And then he said: "let there be hot water!"

If you remember, the original water heater for the camper apparently crapped out and the previous owners bought a new one.  Turns out the bought the wrong kind and it wouldn't fit undewr the bed (where the water heater was supposed to go).  So thier genious fix?

YUP!  Strap it to the bumper!

Our answer? HELL NO!

Fixing this perplexed me for quite some time and then I had an idea once Brittnie ripped out the air heater.  She concured, and we have been waiting ever since.

The idea.  Move the water heater inside, under the fridge.  That way it doesn't look like a white trash fix to a white trash trailer.

Behold the propsed spot!

It's got the room and the piping near by.

After layers of PVC glue on my hands, a cut on my finger, three trips to homedepot and a bit of a high from fumes...we have a water heater.

The only concern I have is that the water heater is between the kitchen sink and the water inlet and behind the water inlet, bathroom sink and shower.  I think it'll work though. 

Although I must admit (and I finally did to the wife after I did it) that was my first time doing plumbing lines.  We'll see if I'm not a huge retard and we get hot water out of this thing!

I did check it before I took it off the bumper.  The water was hot and fairly quick.

Brittnie also spent 2 hours with CLR, a toothbrush and steel wool cleaning the fittings and inside.  There was about a cup of sand, lime and calcium built up.  Glad that shit's outta there!

Soft Spots Are The Devil

So the floor of the camper was pretty good.  There we're however a couple soft spots that had to be addressed.  We decided out of ease, to replace the whole floor.

Soft spots are very bad, but actually quite easy to fix.  The whole floor is basically studs closer together using the steel frame of the undercarriage as support.  The same principal applies when replacing walls.  Cut out the bad.  Replace it.  Cover it.  Bingo!

The difference for us, is that MOST of the floor is quite good and the thickness plywood used for the floor doesn't exist anymore.  We didn't want multiple layer flooring.  That's gay and irritating.  So I fixed the bad spots, re studded a little higher and laid down the new floor.  With a little bit a shimming, it's the most stable feeling floor I have ever felt outside of a house.

As soon as all the painting is done, the floor tiles go on and she'll be even closer to being home.

Let's get it on....the paint that is

Same excuse as always: we're being lazy.

However, we are more motivated than ever, but the weather isn't cooperating.  We finally found a two day window to clean, scrub, dry, prep and paint the primer on the Camper.  This was hard as anything under 50degrees could cause a less than perfect paint job, and at night here, it's dropping to the mid-30s.

Luckily though, we managed to get the primer on!

It may look like shit brown now, but we found a GREAT sand color and we are using cammo black for the trim.  Only problem, the next 10 days, the temperature will be entirely too low to paint.  Worst case scenario, we wait until Texas to paint it.  Although, I'd rather not!

Quite a change from this if you ask me...

Out With the Old, In With the Much, Much Better

So again, we're kind of dragging ass on the camper.  It's freaking cold though.  Another excuse I get to use right now is that we are pretty sure some punk bastard stole our Amazon box on Halloween.  This box had our coax cable which I need to run through the ceiling before we put plywood back on.  We got tricked!

GAH!

So, as far as what HAS arrived, I thought I'd post some pictures before it goes in!

Old tub...

New tub!

In the next picture, you'll see most of the large items we pulled from the camper and are replacing

Cool story with the new fridge.  We went to Home Depot to buy a cheap-ish mini-fridge with freezer for $230.  It's stainless steel but is darker than the brushed look.  We really didn't care since the brushed look was $260.

Lucky for us, they grabbed the wrong one!

You can see the old water pump in the previous picture, and here is our new one

We decided to replace ALL the lights in the camper, as well as ALL the water fixtures.

I'm pretty stoked about the kitchen faucet.  It's hard to find a pull out kitchen faucet for a camper!

We finally got our TV mount.  This had to be very specific because of the location we are putting it.  It has to be seen from the main part of the camper, but be able to swivel to the bed to watch movies, snuggled up on a rainy day

BUT, we don't have the TV yet :(


Besides getting 1-2 boxes a day (and we still have half a dozen packages on the way), we've been making slow progress with the renovation.  This is because we are mainly working on small things while the walls are down.

Took out the air conditioner.  We wont need that for quite some time.  Quick, cheap red-neck fix is plexiglass!

Britt has been making great progress with the worst water damaged area.  Our bedroom!

I finally got off my ass and finished out the outside fixtures to our water system.  All I needed to do was install the drain.

We love craigslist.  We found the perfect slab of counter top to cut up and use in the 4 places we need counter top.  We priced out the kitchen one brand new at Home Depot...$80.  That doesn't include the bathroom, cat stand and kitchen extension.

This old kitchen isldand top cost us $45 and SHOULD be big enough to cover all we need it to!

Britt and I searched extensively for what we wanted for the flooring.  We finally found it, and it was cheap as crap! 88cents a sqft!

We also wondered what to do with the kitchen backsplash.  Do we spend $500 like everyone else, or try something odd and unique?  You guessed it.

This pic shows our flooring (left) and our backsplash (right)

Yea.  We're putting up vinyl floor tile as our backsplash.

Guess we'll see how that turns out!

Demo continues

So it's been quite a few days since the last post.  That's mainly because we've been lazy.  It's starting to get cold here in Atlanta and we just felt like not doing anything.

However, the last two days Brittnie and I have gotten our motivation back and went full steam into demo.

