Two Years Later...

Yep, I am awful at this... thought about making updates but never made the time.  With a sick kiddo at home and all appointments cancelled; can't think of a better time to get an update in.  Two years later and many hours of sweat, some tears and unfortunately a little blood... we are making some serious progress.  Our GOAL is to be able to camp in IKE by the end of the summer.  It might only be in our backyard, but we are pushing forward.

The last update told about our woes with the garage and flooring.  We resolved the garage issue with a fabric garage from Harbor Freight and some cinder blocks.  It is isn't perfect, but it is doing the trick.  For the flooring, we found a laminate remnant in the backroom of a local carpet shop.  It is a robin egg blue with speckles.  It looks FANTASTIC and the best part is was under $200 installed.  It was a super easy installation because there were only 6 real cuts around the wheels that needed to be made.

Fast forward to 4th of July weekend 2018... this is when the magic started.  After a super terrible week, we needed to work on something to get our minds off the issues.  The side walls went up and we have been working on Ike every chance we get.  With the mild Colorado winter, we have been able to work on Ike almost every weekend.  We have a small space heater that makes it very warm in the camper.

I'll touch on all the areas we are working on right now and what we completed...

Interior walls/ Roof-  We installed the side walls over 4th of July and quickly added the back panel and 2 more roofing sheets.  The side walls and the back panel are all shellacked and look amazing.  They are 3 coats of amber Zinsser and two coats of clear Zinsser shellac; sanded in between.  It takes forever to do, but worth it.  We hope to get the trailer enclosed shortly after installing the wall cabinets.

Kitchen/ Cabinetry-  It is clear that the best class Scott ever took was wood shop.  He is a seriously talented carpenter.  We knew he could build anything, but this has project has proved it.   When we embarked on this project, Meggan sold it to Scott as a way he could get some new tools.  Scott jumped on board rather quickly and as promised has he gotten some cool toys.  One of our favorites was the router bit for the rounded cabinet corners.  The original corners are 1 1/2" rounded; lots of people use the 1 1/4" when they rebuild because the bit is substantially less expensive and you cannot tell.  Our close friend (who has a hardwood floor business) found one on sale in a pro-shop and helped us get the 1 1/2" bit at a great price.  He also helped Scott round the corners of the birch.  The birch also proved difficult to find in the sizes we need.  We found a wood store in Denver that had larger pieces we ripped down to the size we needed.  Again, maybe a bit more expensive, but so worth it when you see it in the camper.

The kitchen is installed, shellacked and ready for plumbing.  All it needs is a lower cabinet door and two drawers under the stove.  We put in a retro laminate counter top that looks amazing.  Thank you Home Depot special orders!  The cove molding and the counter edges really make the area look great.  We even were lucky enough to find a vintage Princess stove online for a reasonable price.  Thank heavens I checked Craigslist... we found one in Colorado Springs that a couple removed from their vintage Shasta camper.  It is the ugly brown color, but even so it is amazing.  Someday we will actually get around to seeing if it works and rebuilding it.  We even found a place near where Scott travels for work to have it re-porcelained.  

Scott is now working on the upper cabinets and the passenger wall cabinet.  The passenger wall cabinet is in place and the "fridge" is installed.  We are trying to figure out shelves and use every inch of the space wisely.  He still needs to build the upper cabinets on the kitchen side, the cabinets above the bed and then the upper cabinet above the table.

The table and the seat benches are finished.  We installed the one bench, but are waiting to build out the door frame before we install the other side.  The table is waiting for the front wall of the camper to be installed.  One day in the near future we are going to be able to have a very easy day of installation.

Exterior-  After putting up the walls, we quickly decided that we should insulate the camper.  Originally only the roof had insulation; probably not the best.  We opted to use the foam board insulation that you can easily find at Home Depot.  It was fun light day of work:)  We also ran the wiring for all the exterior lights.  Meggan has rebuilt the main door (added insulation to that too), the screen door, and the under the bed hatch door.  Again, these will be relatively easy installs when we are ready.

Meggan has also finished stripping and polishing all the windows.  She replaced the screens and has them waiting for glass and installation.

We still need to run the electrical wiring for the lights and fan, but after that and a few sheets of plywood we will be ready to put the skins and roof back on.  Meggan found a place in Denver where she can order a new sheet of aluminum for the the roof.  Easy peasy right?

Misc-  While Scott is busy building cabinets, Meggan has been working on miscellaneous interior  and exterior things.  She stripped the fridge door and frame and repainted them.  She also removed all the paint from the original hardware.  We are missing a few pieces, but thank heavens for Vintage Trailer Supply.  She also rebuilt the exterior marker, tail and license plate lights.  She is working on converting the overhead table light from AC to DC... we will see if it is possible.

There are lots of little (and big) things still left on the interior.  We still need to do the electrical, lights, plumbing, water storage, bed and under space build out, polish the interior window frames,  have reupholster the table benches and find some birch door fronts.  The good thing is that we either have the parts or know where to get them and just can't store them for that long.

