Not just a curtain!

I have another post started with a bunch of fun details that are getting knocked off while I wait for cabinets to dry and such, but I thought this item was special enough that it deserved its own post.

Who'd u thunk that a shower curtain would evolve into a major project?   ME!  Raising my hand!!  Because I don't do ordinary well..... OBVS.  Hello, have you caught onto me yet?   Yes, I could have thrown up the old shower curtain track, (I can't believe I actually held onto that grungy piece of plastic this long just in case my idea didn't work! You want it?  It's yours for shipping....) and I also could have bought a ready made curtain and cut it down.  However,  I saw this curtain at Anthropologie a year ago and fell in love with it.  

I pinned it  ( Pinterest is soooooo evil, it makes me do things....)        Here's my version.   UGH I wish I had ironed it before I took this pic. Imagine it ironed folks!

Did I make all those tassels by hand?   YEP!  I used embroidery thread in the same colors as the pendleton blankets (cause matching counts, LOL). The fabric is just a duck type canvas. I added three rows of horizontal pleats so I'd have something sturdy to attach the tassels to and hide all the knots underneath.

The shower curtain rod I bent out of 1/2 inch copper pipe.  I made a jig like this that followed the curve of the tub.

 The first time I tried to bend the pipe,  I filled the it with sand that was a maybe little too coarse and there were some voids (or I got a little too aggressive) and the pipe kinked.  DANG!

The second time I filled it with salt (yes, I washed it out really well after) and it worked like a charm. The pipe actually bent pretty easily.   I used copper bell hangers to attach it to the wall .  Where it attaches to my copper covered wood bulkhead wall I bolted it through with a fender washer on the other side. Attaching to the fiberglass endcap was a little trickier because I was afraid it would pull out.  I ended up epoxying a circle of aluminum to the fiberglass, reinforcing it with a few rivets and then screwing the bell copper hanger through that.

 I thought I might have to extend a support from the ceiling but with the three hangers it seems secure enough.  No monkey bar swinging on it but ...

Rear mount with a 90 degree fitting and a small straight run of pipe

 Front mount bolted thru wall. with a 45 degree fitting and another small straight return

I tried E6000 glue for the fittings but it didn't work.  I then used some Gorilla Glue clear  5 minute epoxy  which did the trick!

The copper hooks were actually fun to make,  I built another jig.  Drew the basic shape I wanted with a sharpie on a scrap piece of wood, drilled two holes with a forstner bit, added a couple of pieces of a 1/2 inch wood dowel and voila! I bought 8 gauge copper grounding wire from a big box store for the actual hooks.  Bolt cutters to cut, and a dremel with a grinding bit to burnish up the ends . Pretty simple and about $5 in materials. 

I even figured out if a hang a few hooks backward they can be used as towel hangers! Sweeeet.

I liked this shower curtain so much I made a room divider just like it #totallysickofmakingtassels.  It's on a spring curtain rod so we can use it to cordon off the bath area or use it up front when I want to read and my husband wants to sleep.  I'm kinda a night owl! Yes, my tub is on the bed, its a work in progress, deal with it!

In other matters,  my kitchen cabinet/counter is coming along nicely. And we've started the fresh water plumbing which is beyond exciting.  A couple of fast questions for you all.  How do I secure the fresh water tank to the floor?  I have VERY limited space. 

And where do I put the fresh water campground intake faucet?   Point me to your pictures of such. I'm assuming in the back left belly pan area?

Lots more to come soon I promise!

Bathroom Cabinet, check!

Some downtime during an April Fool's Day snowstorm has resulted in another post!  Good thing for snowstorms or this blog would never get updated!

Next on the list was the bathroom cabinet.  Here's the fame I built out of 1x2 popular and the Kreg jig.

I wasn't super happy with the how blocky it felt.   The original plan was to make the front left edge (next to the tub) rounded but unfortunately the tub had a raw fiberglass edge that wouldn't have been covered. Instead  I added this detail.

 I'm in love with the rounded toe kick detail, hopefully I can do this on the kitchen cabinet also.  All the seams will get covered up when I skin it with 1/4 inch BB.

