Good news day!

I didn't have tons of time today, but I had enough time to take out the long bench on the starboard side.  That was interesting.  I learned several useful things, although not necessarily in the most beneficial order.  First, I was reminded that these campers were put together in exact opposite way that I house is built.  In other words, these are built from the outside in.  How was I reminded of that, you ask?  Good question!  First, let me say that I'll be dropping by the doctor's office tomorrow afternoon for my regular Tetanus booster.

Take a look at this:

Can you see three little things that look like lines or staples just to the right of the access panel?  Yeah? Guess what.  They aren't lines or staples.  They are nails.  Rusty nails, of course.  And they are protruding INTO the camper about an inch.  That narrow end of the bench was nailed to the paneling from the outside.  Not to worry, though, those nails were still good and sharp.  Solid craftsmanship.

A closeup.

Moving on!  No more bench!  Well, actually, it's just now in the garage.  And a stabilizer to hold up the room while I pull away the supporting walls.

But with the bench out of the way, I was able to finish the "looking for the end of the rot" process below the window.  Happily, what I found that just beyond what I'd already cut away is GOOD WOOD!!!  Hooray.  OK. That helps me put a stop to the very slippery slope of "well, since I'm doing this, I might as well do that too" syndrome.  Also known (thank you, Greg) as Shipwright's Disease.  Phew.  I'm going to have to learn to be OK with some of this stuff until I get the know-how to do a full restoration.

Here is a photo of the fully cut out lower half of that section.  The vertical piece is perfectly good and so is the middle horizontal piece.  The right half of the top and bottom pieces need to go, but they are independent pieces, so that isn't so bad.

This week's task is to come up with a full shopping list of everything that I'll need next week - the "big push" week to get as much of this fixed as I possibly can.  I'm hoping for an extra set of hands on one of those days for this carpentry work.  I need to get the bunk out, but it is really heavy, so I'll need another body for that one.  Tetanus shots are one thing, but broken body parts or - heaven forbid- damage to the aluminum - are quite another.  Safety first!  Well, after the rusty nails incident, anyway.

I've taken every measurement that I can think of to help me put things back together again.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Next, I've removed most of the cabinet doors to get them ready for a little clean up.  The ones that are now the facade of the shower were screwed on from the inside of the shower room and the shower stall was installed over those screws, so I don't have any way to unscrew them, sort of pulling the shower stall away from the wall.  Not appealing.  So I suppose I'll have to use the handy dandy multi-tool and cut the screws from the outside and then screw the drawer covers back into place.

Here's what's new on the port side:
Kitchen

Bathroom

Dinette.  Not much to see there, as I've been using that as a work space.

Here are some close-up shots of those panels that were replace by a previous owner.  I don't think it was done by the owner just before me, though.  (They did the bathroom and the green/white tiles, though.)  I need to figure out what to use to seal these seams.  Can you see them in these photos?  Look at the one immediately below between the white panel and the dark one to its left.  The gap all of the way down that area is from 1/8 to 1/4".  You can see the yellow stuff.  No idea what that is, except that it doesn't like to be sanded.

You can see below more of the yellow stuff.  You can also see, at the top of the photo below, just below the window, how the surface laminate is popping off.  I'm trying to be a big girl, take a deep breath and just leave it alone for now.  It's tough!  It's kinda like not picking a scab.  Yeah, that's gross, but tell me you don't have a hard time not doing it.  If you say that you don't, I don't believe you.

That's it until tomorrow, camper fans.