More Work on the Door

I got the trim around the window and the inside of the door painted.

I Should Be Working on My Roof But............

The weather here is just brutal. It's in the 90's pretty much every day. So I've been working on small things. I built a drawer and attached it under the counter top.

The AC Install is Complete

The air conditioner has been successfully mounted to a drawer slide. The slide I used is rated for 100 lbs. so it easily supports the entire weight of the AC. So I was able to remove the tacky little shelf that I had on the back of the trailer. I tried to take pictures of how it operates but I think you have to watch the video to really understand it.

The Door Has a Handle

My sister and I got the door handle on without any problems. We made a small mock door and installed it in there first to make sure we understood how it worked. The handle is a storm door handle with a deadbolt lock. I know it looks really modern in comparision to my jalousie window but my choices on what to use were very limited.

Jalousie Window

Jalousie windows were popular on travel trailers in the 1950s and 60s. As soon as I decided to build my own trailer, I knew that I wanted to use this type of window. I felt like it would give my trailer the retro look that I'm shooting for. Back in January, when my sister and I went to the junk yard, I was hoping to find some of these windows. There was only one in the entire junk yard. It was in the door of this old delivery truck.

We fought for 2 and a half hours in the blazing sun with no water to get the window out of that door. I really wanted to give up but my sister insisted that we keep working until we got it out. I'm really glad she made me stick it out because now I have a great since of satisfaction seeing it in the door of my trailer.

Knock, Knock

After 3 weeks of working on it, the door is finally on. I had been putting off building the door because I made a big mess cutting out the doorway. It was really hard to control the saw holding it vertically. So the doorway ended up being very crooked and uneven. I wasn't sure how on earth I would get a door to fit. I bought a sheet of 1/8 inch door skin, clamped it over the doorway, and traced around it from the inside of the trailer. After about 3 hours of shaving off tiny slivers, the piece finally fit inside. Then I put the piece onto a sheet of 3/8 inch plywood and cut it out. It fit pretty good but then I had to frame the door with 1 X 3s. That seemed to throw everything off and there were many more hours of shaving tiny slivers. Once I got it to fit with the framing on it, I filled in the middle with sheets of styrofoam and glued the door skin to the side that faces inside the trailer. All along, I knew that the piece of plywood was bowed out but I thought that the framing pieces would straighten it out but it didn't. So I clamed the top half of the door to a dog crate (just what was available) and let the bottom half hang over unsupported. Then I put a lot of weight on the bottom corner of the door and left it there for 2 days. It's not completly straighten out but I felt like was close enough to go ahead and attach the door.

I Have Power

The electrical wiring was by far my biggest worry on this project. There was no way I was going to try and figure it out on my own because electricity is very dangerous and I wasn't about to take any chances on getting hurt or starting a fire. My dad has done some electrical work in the past so I asked him to help me. Once he showed me how to run the first circuit, it was surprisingly easy to run the rest of them. I decided to go with a 15 amp service instead of a 30 amp. The 30 amp would have been almost triple the price. My only limitation with the 15 amp is that I will have to turn the air conditioner off in order to run the microwave.

I Wasn't Taking a Break

I've had several people ask me why I stopped working on my trailer because I haven't posted anything lately. I didn't stop working on it. I just didn't have anything very exciting to post. But now I do. I just finished my little dinette table and it is so cute! It's made out of left over fiberboard from the counter top. I used the folding leg and brackets from the table in the old camper. I glued thin wooden rails to the cabinet fronts so the table can be lowered down to make one big bed out of the two separate beds on either side of the trailer.

And now for something much less exciting. The other thing I have been working on is getting my air conditioner installed. When it is pushed out like it is supposed to be, it sticks out past the bumper. This could potentially cause a bad situation if I were to get rear ended while towing. In order to avoid that, the AC cannot be permanently mounted so that it can come in and out of the trailer. Not mounting it with the brackets that it comes with causes a problem of making sure it doesn't fall out of the back of the trailer. I attached a little wooden shelf to the bumper to solve the problem but I am not happy with it and I am currently researching a better way to install it. I have seen pictures of people attaching drawer slides directly to the AC. I haven't found any step by step instructions but I going to try it based on what I see in the pictures. I also ended up returning the first AC I bought because it was broken. I bought a different brand to replace it because the Goldstar had these metal clips on the bottom that were causing problems due to the fact that I am using the AC in a totally different way from which it is intended to be used.

Doggie Door?

I cut the hole in the back of the trailer for the air conditioner but my crazy dogs seem to think that it's a door for them.