 The top was templated in luan and then cut with a jigsaw out of 1/2 inch plywood. 

After much debate I centered the sink on the window and the light and blithely ignored the fact that it wouldn't be centered on the cabinet doors beneath.  My husband and I disagreed on this but it's one of the perks of being the builder!  I get to decide!

 Because I wanted the counter top to appear thicker than it actually was, I ripped 1/2 inch strips off of the same piece of plywood I made the counter top from, and glued them to the front and side edge.  Because the corner was rounded I needed to add a little more backing there.  Every time I try to make something rounded it ends up adding hours to the plan and execution!!! Pfffffft.

The counter is covered with the same copper I used in the shower area. The copper went on using contact cement, thus LOTS of dowels.  It actually is very easy to cut using regular scissors.  While the company says you can roll out any creases in my experience this didn't really work very well.  It definitely is a material that will show some dings and creases.  If you bend it over a sharp edge the patina will crack off so I used an 1/8 inch roundover bit in the router to route the side and front edge.  The counter surface is certainly not pristine,  but in my mind it has charm and character.  After installed, I hit it with a few coats of their Copperlac (lacquer) which dulled it a tiny bit but should improve durability.  I did experiment with Minwax laquer but it didn't seem to go on as well as their proprietary product.

 After cutting out the opening, wrapping the sides and stapling underneath.

The cabinet was covered with 1/4 inch BB (glued and brad nailed) and all the openings and edges trimmed with a flush cut bit in the router.

 Dun dun dun dun duuuuuuuun! Sahhhweet!

And the finished cabinet........well,  minus the doors and shelves.  And faucet....Sigh

I'm getting really excited at being at the point where running water is in sight! Got the water tank in this past week from Vintage trailer supply. Quickly figured out that it should have been one of those things that went in BEFORE the bed.  LOL.

Has anything around here even once gone the way I saw it happening in my head?
(That's rhetorical. Obviously.)

We have TV!

This all happened around Thanksgiving last year. I am woefully behind updating this blog but as I am currently stuck home in the middle of an ice storm, I decided that catching up a little would be a good thing!

I know there are purists out there that turn their noses up at having a television in a vintage rig,  but my husband and I LIKE watching movies in the Airstream. We are not content to just play cards or cribbage when the weather won't cooperate, so a TV was on the MUST list.  When I built the front cabinet, I even made one bulkhead wall out of 1/2 inch baltic birch (all the other walls are 1/4 inch BB) to provide a more secure, stable mount for the TV.

This is the TV we bought, it is both 12 volt and 110. It's LED and has both computer input and USB input.

This is the the MorRyde TV mount we bought which was frankly overkill.  It can hold a TV of up to 25 pounds and the one above only weighs 6.61 pounds! However, it was the only one we found that that had an 24 inch reach and a 320 degree swivel that means we can watch it lying in bed....

 
from the front recliners....

and it can even swivel around and be pointed out the curbside window if someone needs to keep track of a certain sporting event!

We had a bit of an issue with the MorRyde mount. The unit was obviously heavy duty and well made, and the "snick" it makes when it locks into place is sweet.......  but for the life of me I couldn't get it level.

The cabinet was level,

 the TV when latched was level

the top of the bracket was level

but the first arm coming out of the bracket was drastically out of level so over the 24 inches the TV was drooping at least 3/4 of an inch.  This wasn't super noticeable to the eye, but it definitely bugged me.

I was going to just live with it as I figured it was that was the nature of hanging a heavy item off of a long arm.... then I thought maybe I should just call the company and see what they say.   I'm happy to report that my experience with this company was phenomenal.  I called them and explained the issue I was having and then sent the above photos to their customer service representative..... who spoke English without an accent, and was in the US! And was super nice and understanding to boot!

He agreed with me that this was not normal, sent me out a new unit very promptly and emailed a free shipping label for me to send this unit back. He sent me emails confirming his actions and offering any additional help.  In short, one of the best customer experiences I've ever had!  This company stands behind their product 100%.

