Sunday, April 24, 2016

Matilda Update: She Sure Is Looking Fine!


If I must say so myself, I think that for a remodel rookie I have done a fairly good job of making Matilda look better and more modern.  Cindy and I sat down and started thinking and realized that we are in the final days of stationary housing, 27 days to be exact and we are both getting more excited as each day passes.  This won't be a long blog but I did promise an update and some pictures so here goes.
The pictures from my last posting showed the bare floor after being covered in the simulated barn wood.  Since then I have  tinted all the windows in the slide out with a real dark tint, we have fitted new curtains complete with matching sheers.  I even helped with the hand stitching of theses new curtains.  We have added our dining table and my favorite, the new power reclining love seat, complete with center console and cup holders. 
I had to try it out today, just to make sure I would be comfortable and I was not disappointed!  Tomorrow I will be installing the swing out television mounts and one of the TVs.  The time table right now is that we will be transferring things that will be traveling and living with us into  Matilda starting this week.  In order to make moving out easier, we will be getting things out  of the house daily and within two weeks, we will be living in Matilda in the front yard, allowing us to thoroughly clean our rental house.
May 21 will find us camped at my son's house, May 22 will find us on the road, headed for Tennessee!  To make my future blogs more exciting and to share the true grandeur of our traveling scenery, we bought a new camera and Cindy will be taking lots of pictures for me to write about. 
This edition of my blog will end with just some of the final pictures of the results of our labor.  I look forward to writing lots more editions and hope you will travel with us!
The new love seat with the completed curtains.

Our new dining area

You can see the open tinted window in the background

Leveled and stabilized in the front yard


You can't tell much but the new tail  lights are dual LED and are very bright.
Just the beginning of the LED modernization

I had to make sure it was comfortable

And I'm glad to say it is VERY comfortable!


Grandma and grandkid approved!


This area will be the next phase of modernizing Matilda



My view from my side of the loveseat







 
 
 
 



 Here's to many, many happy miles and experiences!





   

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Modernizing Matilda!


Well, it's official, I've lost my mind, or so some would think.  A few years back, during a really depressing time in my history, Cindy and I lived in a 28 foot fifth wheel.  Now this may not seem all that bad to most of you but the real downer was that we really didn't have a choice, I was too independent to live with my kids, my situation was my fault and not theirs and this was the best I could do at the time.  It was a nice RV but Cindy and I were not prepared for the change that we had to go through in order to live in this downsized home.  I guess the thing that made it so bad for me is that I knew the fun that could be had in a unit like this, if I had the means to travel around in it instead of just living in it.  I had no truck to pull it and no money to put fuel in a truck if I did have one.
I am extremely happy to report that life and things in general have greatly improved for us, it didn't just happen, I worked for it and now we have the opportunity and the means to travel and have some fun in our lives!
I'm sure you can remember Brutus and Matilda from one of my earlier posts, if not, it will be necessary to go back and read my past posts in order for most anything I write to make sense.  Brutus, my truck, has been made mechanically strong and will undergo some facelift operations this summer.  Matilda, our RV, was in dyer need of a massive facelift to the point of a complete interior modernization.  She was in good shape for an 18 year old, she just needed some classing up and some new make-up.  We were all ready to use her in her current state of being. 
Now this is the part where you may think I have lost my mind.  Cindy and I (yea this was  joint venture into insanity) decided that we wanted to travel again like we did when we both could ride motorcycles, so we have decided to move out of our rental house and become full time RV'ers!  Just imagine, me being turned loose on the open road again. Scary, isn't it.
This change in lifestyle would call for Matilda to get her facelift surgery sooner than I hade previously planned. (In all actuality, I had planned on getting all the life out of her then just trading her off in a few years) 
     Brutus and Matilda
The original plan was to make this change in the spring of 2017.  The one stipulation that Cindy put on this venture was that she have a place to store and do her craft things.  Now for those of you that know Cindy, this would not be a small task, we have one entire room and a 9x12 storage shed that are dedicated to storing her craft material.  My plan was to save up some money and buy a container and fix it up for this.  My son offered to let me set up an RV pad down on his property so we would have a home base.  Having a home base here would allow me to still play in the shop and give us the opportunity to come back and see the family while having a place to set up home.
Well, things got sped up quite a bit when he and his loving wife offered to let her set up shop, so to speak, in their basement.  That was all the inspiration I needed to go ahead and pull the trigger on this new venture!  We have given our landlord notice that we are going to be freebirds on the road and will be vacating our house the end of May, THIS YEAR!  Yep, we moved it up a whole year.
This also meant that Matilda would have to have cosmetic surgery starting NOW!  
Now my brother is the artist with woodwork and fixing up houses and stuff and  there is no one that can do as nice a job as him, he is the best, but since he lives several hundred miles away and the job has to be done, I thought I would try my hand at performing the facelift on Matilda.  Now, I can make anything you want out of metal but my history when working with wood and stuff along those lines has not been very good.  The only thing I can (could) make from wood is toothpicks.  I had to step up to the plate and convince myself that I could do this.
I started one day just ripping things out of Matilda, ripping to the point of no return.  Now I had to do this because this was going to be our home and I had destroyed the interior.  Now I can pretty much do anything I really set my head to, or at least I kept telling myself that as I continued to dismantle the interior.  Matilda had a little wood rot from an old leak that had damaged the interior and ruined one exterior wall on the slide out so I proceeded to remove all the cancerous tissue so that new material could be put in its place.
 I decided to do something so easy that even I couldn't do it wrong so first I changed the vent fan by installing this oversized one.  Then I added an extension arm for the shower curtain so that there was more room for my upper body when I showered.  I managed to get both of these installed correctly thereby building my confidence that I could take on the task at hand and not mess it up too much.
My new high volume vent fan




