Another good day of progress.

April 9th, 2010

Another day of cleaning, but this time the outside!  We recently got the trailer moved into our very short covered drive way, so the rear wall at least is sheltered from more rain, as that is where the worst leaking it happening.  With it now in position to get a wall replaced in the next few weeks, we took the opportunity to wash the outside of it.  Pulling off the little ‘legs’ left behind by the vines that crept up the sides and rear, and scrubbing off some of the caked on dirt and such with a plastic bristle brush we picked up at a hardware store, ended up giving us a great result for now!  We were also able to finally pull off the rear tail lights and take them apart, only to find the metal back plates were swiss cheese from rust.  Good thing we planned on replacing them anyway.  You can click the photo below to go to our Flickr account and see what we have added to the pile there if you are so inclined.  In a few weeks, we’ll start some more major open-trailer surgery, and you can bet there will be PLENTY of updates on the blog and in the Flickr account when we get there!

Original tail light back plate

Swiss cheese of rust!

Here comes the rain again!

April 5th, 2010

We had a very light sprinkling of mist the first few days we had the trailer home but it didn’t stop any of the cleaning efforts or even give us much worry about leaks.  However, as I look out the living room window now we have a pretty steady full on rain storm happening.  I’m fairly confident in my double baking pan monster of a creation to cover the ceiling vent, but we’ll be interested to see what is going on inside the trailer now that it’s exposed directly to a rain storm after all these years.  Not going to dwell on it though, because it’s rained all night so we’re already at whatever point it will be at.  We’ll go in for a closer look when I starts to ease up so we don’t invite in more water than it might already have inside.

If it holds it all out, I’m going to be very happy.  If not… well, we’ll have some more added to the to-do list, no biggie!

HSR on FB OMGBBQ!

March 31st, 2010

I’m currently trying to link up this little blog of ours to Facebook via it’s own page there.  I’m going to try and use the NetworkedBlogs.com app that I came across via accident but found does just what I was hoping something did!  Let’s see how it works out, shall we?  For now the link to the Facebook page will be ugly, but I am hoping to get enough fans via bribe, to make us eligible for a personalized URL rather quickly!

1961 Shasta Compact; Day 1

March 31st, 2010

Okay…so we brought it home yesterday!

…only one tiny? snag- we lost the vent cover -it caught air and flew up- was immediately ran over by cars…I did manage to fetch it (thanks Mr.VWCaravan guy for letting me run next to your van through the intersection! lol) …so we’ll be researching how to fix that situation, asap.

Yesterday, I barely had enough time to get her home before hubby had to work and I had to go to class…today I have the day off- so I woke up early and went straight to work. I’ve been cleaning and removing items from it all day… some interesting finds include a vintage potty (at a loss for the correct word)- see my photo album link at the bottom of my post for photos- it appears to be made of the birch, as if to match- appears it came with the trailer! Has an outter lid, a seat, an inner lid and a pot, which has handle so that you can pull the pot. I’m really curious if this is original and if it came with! I cannot get the inner lid open- I know! Gross, right! …also didn’t try too hard…busy cleaning! Another kool find was the awning/tent poles x3, stakes x3 and some rope- really sad to say that the canvas for the awning/tent is not there. :( So sad! Also found a jack and various electrical cords and hoses. The legs for the bed extension are there. The bunk bed canvas is there and in great condition (see photos)- amazes me that the interior was done in yellows, oranges and browns with the pink exterior! In addition to the other potty mentioned, there was another potty -and we found that they cut a hole in order for a pipe to go down from it to outside. Bummer! I haven’t look at this potty much- need to see/clean and decipher if it works and probably put it back in its place/cover the hole back up (see pics) until we do the full restore and get rid of it.

Thee highlight of my day, and I can’t stop smiling about it)- I was able to celan the counter top completely off!! Yes, it still technically needs to be replaced because it sags a bit, but it is now usable without needing an immediate fix! w00t! I love how the cabinet doors, table and countertop all use the same laminate design. (the underside says the company used was Lamitall). -will have to check that spelling. (SEE PICS!! w00t!)

One set back was that I cannot get the front window to open more than a half inch…and it’s full of debris and dead things. (I haven’t mentioned yet how many spiders and webs I’ve been tackling!!) I will be researching how to get the screens out without bending/tweaking them…so I can clean that out- and also how to unfreeze those panes! Grr! Also, one of the glass panes on the side window was broken- need to find a replacement.

Someone was asking about a better photo of the CURTAINS- see the photo album, I got ‘em for ya- they look original- interesting pattern. They are in horrible shape and need to be tossed. On this note- I am taking note as to the type of mounting hardware used and two of mine are broken- need to find replacements…also missing one rod.

I also took a some photos of the little things I found inside- anyone else document the interesting contents found in the cupboards and such? I found a toy squirt gun, a spoon (very 60′s), a spatula (also very 60′s), a little Mona Lisa portrait in a frame about the size of your hand, a magazine with a note on it that says “keep- very first issue” of Us dated May 3, 1977 with Paul Newman on the front cover. A box of Corlon chemical toilet deodarent, a box of Delco dry charge, a box of Humphrey No.8 inverted mantle, a baggy of Veritas-looks like a wick or something… Also found a couple books of matches- photos of these will go up later…

Home Sweet Roam's Flickr Photostream

And so it begins.

March 27th, 2010

Technically this blog has been going on for a while now since we started talking about our camping trips.  The main purpose however was to have this blog eventually chronicle our adventures and life as full time RVers.  One of the things we’ve always wanted to try before getting to the full time lifestyle was to have  a small travel trailer or teardrop to pull behind our cars for weekend trips and the like.  Well, we’ve officially started that phase…