Our nasty old cabinets before

Our nasty old cabinets getting stripped

Our much better stripped cabinet doors.  They are getting wall paper and paint on them and will be finished off with Oil Rubbed Bronze cabinet knobs.

Britt has been destroying the kitchen (in a good way)

We are keeping the sink but ditching the stove

The main job yesterday was ditching all the garbage walls, ceilings and insulation

So today, we are off to get our floor and backsplash tiles and our fridge.

We have most of everything else we are going to need.

Next couple days, walls will start to go back on and paint will start to be put on!

Disgusted and Proud

The last two days of renovation have been...interesting.

So continuing the saga of the water input system, the last two days of work have finally gotten us inputs we are quite proud of.

If you remember, this was our water inlets before.  Quite old and rusty.  We found out why...

WOOD ROT!

This will also require us to re-stud the floor before we lay down new plywood and floor tiles.  This, however, was not a shock to us.  In the end, we weren't that butt hurt.

After removing all the rotted and soggy wood, we studded the walls and attached our new inlets!

Might not be the best job ever, but believe me, we are quite proud.  We're also not concerned about the colors as they will be painted matte black.  As will all accent features on the exterior.

The top one is the new gravity water inlet for the fresh water tank.  The bottom is a pressure regulating city water inlet (i.e. garden hose) for the direct water.

The pressure regulating is in case of massive water build-up or pressure from the source (not our camper).  It will purge the excess pressure and keep our plumbing lines from exploding randomly.  I see this as a plus.

During the process of exterior renovation, we decided we needed to remove the old and probably non-working heater.  We plan on using the small plug in kind anyways.  The heater has a venting system to the outside, hence why we had to start that part of the interior as well.

We found out (after some fun prying) that the heater was bolted to the vent chute to the outside.  Which we couldn't get to, except from the top.

YAY! More inside work to finish the outside!

Brittnie took out the fridge and the shelving that used to be there...

The original fridge used to run on propane.  This of course means it has a venting system to the roof.  This of course means it was never correctly repaired by the previous owner.  This means we get to do it.

Yep.  That's rotted insulation, wasps nests and maybe even a bird nest.  All empty for quite some time.  All, thanks to my gorgeous wife, now cleaned out.  Even the look of it in the picture makes my skin itch.  Nasty.

During our fun today, the UPS guy came.  He knows us by name now.  He delivered our new bathroom vent cover and hood.

Removal of the original commenced

It then quickly ended when it became obvious that Amazon sent the wrong vent.  However, this is actually a good thing, as Britt and I decided to go with a skylight above the shower.  Much nicer if you ask me!  Plexiglass is all we need now!

The next project we worked on was the small damage to the front of the camper where someone ran into a gas station post (is my guess).

Two bad parts about this. 1) I have never done body work. 2) That's the VIN plate.

So I just cut out the mashed part of the sheet metal shell of the camper and we intalled basic flashing from Home Depot.  It's not pretty, but again, it will look better once painted matte black...

The flashing on the front is aesthetic to make the sides seem deliberate.  It will also help deflect rock impacts from roads.

Although not normal and quite unique of a fix, I'm proud of it!

Tomorrow looks like rain, so I think all we are going to do is finally rip out the heater and finish the wall studs behind the water system.

Then, we should probably go register the camper so we have a Georgia Title and not a Florida Sale Title.

What a day!!

Renovation: Day 1

Although not technically day one, this for sure was the first day of major renovation.

Last week we started minor renovations like starting the sticker removal and resealing the side trailer lights that don't work.

This morning we went to Harbor Freight Tools here in Lilburn, GA to pick up some cheap tools.  Since we moved from the UK a year ago, we haven't gotten around to replacing all our power tools.  A camper renovation requires such tools.  We decided to go to HFT to get cheap tools, well aware of the fact that  they may die in a year, but honestly, we wont need them then.  All tools are coming out of our total renovation budget, so cheap is fine with me.

I'd rather have a new shower, then a Makita Cordless Drill.

With the addition of our tools and a quick stop at Peco Camper in Turner, GA to pick up a couple things, renovation went full force this afternoon.

First off: little things on the exterior.  Once these little things are done, the paint can go on!

The new patio light and the old patio light.  Can 'ya see why we wanted to swap that out?

Brittnie hated the fact that the outdoor plug cover had been broken off.  So that went on next...

As always, our daughter was so helpful during our hard work

She enjoyed some sunshine and obviously way too many cookies.

The next "little" fix up turned out to be quite a lot larger project then we expected.  The good news is that nothing is quite that big in a 24 foot house on wheels.

This is the fill port for our water holding tank.  It's gravity fed by a garden hose.  Not a big deal right?  Buy a new one, swap it out.  Bingo bango.  Wrong!

Once out, we found a good deal of wood rot.  The rot was there because of a small tear in the hose that goes from the port to the tank.

This means we are starting the interior demolition a little early.

Much to the delight of my gorgeous wife, who donned her respirator, eye mask and screwdriver with the giddiness of a kid on Halloween night.

We always knew we had some work for the inside.  Didn't expect it to be today.

Brittnie ripped out the fresh water tank, tore out the wall panels and started cleaning up.  Job for tomorrow is to remove the wood rot, and re-stud the walls with some 2x4s my mom has laying around her carport.

Most of what you see is already gone and in the trash.  I made dinner while she worked.

I picked the perfect wife.