So, as you can see lots getting done.  Now with every day we work on Ike, we are seeing results.  It is super motivating!  We will try to get another update up soon!

Way Overdue

Many apologies that we have not posted an update in years.  So much has been done since the last post, but we are still very far from being finished.  Life gets busy and sadly this project was pushed to the side.  One year was spent sanding and priming the frame, another on building the new floor and miscellaneous tasks and one year where I'm not sure we did anything.

Frame:  The frame is completely sanded, primed, and repaired.  This took forever; probably close to one year of the missing timeline here was spent sanding rust from the frame.  Lots of sweat went into this process.  We hired a local welder to bend back some the front frame pieces and to check all the welds.

Suspension:  Finding the correct suspension for a 60+ year old trailer is not easy.  We managed to locate new leaf springs and U-Bolts at a company in Pennsylvania.  Gotta love the internet.

Wheels:  Meggan cleaned the rims and sanded off any rust.  She then painted the rims of the wheels white to make a faux whitewall look when the baby moons are on.  We also purchased custom made aluminum wheel boxes.  There is a great company in Denver that made them to specification.  We figure these are just another step in making this last another 60+ years.

Floor:  This was a many stage process.  We primed and installed the new floor joists; boosting the framing around the door and in the main walkway.  Shasta's are known to sag a little over time in the high travel areas, so we added a little extra support.  We then put down sound board that was primed on the bottom layer to help reduce water damage. Then a layer of plywood for our subfloor.  This is all held together by long bolts and wood screws.  We will have to get a good photo of the floor.

Sadly because it took so long to get to this point, the flooring company we wanted to use originally went out of business in the meantime.  So, we went on a hunt at a local flooring store and we found a piece of robin egg blue laminate in the back room.  The flooring was less than the install price, but totally worth having them do it for us.  What took them 2 hours would have taken us about 3 months:)

Window frames:  Meggan is painstakingly polishing each window frame.  The beautiful aluminum frames were painted with layers of paint and then caulking.  She is stripping each one down and then polishing to a shine.  They are not perfect, but they look so much better.  Only 4 to go.

Kitchen:  Meggan refinished the table with new linoleum countertop (to match the other counter) and sanded the leg.  Anita and Meggan also sanded down the drawers and the frame of the lower cabinets.  Each was painted yellow and green at one time.  Lots of hours went into getting each one down to the beautiful birch and ready for sealing.  The paint used on the interior parts of the drawers will not come off, so we are going to line the drawers and prime and paint the sides a neutral color.

Walls:  Scott has one wall framed and one interior wall cut out.  But this is where we stalled...

The Problem:  Our garage door opening is 8 foot high, but with the overhead door it is only 79 inches of clearance.  If we put the walls on the trailer it is too high.  So we are stuck with a conundrum of how to complete the project.  One option is to build an outbuilding, but we are running into permit problems.  The second option is a portable garage (think ShelterLogic) but again are limited to size due to local codes.  The third option is to continue building it in the garage and drop the axel (or frame if needed) onto casters and slowly slide it out when we are finished.

Whatever we choose, we need to get cracking on this project... We really want to go camping in our little camper and get our second garage stall back.

Demolition Day 1 and 2

10/27/2012

Best word to describe demolition day one is YIKES!  Despite a busy weekend, we had about two hours to do some demolition on the trailer while the kiddos were napping.  We decided to get the carpet and front section out.  Ohhhh my goodness.  Not sure what lived in the dinette seats, but it made a mess with all the nuts and stuffing.  We think we were relatively successful.  The front dinette is out and we were able to get the majority of the carpeting, another two layers of flooring, and the side cabinet out as well.  

As with other projects, there are always surprises.  This weekend we found a wasp nest and bird feathers in the heater vent.  Many holes in the wheel boxes and the floors.  Also a gas line right beside some questionable wiring.  On a good note, we found the original tile (not salvageable, but will help with ideas) and the original rounded curves on the front cabinetry.  Hopefully that is a sign of good to come.

Luckily, we have a free dump day coming up so we can get rid of all of this yucky stuff.  We plan to continue next weekend.

11/3/2012

We continued to remove the interior.  It was more of the same, some super scary and some exciting finds.  We removed the kitchen and the back bed.  In the kitchen we found the original birch frame (painted, but in good shape) that we plan to re-finish.  It was a really exciting find.  We also found some of the original birch panelling in the front cabinet.  Although it cannot be reused, it confirmed our desire to restore Ike with the birch paneling interior.

In the world of scary, the entire back right is rotted, nothing to salvage there.  We also found more yellow jackets.  Luckily it was cold and they were not aggressive.  We need to find the source before spring.  I have a feeling the source will be revealed as we remove the skins.  We also discovered the reason that the rear roof sags... there is nothing holding it up!  The support beam was just floating in the ceiling attached to nothing.  All problems that will be resolved when we put it back together.  

