Today was Amelia’s last day of school for the year. (Photo is of how we wait for the bus in the mornings). As her summer school doesn’t start until July (and she won’t be going because of our trip), DJ and I made the most of our time to work on the camper today.
DJ got up and started working on building a frame for the bunk bed, since we took off the support that was the back of the dinette. I’ll post more photos of his project in a few days when he is done.
After I tied up a couple essential tasks after Amelia left for school, I started in on re-doing some of our favorite modifications we had done on our original camper.
First, I added the Lippert friction hinges to the door. This is the same set that was on our original 17B camper. One night at like 9 pm we remembered to take the friction hinges off the door before they picked it up for the salvage auction.
Not going to lie, the first time I attempted to install these on our original camper, I didn’t know there was such a thing as drill bits for metal. I struggled and WORKED and wasn’t getting anywhere with the normal drill bits. I mentioned my troubles to DJ and he told me about the metal-specific drill bits… so I promptly headed to Home Depot and bought a set. OMG, what a difference having the correct bit made!
So today, I had to search in our very unorganized garage to find the correct drill bits. This project was super easy and relatively quick to do and makes the world of a difference. These hinges prevent the door from flinging open or slamming shut from the wind or a person. The friction hinges also let you “set” the door into position and it will stay there unless the wind really blows or someone moves it.
And done! I had to clean up metal shavings inside and outside the camper after, which wasn’t super fun, but definitely necessary.
Next, the cabinet struts. I installed 4 of these. Again, we removed these from our original camper to reuse. I put one on each of the cabinet doors over the kitchen sink and two on the cabinet door that is/was over the dinette. These are a game changer too. Not having to hold the cabinet open while finding what you need is clutch.
Next I removed some paneling in the cabinet we keep our garbage can and some things like sunscreen and bug spray. Again, we took the clear plastic shoe organizer out of our original camper and I put it back in its spot in the new camper. The clear shoe organizer holds the sun screen, bug spray, a couple plastic grocery bags, extra trash can bags, etc… It’s useful to add organized vertical storage for some items essential items. This screams the quote “a place for everything and everything in it’s place.”… we definitely try to stay organized while traveling in this tiny space.
I didn’t have time today, but by opening up this space and removing that paneling that makes it look “nice,” I can now install our countertop soap pump thing. Yes, you guessed right, we grabbed ours out of our original and will be installing it in the same spot in our new camper.
Our original camper had the wheel well enclosed in a particle board box. We will have to address insulation of this area little better now that I’ve opened up the garbage area and the space under the 2nd drawer.
Today, I also trimmed the shower curtain liner (it was silly long), added our shower curtain and mesh hanging shower caddy thing (I’ll have to photo this later). I also started washing our kitchen stuff: coffee mugs, bowls, silverware, etc…. When we moved in all our stuff in from the camper, we put it all into the furnace/storage room to keep it contained in one spot. Little did we know the oil-burning furnace chimney would need to be cleaned by a chimney sweep this spring and would deposit a little bit of flue powder on our stuff in the process. I have already washed most of our linen (towels and bedding) so it’s clean and ready to be brought into the camper once we are done with some of the messier projects.
That’s about all for tonight! I’m in need of shower and some popcorn, in that order. Good night!
Adventuring with Amelia 