First off I am posting this just to prove I am still alive and kicking. The wife and I last year decided to remodel a little camp trailer. We are getting to old and spoiled for tent camping and we do a fair amount of camping. I wanted to build a small travel trailer from scratch. My wife was looking at brand new ones. We compromised and decided to join the travel trailer remodel/restoration craze. We found a 1968 16 foot Layton that had good exterior metal and a decent skeleton for $400. Yes it had some dry rot, but don’t they all. And I happen to know a bit about wood working so I knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle. So last summer and even more so this summer we have been working on the trailer. Basically completely gutted it on the inside. The previous owner had put up OSB on the walls and some tongue and groove pine on the ceiling and was living in it. He got a bigger trailer to live in. The wife decided she was keeping the OSB. Not my choice but I gave in. Weight isn’t an issue as its a small trailer so I was not worried about the heavy OSB. But I figured it was ugly. Well she sanded it all down smooth and painted it white and I have to admit it doesn’t look bad. After that came my part, building all the cabinets and what not. So after it was gutted we put in an all new sub floor, replacing the dry rot skeleton as we went and added 1" of foam boar insulation. This gave me the base for my work. Having a ton of blued pine I began milling. The majority of it is blued pine with a plain pine tongue and grove for the inner panels. Here is a little tour of where we are now. We are using it as we work on it. So we do things in pieces so that it can travel.
The first thing I made was the closet. Less doors and drawers (those are coming soon)
This incorporated the existing propane heater that worked like a charm. Painted the cover with a flat BBQ heat resistant paint. Next piece I made was a “skirt” for under the bed to block off the storage area under the bed.
After that came the dinning bench seat/cabinets. The one in the picture is set away from the wall so you can sit without hitting the kitchen counter. This left an area under for the power invertor, water pump and other electrical stuff. The upper back rest section has a hinged lid and is where we will store games and stuff. On the left is a 110v AC outlet and the switch for the water pump.
each of the bench seats opens into storage. The opposite side of this one is where the water tank is.
Next on the list was the stove/sink/fridge cabinet. I don’t have the sink cut into the top yet. But this is an awesome piece of blued pine with lots of color and character. It has a Stone Coat epoxy clear counter top epoxy on it.
A little note here. The stove worked the fridge did not. Found a fridge to put in it. We painted the front of the fridge with chalkboard paint so our soon to join the world grandson Everett will have a place to draw when the time comes (yes this is my first grandchild due in September). We bought appliance paint and painted the stove, which was that ugly 60s/70s olive green, gloss black. Looks brand new.
Isn’t that a gorgeous piece of wood. And Stone Coat epoxy is an amazing and very easy product to work with. I have used several resins in wood working and nothing is as easy as Stone Coat. And the combination makes for a neat counter.
and the most recent piece is this upper kitchen cabinet skeleton. We still have a long way to go. We had a bad mouse infestation over the winter. and that forced the ceiling to come out. The closet is lined in the back with aromatic cedar. So we decided to replace the ceiling with aromatic cedar as well. So that need to happen. I had enough left over vinyl laminate flooring from my hobby room and we will put it on the floor because it is durable and water resistant. Doors and drawers need to happen and I have some very nice blued pine in reserve for the drawer fronts. Still lots to do. But when its done I think we will have a cute little retro RV and for sure we will have one that we will be proud of because this is truly a her and I project. She is dang handy but most of the time it is me doing and her helping. But I can honestly say she has been my equal. She did most of the demo, she laid the sub floor by herself, cushions and curtains are her and all of the wood finishing, other than the epoxy counter, has been her. Been a lot of fun doing this with her and I know we will have a lot of fun using it. And said and done I bet we have less than 2000 buck in it.
