Our renovation process has hit a bit of a stalemate. George is extra busy with work right now and since we gotta make a living, it’s left me doing small projects around the house. There’s some things I’m comfortable doing on my own, but things like installing doors, I have trouble physically doing on my own. Real wood doors are heavy, folks. While small projects are not nearly as gratifying as large ones, I’m proud of the work I’ve done.
Here’s what I’ve been working on.
Living room from the front door
Ok ya’ll, so this is it. The interior before pictures. In all their glory. Since the pictures are pretty low-quality phone pictures, I must admit, the house doesn’t look that bad. But let me assure you, this was and still is one fixer-upper. Let’s point out some of the fun issues going on, shall we?! Continue reading
Today’s question is from a young man named Kevin. Kevin wants to know, “Should I buy a move-in ready trailer or should I buy a trailer to renovate?” Take it away, Kevin!
Hey!
So I’m 16 and my family doesn’t have much… I’ve always been into outdoor stuff. I ran across your blog somehow and I absolutely love everything. I now have a dream to live in a trailer like y’all have and live life like that. My main concern for my future is providing for myself and future family. I think this could help with those fears because of a significantly lower cost of living. I had a question about purchasing a trailer. I obviously have lots of time. I graduate this coming school year and plan on going to Clemson for forestry, but I’m planning out my future now to be “more prepared”. Do you think it’s better to find a already nice trailer or to find a cheaper one and fix it up?
-Kevin
I’m pretty sure my (super long) tombstone inscription will say something like this: “Melanie: seasoned traveler, never able to sit down or stay in one spot too long. In the event of zombies, beware, she will rise!” George and I have the itch again. The itch to do something new. We won’t be giving up the Airstream, we love it dearly, but we’re looking on to bigger (or smaller?!) adventures in a van!
I know what you’re saying, but the Airstream is such a nice home on wheels! Yes, it is, but it would be very cumbersome for long journeys, much more expensive and probably more problematic than a van.
George bought the van for $850. I am on a Spending Diet so I didn’t contribute to the initial price of the van, but I will be using mostly my budget to fix it up. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to travel, ideally we’d be able to travel for a year or more, but that’s still up in the air. What we do know is this time we’re giving ourselves plenty of time to fix up her up. And boy are we going to need that time!
Just like the Airstream, the van has blue carpet, rust and some body work issues. Unlike the Airstream, we also have a chipped windshield, a super weird decal and a host of other issues. Let’s take a look, shall we?!
Yikes, right? It’s kind of terrifying how much work needs to be done, but I’m excited to fully remodel it to a home on wheels.
So what do you think? Are you excited to take this journey with us? Let me know in the comments!
love,
melanie
Yesterday I showed you all the before and after shots of the Airstream, well, today I want to show you a few glamour shots. We live in the Airstream full-time, so not only did I want the Airstream remodel to be functional, but I also wanted it to feel warm and cozy. (Even in the winter, when it isn’t so warm!) We had a tight budget, so we built most of our furniture. We bought very little for the Airstream, instead we used the things that we already owned.
In the shots above you can see our copious amount of handmade pillows. One of my favorite things to do in the Airstream is curl up in the queen-size bed and watch a movie.
George does all of his art work from the trailer, so we knew it was important for him to have his own space to work and conduct all his business.Â
Although the kitchen is small, I’ve managed to squeeze out some killer meals in there. Sometimes when the space is feeling too cramped or hot to cook, we’ll go outside and cook right over the fire— camp style.
There for a while, the bench was something we didn’t use much. But since George built me a mini-desk, I’ve been sitting (and napping!) on it constantly. Again, it’s got plenty of homemade pillows and we covered the bench cushion in vintage fabric.
When we first designed our the Airstream, I had grand dreams of open shelving. We had open shelving for a few months until I just couldn’t stand the clutter anymore! I’m a minimalist and I love a clean space, but George is an artist and needs a lot of stuff for his business, so we decided to compromise and build drawers from reclaimed barn wood to hide our junk.
I like to think that I’m not prissy, but I couldn’t live with a composting or camper-style toilet. Just couldn’t do it. That’s where I draw the line. But since we are parked and hooked up to a septic system, a real toilet wasn’t a problem. Thank god.