The new unit was installed and the issue was fixed.  No more sag!  I'm looking forward to many cozy nights curled up watching movies. The recliners ROCK!

As a side note, we mounted it with bolts instead of the included screws, and used fender washers to spread the load out a little (see the second picture above).

I added this antenna from VTS,   it seems to work very well.   I'm still on the hunt for one of the vintage antennas but for now we have TV!

And I just have to say this.... GO PATRIOTS!!!!

This is what happens.......

This is what happens when you decide to downsize, sell the house that you've lived in for sixteen years.... and have barely a month to pull it off.

I think there were 22 boxes of Airstream related "stuff"  that is either waiting to be installed or was supplies. Yikes! 

The summer went by in a blink of an eye!  We are temporarily living in an apartment while searching for the next house.

The good news is that Moonraker has been relocated to a warehouse where I can actually work on her this winter.  Out of the snow and with heat even!   The bad news is all my stuff is in storage.  So an average day of working on Moonraker consists of four hours of looking for a darn tool/supply and 2 hours of actually accomplishing something.   It's quite evident at this point that I should have taken the time to label the boxes better. 

Here's Moonraker in her new digs.....

At this point I have all three closets built.  The cabinets were all built with 1/4 inch Baltic birch, except for the one panel that will hold the future TV, that was 1/2 inch Baltic Birch.   The face frames are  all maple:  1x2 sides with a 1x6 board at the top and 1x3 board at the bottom.  All assembled with the Kreg jig.   The front long outside edges were then  routed with a 1/2 inch round over bit.

The old cabinet sides were used as patterns but there was quite a bit of tweaking to do to get a good fit.  I reused the old metal "F" frames but the 1/4 inch baltic birch is wider than what Airstream used,  and even after widening the f channel as much as I could I ended up rabbeting a layer or two of the baltic birch off the back edge

And no they don't have doors yet!  Muttering.....

I wanted the shelving to be adjustable so I used something called a sawtooth shelving system.  I purchased it here.  It looks like this (from their website).

 I am happy with how it turned out but it was a lot of extra work!   And it meant the shelves had to be cut in a pretty funky pattern!

The side rails with the "teeth" are glued and brad nailed on.  The shelf supports just wedge tightly in place.  I was prepared to have to tack them in place with some double sided tape but surprisingly enough they stay in place as long as the shelf has something on it.  The one time we traveled with a closet empty everything had tumbled to the floor, thank goodness I labeled the back of the supports!

Some close ups of my cabinets.  Note that I can even have a shelf in front of the fuse box as it can be removed in seconds.

And my favorite part, I used a patinated copper for the side in the shower area!   Love how it goes with the aqua of the tub. It went on fairly easily with contact cement (ie with only minor hyperventilating).  I still have to figure out what to trim the top edge of the tub with because I was missing a piece of the original.

This area at the bottom is going to be tricky, I can't rivet it up tight to the wall, there just isn't that much give in the tub wall, the plan is to fill it in with some custom cut PVC exterior trim board and then to cover it with ....well something.  Sounds like a stellar plan huh?  Well maybe not so stellar, but it IS a plan!

Other things to see... The cabinet is attached with aluminum brackets at the top.  Kreg jig screws at the bottom.. Solid as a rock.

Also managed to finally wire these beauties in.  They have the same star pattern as the sconces up front .  They are glass and have to be babied but sooo worth it!

Hubby:   You mean we have to take those down every time we drive? Are you kidding me?
Me :   Yup, but aren't they beautiful?

Another case of form over function lol!

Ugggh, that white plastic knob is ugly, need to look for a metal ones!  They each have two led bulbs from M4LED ( here ) that put out a surprising amount of light.  I went with the natural light rather than the warm light.  There's enough yellow tones in this trailer to make Big Bird happy, I didn't need to add more!! 


It really is nice to have a true workshop, think that can fit into a downsizing plan???????

Here be dragons....

Well it's been winter in New England, so I thought it was time to work on some projects that could be accomplished inside!

Drapes!