One Light Fixture Up

I really hope that these fixtures are going to work because I love the way they look. They totally fit the style of my camper. I made the box for the light out of plywood and a 1X3. I attached it to the wall with a piano hinge. I put it on a hinge so that I could still get to the wires once the roof is on. It doesn't tilt down as much as I was hoping it would but I am using hinges that came out of my old camper so if it doesn't work, at least it didn't cost me anything.

Zero Progress

I didn't make any progress on the trailer this weekend because I spent the entire weekend looking for light fixtures. I am very limited as to what I can use because my walls are solid. I am also limited by price as I am not going to spend a ton of money on anything that is labeled "rv" or "marine".

These are the first set of lights I bought. The instructions stated very clearly that these cannot be hardwired. Each light has a cord, all of the cords plug into a power strip, then the power strip plugs into an outlet. After I bought the lights I saw them installed in a store display and they looked terrible. There were cords everywhere.

These are the second set of lights I bought. These are meant to be hardwired in a series and connected to a switch. They seemed perfect and I really liked them but they use halogen bulbs which get very hot. Once I read the instructions for the spacing, I realized that I couldn't use them.

This is my third attempt. So far, it seems like this is going to work. I bought small frosted bulbs to in them and they look really cute with the tiny bulbs. I will not be mounting them on the wall. I am building shallow boxes for them and they will be mounted so that the bulbs are pointing down. It's hard to explain but I will post pictures once the boxes are done. That is unless I discover some reason why I can't use these!

Getting Ready to Wire

This week, I have been installing electrical boxes so that I can run the wiring. Since I used solid wall construction instead of sandwich, I have to be creative in order to hide all of the electrical components. I also put in the countertop since there are 2 receptacles in the top of it. I used something I got at Lowes called fiberboard. It is supposed to be less likely to sag than plywood and it has a nice smooth surface that I was told can be painted.

All 4 Walls and a Doorway

I purposely held off on putting on the front wall because I wanted to get as much framing done as possible before boxing myself in. Once the beds were framed out, I couldn't really move forward without the front wall. So I attached the front wall which then made it safe to cut out the doorway. This made a huge difference in the feel of the trailer. Now you can totally get a sense of what it will be like inside once it's done.

Bed/Seat #2

The 2nd bed/seat is now framed. I made it exactly like the first one so it was fairly quick and easy.

Crates

Instead of buying new crates, I got used crates from the rescue group where I volunteer

http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/anewbeginning.html

By getting them there, I had access to a wide variety of sizes. I was able to find the perfect configuration for the space I have available. Thank you, Abby.

How I Got My Cooler

I first started looking for a cooler months ago. I thought this would be something that would be very easy to find in either pink or lime green. I spent hours searching the net and watching ebay without any luck. There are plenty of small coolers in these colors but none the size that I need. I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would have to settle for a white one when I got an excited phone call from my sister. In the break room at her job, she had spied this awesome lime green cooler. She got on the case and found out who owned it. She told the woman the whole travel trailer building story and explained why I needed her cooler. I can only imagine how that conversation went. Luckily for me, the woman was not attached to her cooler and couldn't care less about the color. She said she would be willing to sell it for the cost of a new one. SOLD!!!!! I gave her $30 for it.....a 5 year old slightly scuffed up cooler.......well worth the price. This is the first thing I have put in my camper that is the appropriate color. It is very exciting to see it in there.

Framing

*****Hey Brian, I can't find the comment you posted. It must be lost somewhere in cyberspace*******

I have the door side bed/seat framed out. I don't know anything about framing so this is totally just made up. My sister and I spent almost 3 hours talking, measuring, and putting tape on the floor before we finally got started. I really like the way it turned out though. It feels very sturdy.

Vinyl Tiles

Covering the floor was such a pain. It started when I realized that vinyl does not come in any fun colors or patterns. All of it is very serious house type stuff. So I decided to go with something really plain and unnoticeable and just put some funky rugs over it. I had read and heard mixed reviews on whether or not the tiles would stay stuck down with the adhesive that is already on the back. I spent quite a bit of time sanding and prepping the floor so I felt like it was safe to stick them down without any extra glue. I put down about half of the tiles and when I looked at it the next morning, there were already tiles peeling up. Then I had to get some vinyl glue and try to get it under the partially stuck down tiles. Obviously this was much harder to do than if I had just used the glue in the first place. This was a tedious, messy job and I'm not real happy with the way it looks. All I can say is that I'm glad about 80% of the floor will not be seen anyway.