Prelim Wood Prep

There's so much that has to be done to Lil' Chick before I can even BEGIN to think about gussying her up:  repairing the "groundlights" (you know, like skylights, except you see the ground through them.....), rebuilding the lower galley cabinet to accommodate the new fridge, rewiring the electrical and fixing the water system, exterior body work, and lots of cleaning and polishing interior and exterior metal trim.

Because of my schedule and Denny's from Southern California Vintage Trailer Design, it's gonna be at least mid-July before I can even get the Chick in to him to start fixing the holes in the floor.  But I can't sit and do NOTHING in these intervening weeks!  So I tackle a little project every weekend, something that'll need to be done anyway, just to feel like I'm making progress.

Today I donned my trusty dust mask, grabbed the sanding block, and gave the entire interior paneling a good hand sanding.  The previous repair of nail and screw holes with wood filler needed to be sanded down anyway, so might as well do the whole trailer, right?  I mean, it's not like she's a gargantuan beast!



Looking very UN-glamperous.....

 It didn't take very long to do a good scuff-up of the paneling.  Once Denny repairs the "groundlights" and the rot in the rear corners and under the windows, I'll give the interior a coat of primer, then she'll be ready for her pretty paint!



This photo doesn't do the vibrancy of this
beautiful shade of yellow any justice!

I may not get a whole lot done during each session, but it's all stuff that has to be done anyway so I'm just slowly chipping away at it as I can.

Hood Out

In my last post, I was considering removing the stove/oven and installing a mini-fridge, then using a small countertop hotplate for cooking.  After thinking about it some more, I decided just to go ahead and do it.  So before I left for San Francisco for a week of training for work, I ordered the Nostalgia Electrics fridge/freezer in black, and a Black and Decker 2-burner hotplate, and they were waiting for me when I got home yesterday!

This morning, I removed the metal hood above where the stove used to be.  I'm not sure if I'll need it with the hotplate, so I'll store it in the garage.  Easy to take off: two screws and done.



Before:  brown metal stove hood.

After:  gone!  The square hole is to the outside vent.

Also before I left for SF, I ordered a new vintage-looking towel rack, to replace the Chick's old rusty one.  This came off today, too:



I like the nostalgic feel of this little rack - it reminds me of being at my
Grandma's house in Missouri when I was little.
This one's seen better days, so a new one will replace it.

While in San Francisco, I went a little crazy buying some decorative stuff for Lil' Chick.  In the basement of a shop in Chinatown, tucked onto a shelf in the corner, I found some fabulous hand-crocheted pillow covers.  They're a generous 30" x 30" and lined/backed with a crisp white cotton.  I saw them and thought, "Curtains!"  At only $5.95 each, I scooped up 4 of the 5 they had.

 

 

I popped into Anthropologie on my last day in the city, and found the cutest mugs in the Chick's signature yellow!  I added two of them to her treasure chest:

This decorative buying frenzy was started a few weeks ago when I saw the perfect little chandelier and HAD to get it as the Chick's first piece of jewelry:

Since black and white damask will be the accent color and pattern, this mini-bling (it's only about 8" tall) will look fab!  I also ordered some damask dish towels and contact paper and am waiting for it to come from Amazon.

Geez, I gotta stop with the shopping already!!!  (But it's so much fun!)

So Many Ideas!

This feels exactly like when I was little and had my 2-room playhouse that Dad built me in the backyard.  I could configure and put things anywhere I want – and then decide to do it a completely different way the next day!

For instance, I’ve been tossing around the idea of putting in a small, cube-shaped dorm-style mini-refrigerator. 

While I like the nostalgic idea of Lil’ Chick’s Trav’ler icebox, relying on frozen water to keep my perishables from perishing kinda scares me a little, particularly since my favored camping spots are in the desert.  I usually always camp with hook-ups anyway, so a fridge makes more sense for me.  Besides, I like my wine well-chilled!

 

I’ve been trying to figure out how to fit a mini-fridge into the lower galley cabinet, between the stove and the sink; if I go with a 1.7 cubic foot model, it’ll fit with just some minor redesigning of the cabinet.

 

But today I took a closer look at the space where the stove was, and it’s actually quite large. 

 

Then I began questioning whether I really need an oven – I mean, exactly how much baking do I REALLY do when I’m camping?!?  Could I get by with just a stovetop?

 

Then I started to think:  if I just need a stovetop, perhaps I could go with a small electric one and completely do away with the need for propane altogether.

 

So many options!!!  So many possibilities!!!

 

So now I’m looking at deleting the original stove altogether, installing a slightly larger mini-fridge where the stove used to be and enclosing it in a cabinet, and capping it off with an electric stovetop.

Nostalgia Electrics 3.1 cubic foot compact refrigerator

 

 

 

Oster Electric Stovetop

 

I could probably even modify the cabinet above the stove and fit in a small microwave.

 

Yeh, this Pixie doesn’t rough it anymore when camping.  Why do you think it’s called GLAMPING?!?

 

I was also looking at the upper cabinets today and thinking that I don’t have to put the doors back on.  I like the cottage feel of baskets in open cabinets, so I think I might do that:

 

Rear upper cabinet.



Front upper cabinet above sink.

These are just baskets I had in the house, to try on for size.  Since the Chick’s interior will be a beautiful buttery yellow, with black and white damask as an accent pattern, I think black baskets would look fab:

Similar to these, with black and white damask lining.

Hey – it’s my playhouse, right?!?  I’m definitely playing!

 

 

 

Patchin' Screw Holes - and an Idea

Took my trusty tube of Dap spackle out to Lil' Chick today and filled all the screw holes from the plethora of shelves the former owners had installed.



