Day Seventeen

Well, there was a lot of progress today, but not much to see.  The whole inside of Trixie got two full coats of finish paint today, but she needs one more.  And all but two of the cabinet doors/drawers got primer.  I had to go over all of them twice with deglosser/cleaner to get off all of the grime - EEEEYUKKKKKKKKKK!!!  But they are now happily coated with 1-2-3 and ready for their first coat of paint.

There won't be anymore photos until next weekend.  My after work time must be devoted to knocking out the cushions.  I got the zippers yesterday for most of them.  Hopefully I can assemble the long ones for the bunk Monday/Tuesday, then start cutting for the 4 dinette cushions on Wednesday.  We shall see.

Have a good week everyone.

Day Sixteen

BIG DAY!!!

Very exciting.

First, this is where we started the day.  Took off the wet and buckled luan next to the door.  I don't know if you can see this, but there are years' worth of drip marks on the aluminum.  Not a good sign.  BUT I think that I may have found the cause on the roof.  I'll see what I can do about that.

Need to get a final ceiling panel in place around the fan.  This was tricky, but more on that in a minute.

Ta da!  Final ceiling panel is in place.  The two very narrow strips on either side of the fan broke when I was trying to get it into place.  Technically, I could have waited for someone to come and help me.  Four hands would have likely been able to hold onto the whole thing at once, thereby relieving the stress on the center, but, patience not being one of my virtues, I put it up myself and it broke.  HOWEVER, I got it all up and the finish piece for the fan will cover where the two sets of pieces join.

...and here is the new starboard piece.  

Next, I've included some snaps of what everything else looks like right now.  Not so great, huh?  Well, hopefully that is about to change.  I've moved most of the tools back into the garage, so that I have space to work.

Now, I have a coat of sealer/primer on everything and a first coat of finish on some.  I would have continued so that I got a full coat of finish on everything, but I was losing daylight.  Storm coming.

Can you see above the big window, to the left of the small window, the veneer is buckling along the seam?  I'll get some wood glue behind it tomorrow and figure out a way to clamp it in place.  Man, do those light fixtures look mangy now that there is paint on the walls.  

Hopefully I'll finish the base coat and get a full second coat on tomorrow.  Then I can add molding.

That's all for tonight, Campers!

Day Fifteen

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*%@^!@_%$()*@&!_@)#%^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those of us in the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area have been enjoying good soaking rains for the past few days.

Trixie has not been enjoying them.

You may recall this area by the door that I decided to leave alone until November.  There had been a leak, so there was paneling damage, but no need to worry about the aesthetics until November, right?  WRONG!!  It's soaking wet.  I don't know why.  But I can't just leave it to dry out.  The panel backing is now buckled, so I can't even "just paint it" and forget about it for a few months.  I'll try to take out the paneling up to the top of the window, then down to the wheel well for now and pray that I can find the source of the leak.  Trixie is back under a tarp for now.

I mean, really!

I didn't even take a photo of the new ceiling paneling in place.  Who cares.

Because of the rain, I couldn't cut the last piece of ceiling paneling, but maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've turned the upstairs bedroom into a sewing room.  I might as well get going on all of the cushions (10 in all).  I also readied the garage to start painting all of the cabinets doors and drawers, so it the day wasn't a complete loss.

I'm bummed.

Days Thirteen & Fourteen

Sorry for the combined days, but it's been a dilly of a few weeks.  I'm finally getting walls and ceilings up.  IT'S BEEN REALLY HARD!!!!  Trying to set luan into immovable channels takes a huge amount of patience - not one of my strong suits.

You can see here what I PRAY was the hardest piece to fit into place.  It is the rear ceiling panel, which had to fit into channels on all four sides!!!!  Heaven help me.  Well, heaven helped, and so did two neighbors, several putty knives, one rubber mallet, buckets of perspiration (it was 102 degrees that day) and high fives like we'd just cured cancer when we finally got this sucker in place.

Obviously , you can also see that the two pieces of rear wall are also now in place.  Although not nearly so hard as the ceiling, they weren't any fun.  I'm sure that there is a correct way to do all of this and I am equally sure that I didn't do that.  However.....I'm pleased with the results.

The next piece to do is the second of three ceiling pieces.  It's hard to get a good photo without a telephoto lens, but the next piece starts in the channel at the far left and ends in the center of the piece of framing to the left of the ceiling fan.  There are channels at the walls next to the cabinets and from wall to wall next to the far left section with pink insulation.  I left the yellow awful insulation in the center because of the electrical cabling.  I doubled the layers, but couldn't figure out how to use the solid stuff and still make sure that the cable wouldn't be squished.

It took me well over an hour (probably two) to cut this piece.  there are a number of bits and pieces to this one and I wanted it all from one solid piece.  I had it all marked out on the luan, then realized (thank goodness) that what I needed was a mirror image of what I had.  Oy!!!  Starting again.......again....  I finally got it all cut.

But I just couldn't get the thing in place with 1.5 hands (I'm somewhat constrained by a bum right shoulder at the moment).  Frankly, I think it will require at least one more person and maybe even two.  The piece has to be somewhat contorted to get into place, but I can manage with a little help.  I got this far and just said to heck with it for today.  No need to spend hours on this when there is so much else to do.  From this angle you can see the channel against this one wall into which that narrow piece needs to fit.  The silver strip is the long channel into which that long side needs to fit.  We'll get there.

Drumroll please!  And here is the starboard side panel nicely in place.  Woo hoo!!  Progress!!  I first made a template out of a corrugated cardboard (moving boxes taped together), as there are so may odd angles and such.  Then I applied the template to the luan.  It worked well.  Not perfect, but good.

Here is the port side wall that needs a panel next.  I'll, of course, hope that the same template will work for over here, but I won't get my hopes up too high.  At least I know how to do it now.













So tomorrow I'll get the port side wall panel in place, the ceiling piece that I couldn't manage on my own today and.....

The final ceiling piece.

The piece that will fit into the channel on the right of the fan to the framing to the left of the fan.  What I learned too late is that I should NOT have put the fan in until this ceiling piece was in  Although the knob that opens/closes the dome can be removed, none of the other switches can.  I don't yet know how the heck I am going to slide the piece of luan into place given those obstacles, but that is a matter for another day.

Until then, happy campers.....