertop to size and test fit it into place.

The sink will go on the right and the cooktop will eventually be on the left.

We also had time to paint most of the interior skin, the color is Valspar's Homestead resort Parlor Taupe. The area that's not painted yet (upper walls) will be an antique white, I thought I had a full can but it turned out that I didn't. I'll buy a can today after work and hopefully have it painted by tonight. The color will be Homestead Resort Jefferson White. The cabinet faces are a light chocolate brown.

Next up will be repair of the sub-floor and installation of the laminate floor.