Camper Chronicles, parts 2 and 3

Oh man, where is the summer going? It seems that I look up and it's Saturday again...and again...and again. My home school planning (yes, I thought I'd try planning this year, as opposed to my strategy from last year which was: SURVIVE. And read books) is ramping up, and I'm getting excited for fall. But I hope it doesn't come too fast, because we have a camper that we need to reassemble in time for fall camping trips!

So, when we left off, the camper had no floor and the walls were precariously perched on a redneck car lift (read: cinder blocks and railroad ties). If OSHA were to have come by, there would have been, um, violations. And if they saw what it took to get that floor back under the camper, there probably would  have been jail time. Kidding! At least the children weren't involved.

Here's what we were dealing with. We purchased, painted, and installed new wood onto the trailer to serve as the sub-floor. Relatively easy process, which was taken care of one weeknight evening. But to get the walls put back on, you had to slide the trailer back under the camper, and then feed a thin piece of sheet metal through the space between the floor and the trailer frame. Does that make sense? Here's a picture of the metal that needed to go between the floor and frame:

In the picture below, Zach is preparing to lower the walls.

It was ugly. We just started pulling out the railroad ties and letting the jack down on the back, and then lowered the front. The tricky part was making sure the walls and floor lined up relatively well.

Shortly after the picture above, it was done. That was (I think) the hardest bit of this whole project (well, unless you count "sewing curtains," which may prove to be my personal Mount Everest. I use quotation marks in "sewing" because, well, you haven't seen my "sewing"). There was some wiggling and an attempt to move the entire camper about 1/4 inch backward, but in the end we figured close enough is close enough.

Then Zach removed all the curtains and hardware and painted the ceiling. 

Some guy on Craigslist had free countertop he wanted to get rid of, and we were headed down past his house on the way to some friends' house for dinner, so we picked it up. I was not anticipating that it would have a bunch of paint and stuff on it, but I think I'll be able to clean it up fairly easily. 

Last weekend we installed some vinyl flooring. I know, vinyl flooring is cheap and yucky, but let's keep in mind that this is a 20-year-old trailer where devil rodents routinely invade and poop on the floor. We're not going for high dollar. Besides, I think it turned out pretty nice.

We have purchased paneling, and that's the next step in the process. Zach will panel the walls, frame out the cabinets, and build some cabinet doors. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet the electrical and plumbing will come next, as holes will need to be drilled for those.

Now that the floor is back on, we're all breathing much easier. Now it's the fun part of reassembling, decorating, and focusing on making a tiny space as functional as possible. Where should we go for our first trip out in the refurbished camper?

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Workout of the Day

Tony Horton One on One, Vol. 1 - Just Arms

A classic! Biceps, forearms, triceps. 

For some odd reason both Zach and I are having trouble with our left shoulders. His started as a knot from driving home 13 hours straight from New Mexico, and has just not gotten better. I noticed a tweak in mine after doing Game Day from Asylum right before New Mexico, and it has gotten worse, not better. I'm icing and trying to rest it, but it's hard to rest a shoulder when you're a boot camp instructor and also when you like to show your kids how to do cartwheels.