Re-upholstery!

When we first bought the trailer, it looked like this.  The upholstery was not in bad shape -- a little dirty, but okay, but it didn't really work with my design plans.  So, we pulled out all of the old fabric and foam pieces.  First we sprayed them judiciously with Bac-Out, and laid them in the sun for a full day.  The next day, we sprayed them with homemade Febreeze (a mixture of fabric softener and water in a spray bottle), and let it bleach again in the sun for a full day. 


I decided that I was going to go with a blue/green/cream theme, instead of the prior ideas we'd had, because we just really fell in love with that combo, plus my daughter was disturbed that we would do a blue door with no interior tie in (she's a fashion guru). 

I found these delightful fabrics at the fabric store.  I thought they worked well together, and was a fun modern twist on vintage/retro.  All of the seat bottoms will be in the green, the back of the kitchen banquet is in the fabric on the far left, while the back of the couch/main bed is in the middle fabric. 

All of the re-upholstery has now been done, but there was no foam in the trailer for the upper bunk.  I have found this foam that should work fine to be applied to a plyboard backing, and then covered in likely plain green for the top bunk.That will happen in the next week or two.

I also removed all of the old curtains and roller blinds, and have purchased new fabric for the curtains.  Haven't gotten around to making those, yet, though.  We will also be purchasing white roller blinds for all the windows. Total fabric price, without foam purchase or blinds, is $150 right now.

Flooring -- Part One

 

We pulled all of the old faux wood vinyl off of the floor that we could.  This linoleum is gorgeous.  It did, however, take almost an entire bottle of Goo Gone, and Adam and I were on the floor with butter knives scraping for about an hour and a half to get all of the old oozy glue off.  But we did it!  And it is so pretty.  There is a slight dip in the floor/linoleum right in front of the door, and there is a patch missing right in front of the bed in the far back, so we decided to take that opportunity to divide the space a bit.  We ordered a box of commercial grade vinyl in a coordinating green from Home Depot.  We plan on laying that flooring in the back by the bed, and right by the door, then place thresholds in between the areas.  It will define the spaces, and be a good fix to the flooring issue all at the same time.

Yellow and Blue -- Oh My!

 

Exterior painting -- done!  That's right.  The yellow and white are both done, and it was not hard at all.  I am totally impressed by Rustoleum spray paint.  And because, I cannot leave a something like the door boring and beige, we went with... you know... turquoise. It's just so lovely. 

The Beginning of the New Paint Job

Before we even committed to buying a vintage trailer, I knew that I needed to know how to paint one.  I've painted a lot of things before, but never a vintage travel trailer.  We did do some research about professional painters where we would drop off the trailer to have it powder-coated, or painted in their paint garage, but the sheer cost of this made it really unrealistic for us.  We are renovating on a budget afterall.

So, I turned to Mr, Google, because that is what one does, when you need information these days, and I found this guy from the Vintage Shasta travel trailer forums.  This video was a bit of a game changer for us.  Rustoleum spray paint?  Really, to refinish a vintage trailer.  So, we rolled the dice and gave it a try.

As my husband, Adam, said, "in a million years, you could not have convinced me that spray painting a vintage trailer would make it look that good, but it does!"  Yup, it does.  We decided, too, that we wanted the yellow stripe to go around the entire middle of the trailer, instead of skipping down to the bottom in the front.  And look at it.  You never would have known that there was yellow under that!

Before

After

And it covered that LAYTON sign that was put 

on during a previous attempted renovation like a boss!

Look at that -- spray painted on the right, not yet on the left.  Unreal.











And so fast.  My oldest daughter and I, (who was absolutely invaluable in this process, by the way), made fast work of it.  We were able to tape, cover, and paint all of the white in about six hours.  My husband finished up another project, and gave us some additional help towards the end, but honestly, it was so fast.



Tomorrow we peel the tape, and start on the yellow, weather permitting.  Yay!

Oh, and for those following along with the idea that they might refinish a trailer -- we used 13 cans of Rustoleum spray paint in white.  Our trailer is 15 feet long, so that's not quite a can per foot for our main color.  We bought 14 cans, so I have one left over for touch ups tomorrow.  We bought 6 cans of yellow, so we'll see if that does all of the yellow.  We decided to take it to one tone yellow from the current two tone.

Floors -- It's a Miracle!

 

And then sometimes you're sitting in the trailer, drinking your morning coffee, musing about what a crappy job the former renovators did with the vinyl floor, and your husband says, I wonder if that real green linoleum in the bathroom is still under here, too, and he starts pulling. Damn if it isn't. It'll need some de-gluing, but this is a hell of a lot better than fake wood cut into random pieces.

Matilda Gets a Bath

Today we headed to Home Depot for supplies.  Two hundred and forty dollars later, we left with all of the exterior paint that I think we'll need to make her bright and sparkly, cleaning supplies to wash her, and the drop clothes, tape, and masking paper necessary to paint both her inside and outside. 

Upon our return, we set to work on cleaning.  We used buckets with diluted Simple Green cleaner, dollar store scrub brushes, a big push broom we already had, and a mop with telescoping handle that we got at Home Depot.  I was able to enlist help from my two girls (for at least awhile), but my dear boy had no desire to lend a hand.

 

It was immediately apparent what a huge difference washing alone was going to make.  look at this picture where the top has not been washed, and the bottom has.  Wow!  It was amazing what came off of her.  It took about a gallon of Simple Green, the high pressure nozzle on the garden hose, and a lot of elbow grease (and scraped knuckles), but we made a huge difference.

 

Before

                                                     

 

After

We're pretty happy with the outcome.  We have decided that we will tackle Matilda's exterior first, so tomorrow we do any patching she needs, and then we can start painting.

Meet Matilda!

Meet Matilda!  We just bought her today. 

She's a 1976 Layton Travel Trailer by Skyline, and she's about to get an awesome makeover.  My husband and I are both vintage 1976, so we thought it only fitting that we remake a model the same age as us.  She'll be a fun travel trailer for our family, and she's my summer project.

Right now her insides are sort of late modern hunting cabin.  We're going for something a little less circa wood paneling.  We bought her for $900, and she was only a little over an hour away from our house right outside Washington, DC.  Matilda was a cheap date... for now.  We'll see if she continues to be low maintenance as the project continues.  I'll try and keep a running tally of money spent within the blog, so you can get an idea of just how much this project costs.