What do you think of our little home? Let me know in the comments!
love,
melanie
I think the best word to describe what I’m feeling right now is giddy. It took a lot of hard, sometimes disgusting, always sweaty, work to remodel our 1978 Airstream Sovereign Land Yacht, but we did it. This may be one of the proudest moments of my life. I may even be more proud of myself than when I graduated from undergrad and grad school. Not even kidding. But before I pop a bottle of champagne, let’s get to the details!
You’ll notice we didn’t restore the Airstream to original. We’re not purists and we only had a budget of $1,000 to fix her up. (We bought her for $5,000, more about our buying story here.) We went slightly over budget due to the amount of paint we needed. We severely underestimated that. Unlike many of the Airstreams you might see online, we also live in this thing. Full-time. We tried to keep the integrity of our original Airstream, but tailor it to fit our needs.
When you enter the Airstream and look left you’ll see what is in the picture above. We tore out the Cookie Monster blue carpets and replaced them with laminate flooring. We created a window in the wall beside the kitchen to open up the space, replaced the gas fridge, George built shelves, a desk and a bench for napping! We replaced all the window screens. (Here’s how to do that.) We also tore out some of the overhead compartments to open up the space. My main job was painting. The Airstream had gas heat which can leave sticky gross stuff on the walls and we think maybe someone smoked in here, so it was my job to thoroughly clean everything (bleach was my best friend), then coat pretty much everything in Kilz and cover it with a bright white paint and primer. In some places it took four coats. On the storage compartments and the weird plastic spots, we used Rust-oleum gloss white spray enamel. On the countertops we used a custom-color oil-based enamel. Overall, the paint has held up pretty well. Some spots have needed to be touched up, but I think the white paint was the most transformative aspect of the remodel.
If you look to the right in the Airstream, you’ll see our spacious queen-size bed. To me, a big bed was more important than a dining room, so we tore out the benches, and George built us a custom bed frame. Read more about tips on creating that here. I also made a ton of pillows because… luxury. (Here’s how I made the pillows here.)
I didn’t have a great photo of the “before” oven because we found a huge mouse den in there and I had to get it out ASAP. Â We use a convection oven and two burners for cooking. It works out pretty well. There’s no Thanksgiving meals going on in here, but our oven fits a full-size pizza, so I’m happy.
If you walk through the kitchen and turn back around, this is the view you’ll see. You’ll notice we took off the covers from the kitchen cabinets and replaced them with super-cute curtains that my mom made. From here, you’ll also get a better view of the custom bench and drawers we have for hiding all kinds of crafts and art supplies. George crafted the drawers out of barn wood from the tobacco barn that is on our property. The storage area also houses our large record collection. When we were purging all of our worldly goods, we decided vinyl is one thing that we just couldn’t live without.
Oh my god, the bathroom, the bathroom. I’m not kidding when I say that I was scared to even go in the bathroom before the remodel. That camper toilet scared me. A real toilet was priority 1 on my list. Cleaning this bathroom really made all the difference. The “wallpaper” was actually really pretty under the 10 layers of dirt. Then again, we painted with oil-based enamel on the countertops, replaced the lights and did this fun, washi tape design on the mirror. (Here’s that how-to.)
Then the shower! Oh my. Still to this day, George and I have no idea why someone would try to spray paint a shower blue (to match the carpet?!?!). To remedy this situation we took the easy way out and used a kit that we found at Lowe’s. I’d love to one day have a luxurious tub or at least a prettier shower, but sometimes the cheap way wins. We also purchased and installed a very nice shower head.
You can’t see it in these pictures, but we started off with the floors all laminate, but had to replace the bathroom floor when our hot water heater started leaking. That was unfortunate, but it’s been the only big issue that we’ve run into (fingers crossed).
This remodel was a whole hell of a lot of work. George and I have thought about doing it again, but we’re not mentally (or physically) prepared for it. Now that you’ve seen the before and afters, I’ll be sharing more glamour shots tomorrow!
Happy Airstream Week!
love,
melanie
