Vintage Caravan Magazine Issue 36 | Page 30

he said: “I think we can find something a little nicer than this”. With that I said, “Oh, but I can see it, she will be pretty again. Please, please, can I get her?” He said: “Happy Birthday!” With that, she came home with us where she fitted perfectly in our garage. For the first couple of days after we got her home I just sat in her and tried to envision what needed to be done. I could feel my creative juices were coming back. Luckily she didn’t have water damage or structural damage. So it was basically just putting A LOT of make-up on her. Before I began I thought I would bug bomb her and get rid of any spiders or critters that I didn’t want to run into while working on her. To my horror, the next day there were hundreds, I mean thousands, of little pine beetles dead all over the camper and garage floor. YIKES!! It took 4 bombs to kill them all. It was horrible, I thought I had wasted money on something that was infested and that I would never be able to use. But after the fourth bomb, I could tell that I had finally got rid of those little pests! So the work began. The layout in the trailer had a twin bed, a long bench and a large table in between them. The only place to stand was in front of the small kitchen. It felt very cramped. I wanted to totally gut the inside and re-do the layout, but a friend suggested not doing that because of the weight ratio. Plus I had no idea there would be wheels sticking up in the trailer. That’s how little I knew about restoring a trailer. So I ripped out the bench, the twin bed, fixed the damaged wheel wells, and my husband helped me lay down a new sub floor. We then sealed all the cracks and holes and sealed the roof seams with Eternabond and caulking. I removed a cupboard door and the closet door that wouldn’t close. My vision was unfolding before my eyes. After tearing everything out and cleaning the walls and vacuuming all the dust from everything, I began to paint. The wood was so dry that it took three coats of Kilz primer and another three coats of paint. I choose a cream color, so that I would have a solid base to work around. 28 | vintagetrailermagazine