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.