Love this stuff:  goes on pink and dries white.

First there were holes.....



.....and now they're gone.

I know, I know - it's not the neatest job, but all the interior paneling will be roughed up with the sander prior to priming and painting, so it's OK for now!

I've gotten quite comfortable with the refrigerator in Stella, my A-frame pop-up, so I got to thinking about how I could put a fridge in the Chick.  Definitely not an RV refrigerator - that would cost about as much as I paid for the trailer, and would have to be vented to the outside.  But I'd been reading about how some glampers have put the little mini cube fridges in their rigs - just tucked them into a lower galley cabinet.  I measured the potential space in the Chick, and it looks like a little 1.7 cubic foot fridge would fit nicely between the stove and the sink, with just some minor modification of the cabinet.


Just an idea at this point.

The little refrigerator in Stella runs on propane, so I can still use it even when I dry camp.  A mini-fridge, however, would run on electric and would be great for when I'm camping with hook-ups, but I'd have to revert to the icebox when dry camping.

It doesn't matter if I use an old-fashioned icebox or an electric mini-fridge - just gotta keep my wine chilled!!!

Or I could just do what a Glamping sister does:
use the galley sink as a wine chiller!

   



Interior Trim Removal

Spent just a lil' bit of time in Lil' Chick yesterday, cleaning up my debris field from the de-veneering efforts of the prior day, and also removing a couple of things.

I had already taken off the brushed gold trim strip on the edge of the counter/lower galley cabinet so the veneer could completely be removed; since that was so easy, I proceeded to take off all the interior trim.  It all needed to come off anyway:  most of it had been covered in the same white and gold contact paper that the shelves were covered with, cemented to the trim strip by years of adhesive action.  It would have taken a lot of scraping with a razor blade to remove it, which would have scratched and damaged the trim strips.  Besides, I decided to replace it all with brushed aluminum trim. 

The trim was all held by small nails, and was super easy to remove - just pried it off with the flat-head screwdriver.



Trim strip on edge of curb-side bench.....

.....all gone!

I also disconnected the light fixture under the rear overhead cabinets, to get them ready to sand and prime:

Kind of a cool old fixture, with a neat vintage label:

and an equally neat globe and bulb:

Next on the to-do list:  remove the veneer from the lower galley cabinet drawer fronts and scrub the drawers.

This part of the makeover isn't glamorous, but it sure is productive and rewarding!

De-Stoving and De-Veneering

Following Denny's homework assignment, I began chipping off the damaged veneer from the lower galley cabinet today.  Most of the job was pretty easy:  the previous chemical spill had eaten away at some of the top layers and loosed others.  First, I removed the brushed gold trim strip on the top of the cabinet; since it was only being held on by 5 of 6 small nails, it was easy to pry off with the screwdriver.  I eventually want to replace all the gold trim strips with brushed aluminum.  After that quick removal, I gloved up, grabbed my trusty flat head screwdriver, scraper, and hammer, and went to work.

Lower galley cabinet before removing veneer.....



.....and after.

It's a good thing that Denny is going to re-face the cabinet, because it's not the prettiest thing right now.

Next, I removed the stove.  I knew that trailer stoves were only held in by a few screws (some RVing friends opened the door of their rig after arriving at camp, only to find the stove sprawled akimbo on the floor - after many trips and miles, the screws had finally worked loose), but for the life of me I had NO idea where those few screws were.  So it was back into the house for a Google session on "How to remove stove from travel trailer."  The critical first step?  Lift up the stove top - the screws are underneath, not on top where the burners are.  Duh.

Before I lifted the stove out, I disconnected the propane line.  For my trailer, this was easy:  there's no propane bottle, and probably hasn't been for many years, so I knew there wasn't any gas in the lines.  Otherwise, I would've had Denny do this.  I hate messing with propane.  Disconnecting was easy:  there was only one line snaking from the back of the stove along the front wall, so I knew this was the propane line (I'm learning that these older trailers are pretty simple).  I simply unscrewed it, then lifted the entire stove/oven unit right out.

 

Stove:  now you see it.....

 

.....now you don't!
(The black cable-looking thing is the propane line)

I continued working on veneer removal around the stove, and had quite a nice little mess when I was done!


Have I mentioned how much I love demo-ing?!?
(No, seriously: I do!)
 

Apparently, (1) my screwdrivers are crap, and (2) I get a little too happy when demo-ing, to the point of breaking my tools:


They're both flat-head screwdrivers.  The one on the left
is supposed to look like the one on the right.  Ugh.

After finishing up working in Lil' Chick for the day, I made a trip to Lowe's for - yes - more tools.  I swung through the flooring section, just to look at options for when that time comes.  Since the floor in the "great room" seems pretty stable under the avocado green linoleum, I should be able to lay new flooring down right on top of the old.  I'd been thinking sheet linoleum or vinyl tile squares (I'm all about easy-to-install-and-sweep-clean!), but I'm really hankerin' for a "wood" floor, or at least one that looks like it.  Lowe's now carries vinyl "wood" strips - similar to Pergo flooring, but self-stick vinyl strips that are easy to trim and shape.  They come in several colors; I bought a light maple strip and put it in Lil' Chick to see how it looks:



Self-stick vinyl "wood" strips -
36" x 4" and 98 cents each at Lowe's

I did a quick calculation and, because the "great room" is so tiny, I should be able to do the entire floor with these strips for only about $30 - yeah, buddy!

Waiting for me in the mail when I got home from the Lowe's run was my latest Etsy find:  a cute little ceramic chick that, like my trailer, I couldn't resist!  Of course, the little chick went right into the Lil' Chick, to watch over the makeover!

Lil' Chick's muse.