And that's where the "here be dragons" reference comes in!   These drapes kicked my sorry self back to high school!   Let me preface this by saying I consider myself an accomplished seamstress.  I've made wedding dresses, prom dresses, I've made dresses where my daughter has handed me a picture of an actress wearing a dress and asked me to copy it.  I can smock, embroider.. you name it, sewing doesn't scare me, I've even done a houseful of drapes.   ..... BUT  I've never done a pleated drape, and trust me.... There be dragons.

My criteria for choosing a style of drape was as follows.

Pleats not gathers,
I wanted a clean, stream-lined look
Modern, not old fashioned (that ruled out your typical single and triple pleated drapes)
NO rings, as minimal a curtain rod as I could find.
And absolutely NO curtain tracks which I find truly hideous.

What I settled on was an inverse pleat like this:

I think I googled every curtain rod on the planet, I wanted to use a low profile wire system but very few of these exist, and they get lousy reviews about the ability to hold a heavy curtain without sagging.

After testing several alternatives I settled on these.

They are made to handle artwork (ie heavy duty) and while typically used vertically, I didn't see any reason why they wouldn't work horizontally. Plus they had a tensioner built in so my drapes would be sag free.Cause sag free is important ya know!

I'm not going into the minutiae of my thought process( you really don't want to get into my mind like that, trust me !) but in order to get these drapes to work I had to figure out how to hang them without using curtain rings.   In a typical pleat, the fabric is in front of the rod, in inverse pleats it's behind,  so to make the drapes stay close to the wall I installed metal grommets in each pleat.

I used grommets with 1/2 inch holes on top, 1/4 inch holes on the bottom.  The top ones needed to be larger in order to slip over the tensioner so the curtain can be pushed all the way to the sides.

I'd like to say at this point that I will forever associate these drapes with the 2016 presidential debates..... Also any mistakes I made are wholly attributed to me yelling at the TV when I should have been paying better attention to what I was doing!!

How the heck did I get this far without showing you the fabric!

Here it is.... It's Richloom Rave indoor/outdoor fabric in cherry.  It's a nice weight with a linen like weave.
https://www.fabric.com/buy/un-817/richloom-solarium-outdoor-rave-cherry

 I ordered 15 yards and used every bit of it!    This fabric that was already pre-lined, but not light blocking, so I added blackout lining.

Here's one big drape that I was starting to mark the pleats on.

After pleating and installing grommets!

There's a lot of math that goes into doing pleated drapes!  I didn't have any trouble actually sewing them,  but figuring out how many pleats would fit on each window  and adjusting a few of the pleat depths to make them all the windows look the same was extremely tedious. There's ten pages of this!

Here's a picture of the curtain grommets on the wire curtain rod.

And here's some pictures of completed drapes.

One of the nice things about this style of drape is that it stacks back really compactly for maximum window area.

On the bottom I used clear elastic cord that attaches to command hooks on either end.  This snugs the curtain up to the walls and when the curtains are open you can barely see the cord.  Actually, you can barely see it in this picture too!

For the snaps at all four corners,  I found snaps that look like bullet casings!

I also sewed some of those tiny magnets into the inner edges of the curtains,  so when I close them they stay closed!

 I was able to sandwich the magnets between the inner lining and the blackout.

I even did a snap on cover for the skylight!

The last step was to "train" the drapes with strips of paper.  I stacked them all to one side to do this but the drapes actually open in the middle, and stack back on both sides.

I also made these duffel bags that get hung under the bed from safety cup hooks.  The idea is to be able to pack them in the house and just bring out to Moonraker and clip them in.  LOTS of storage space, and they'll double as laundry bags.  They actually were kinda fun to do after the drapes!  They are lined in vinyl and the bottom is vinyl too. Aqua of course!

Work will resume shortly on cabinets! We've decided to put our house on the market in a couple a weeks (time to downsize), so I've been busy to get the house ready to go.  We've got lots of camping trips planned for this summe,r so I need to get back to work on them!

Oh,  and we ordered two leather recliners for the front of Moonraker .  We may not have running water or a stove, but between the beds and the recliners we will be comfy!!