We are at a stopping point until we can remove the skins this spring.  We sealed up the gaping holes and inventoried the salvageable items.  We plan to work on some of the detail stuff this winter so we are ready to re-install.  We are also reading everything we can on the best way to tackle the restoration.  There is much to learn on the world wide web!  

Getting lots done!

Wow, so who knew that we would totally fail at keeping the blog updated?  We apologize for not being better.  Hopefully as we move forward, we will be better.  Even if this is not updated, we have been very busy getting Ike ready for his rebuild.  We are taking lots of pictures of everything we take apart so we can share our fun.  We are finally making some great progress and are looking forward to the fun of rebuilding the camper.

Ike's many colors

Late last year we took out the disgusting carpet and dismantled the interior, then came winter and very little got done because of the weather.  We managed to get the windows out without breaking them and then prepared to remove the aluminum skins.  It took almost 4 months to get the skins off.  In the process we figured out that Ike was painted 5 different colors over his lifetime... coral, black, green, aqua, and blue.  Poor thing, but just imagine all of those colors in the screws that you have to try to remove.  Not to mention the previous owners were in love with caulking and rubber roofing goop.  They must have used at least a case of caulking around the windows and along the seams.  We had to take a knife point and pick out the paint and caulking in every screw on the skins.  Many hours of tedious work, but we got the skins off at the end of June.




The wood frame behind the skins is awful.  The rot is bad in the known spots- windows, around the door, vent and corners.  We are not really sure how it stayed together driving it home.  From here things moved a little faster, we were able to get the roof off and drop the walls.  We are left with just the floor on the frame as of early September.  Sadly, we really cannot reuse much from the framing.  We kept the walls so that we can use them as a template to rebuild.

Getting the skins off, one piece at a time

As we enter the rebuild stage, we are very hopeful that we will get a lot done this winter.  Not the glamorous stuff, but the list is long.  Some of the stuff we plan to this winter includes:  scrubbing the aluminum window frames, repairing screens and missing glass in the windows, rebuilding the kitchen, rebuilding the door and screen door, scrubbing/ repainting the refrigerator, putting new laminate on the kitchen table, packing bearings and rebuilding the wall frames.  We are hoping to get some of this "fun" stuff done now so that next spring we can focus on the rebuild and putting Ike back together.

Front corner rot

Back corner rot

All skins off, roof left

Removing the rusted nails from the skin

As we tore apart Ike, we had to decide to keep and reuse or do new.  Most of interior will be new, but we plan to rebuild trying to maintain the 1955 lines using modern 2013 materials.  We found a great flooring company that allows you to design your own floor.  Super excited since only about 8 square feet of floor can actually matter for design.  The rest of the floor is under cabinets, beds, or tables.  It will allow us to bring in some fun colors and shapes.  We also found a really cool new design for the formica counters and tabletop.  It has a great retro feel, but is new.
  

   

New floor

Before

After

Meet Ike

"Ike" joined our family on October 20th, 2012.  Ike is a 1955 Shasta 1500 travel trailer in need of lots of love and restoration.  What started as a whimsical pre-sleep conversation after reading an article in Sunset Magazine, lead to a hunt online to find our new family member.  We found Ike on Craigslist and we were lucky enough to be the first responders to the ad.  (These projects are super popular and the Shasta brand is very desirable.)  At times we think that maybe we are a little insane, but the potential is awesome!  Not scared of the work, just what was (and still may be) living in the walls, cabinets and the table upholstery.  We plan to restore Ike to his full glory and spend many weekends together as a family in the great outdoors.  Love camping, but the idea of a bed and not a sleeping mat is very alluring.

Oh, so you may also be wondering why we named the trailer Ike.  1955 was a good year (so we have been told by family members that happened to be born that year), but the President was Dwight D Eisenhower or Ike.  We decided that it was a fun name for a vintage trailer that was an integral part of the historical times.  And 2012 if you are not aware is an election year and we get enough political calls to remind us so.  Maybe we had politics on the brain.  Either way, Ike it is!

We plan to take Ike down to the trailer frame and completely rebuild.  As with all projects, we will start with demolition!  We hope that maybe underneath the awesome 1970's paneling that we find some of the beautiful birch and curves of the 1955 Shasta line.  We are really excited to get started, unfortunately a lot of the fun will have to wait for spring.  I am sure we will find plenty to keep us busy until then.

The inside is covered in hideous paneling and the remnants of past visitors.  We also seem to have a lot of yellow jackets by the front windows.  Thinking there is a nest in the walls.  We had removed the table and seats before taking these pictures.  They both need considerable work.  But, there are some good finds too... we have the original hubcaps, refrigerator, vine lighting, and a wooden screen door.

Inside looking towards back

Inside looking towards front

Front