Most of you who know me know that I don't exactly seek out ways to exert myself. I would be perfectly happy if my sweat glands were only called upon to function in the presence of a jacuzzi or a sauna. So how exactly did I decide to take on a project such as restoration of a camper as old as I am? Well, let's see. I guess I am prone to the occasional flight of fancy with little thought of following through. While having dinner at my cousins' house Dale (cousin) showed me his project. It was a tow behind pop-up trailer that had been wrecked which he had restored. 'Wow", I thought, "what a great idea! Tomorrow morning I am going to start looking for a cool old trailer I can fix up and we can all go camping!" Apparently for me excitement causes memory loss because for a full day or two I forgot a couple of things:
1) I have no carpentry skills- All the males on my mother's side of the family (the side who had just restored a camper) have carpentry skills but that gene abandoned me. It must be recessive and my father's gene cancelled it out. The gene that I inherited makes hammers irresistibly drawn to my thumbs.
2) Attention span- I have none. The only way I will complete a project is if something is baring down on me like a time deadline or a monetary reward or a wife who demands I remove " that camper toilet" from the front yard.
But being that one of those three conditions did exist, I found myself more motivated than usual.
I sure do love my wife.
The camper in question was purchased less than 24 hours after dinner with the relatives. Dale had informed me that my uncle Leonard had also purchased a pop up and that they had a camping trip planned in a few weeks. I thought to my self "that would be fun, I should take the wife and kid!" Once again the excitement of the moment making me forget I generally dislike anything that causes me discomfort (see above-re:sweat) such as mosquitoes, substandard toilets, 1/2 thick foam rubber mattresses and missing Top Chef.
Now, given a few days to allow my excitement to wear off I made have made a different decision, maybe got something a little nicer or at least something a little more not-held-together-by-spider-webs-and-hope. But as price was an issue, I was fairly limited in my camping options to either a fixer upper or a walmart 2 man tent. But as fate would have it within my "excitement cooling off" period I found her.
As you can see, she looks pretty good from the outside. But when we look inside we can see that someone has taken the easy way out in the upkeep department.
Notice the 2X4's, don't they were original issue. The curtains on the bed would need to be washed before they were even clean enough to through away.
If you look at this picture you can see the warped first layer of the paneling. This was present pretty much anywhere there was any opening for moisture. I am forced to believe either the seals of the windows leak or the previous owners had some wicked water balloons battles on a regular basis.
Oooooooo! A GOLDSTAR appliance! Nothing says quality like a product that shares a name with medicated foot powder. Notice the rope that has been added to the counter for a "nautical" touch I imagine. It doesn't so much come across as "nautical" as it does "here's a convenient piece of rope for tying up hostages". There's no limit to what a redneck with a glue gun can accomplish. I'm just glad I didn't find a talking bass on a plaque duct taped to the wall. I did however find a can of baked beans in the cabinet, that could have explained some of the smell.
The man who was selling it claimed it had no leaks and I trust that as far as he knew he was telling the truth, I mean in my experience most people of impaired sight are fairly honest. Or maybe it leaked sometime before he had it, who knows? Although I didn't get the Manis carpentry gene, I did inherit the Manis frugality that prompts me to always want to get something less than what someone is asking for it. He wanted $500, I offered $450 and he jumped on immediately. I assumed the warning light going off in my head was because I thought I left the oven on at home. He delivered it for an extra $20 and it was a done deal. He left and I couldn't help think of the horror story where one man passes on a cursed item to another man and the poor sap even pays him to take it. Well, this poor sap is actually going to follow through this time. I really don't have a choice, the wife draws the line at broken camper toilets left sitting in the front yard.
On to stage one- Assessing the damage
Well, it ain't good. Rotted wood at the bottom corners of about 70% of the floor edges, rotting wood in the walls, about 20 % and sections of floor that were held up by the aluminum shell underneath. See below.
What you're looking at here is the roof vent, looks like its been taken off and reinstalled by someone who was not so much worried about aesthetics as he was showing people that he could still work fine while drunk. The screws on the vent lip there are anchored solidly into crumbling, rotted 40 year old paneling. Makes for a crappy water barrier but a top rate sieve.
This little construct was where some enterprising person decided to add an air conditioner to the camper. Not a completely bad job except for planning and execution. The air conditioner sat on a 2X4 crossbeam until the water from the AC unit dripped down the interior long enough to rot it away. I mean completely, what was left was like a piece of solid black mold.
So now it just sits in the frame that someone fashioned out of a piece of plywood. Needless to say removing it was the easiest part of this job so far.
See the bowed paneling? The crossbeam behind it was rotted to dust. I then began removing paneling on the ceiling and walls inside to get a look at what I had gotten myself into.
Yep that's what I'm talking about. It's rotted all the way through that corner so the flooring will have to be torn up to rebuild part of the floor joists. I'm not crying I had rotted wood in my eye, shut up.
After pulling off some outside aluminum siding here's what we got.
The wood here is underneath a window and is about 40% rotted, it will have to be replaced. But here's one of the ugliest sites yet. This is the section of paneling I have removed but look closer at the left corner.
That's rotted wood underneath the left (drivers side) front corner, literally just crumbling away, since those beams most likely go all the way across, the whole lower half of the front will most likely have to be rebuilt.
This is the floor underneath the refridgerator, rotted down to the joist. fun fun.
One more little curve that got thrown at me is the odd head on 99% of the screws in this thing, like nothing I have ever seen, I suspect they're not made anymore.
I plan on keeping a blog with lots of pictures but luckily no sounds of crashing thumbs and expletives. That way years from now you can all have a good laugh at the old man who still sits on his carport restoring a 75 year old camper he never plans to sleep in.