and shower extension.


With the easy stuff done, it was now time to remove the dining area and the old, very nasty carpet, along with the tile that was in Matilda, then I would get a little braver and start removing the walls and flooring to replace all the damaged wood.    I will have to admit, there were more staples holding all that stuff down than  I could have ever imagined!
                       



I finally got all the old, dead  material removed.  That stuff was really mounted solid and after getting the old carpet out I shoveled out all the dirt and sand that had accumulated on the floor.  Now I proceeded to remove the old, dated interior walls and make my way to replace the damaged exterior panels as well as the flooring and walls of the slide out.
The walls have begun to come down!
 
 

 
I have spent many hours working on the interior of Matilda and still have many to go but I am very pleased with the results.  Ben came over and painted the new wood for me and helped me to reseal the roof.  Matilda is starting to take on an elegance that is befitting for our future home.  I have some upgrades that I am going to make to the chassis and I have new LED tail lights for her.  I also have installed new dump valves for both tanks. 
Cindy and I have picked out a new love seat to put in in front of the long window.  It is an electric recliner zero clearance model and is very comfortable to sit in.  The dining table will be just that, a table with fold down expansions and chairs.  The dining booth is a thing of the past.  We have also picked out some new wall lighting fixtures that will really make her sparkle.  I re-located all the outlets, except one, up higher on the walls so that we don't have to get down on the floor to plug in something.  I am replacing all the cheap paneling style trim with real wood that will be stained.  The new interior color for the slide is a very light shade of blue.  Cindy is going to be in charge of the new curtains and hanging rods.  The piece de resistance, at least for me it is, the new floor that I installed all by myself.  It is a greyish color that is designed to look like re-claimed barn wood, no more carpet for us.
I also changed the toilet in Matilda to a new, high profile (easier for us old people to get up from) that  is not plastic, like the old one but  is actual ceramic, complete with a hand wand for washing, much like a bidet. 
I'll end this post with a few more  pictures and as soon as I'm all done and the new furniture is in, I'll create a new post with final  pictures.
I am really looking forward to writing from the road.  I have already started to layout trips for us, one of which will take us through all 48 states so stay tuned or even become a follower of my blog and maybe you can see the USA through our eyes.




My new barn wood floor.  This was a real challenge for me.  It required a lot of patience to make up for my lack of skill and my desire to not waste money by getting in a hurry and ruining the planks.  I am really happy with the end result.