My Trailer- Redo Day 9- Shopping and Tweaking

 
We got out of work pretty early today, which gave me plenty of time for an errand, and then an extra errand.

Remember the heat-damaged vent screen?



The trailer supply store (owned by people we've known a long time) is 20 miles south. So after work, I drove down there, hoping this was a standard size item. It is. And the deep casing that just appears as a white edge around the picture above was also broken and slightly warped. Not only that, but I really can't figure out why the previous owner put in that false ceiling. For a while I thought it was so the 4" drop on the vent casing would fit. But now that I look at the picture, that didn't fit correctly. The edges of it are supposed to slide up into the channel on the screen for a nice clean look.

And, I'm not putting that dropped ceiling back in. I was able to get a shallow casing, and so that problem is taken care of. I checked to be sure they fit, and took them back down since They'll need to be off for interior work.



Since I was already south, and had plenty of time, I went another 8 miles to a flooring store also owned by friends. I've been looking at the vinyl remnants I could get closer to home, and haven't liked any of the choices. They were cheap, to be sure, but I'd already decided I didn't want a fake wood grain, because it looks fake unless you pay big bucks. I didn't want a pattern with geometric designs because the space is so small that if your eye can see lines creating defined sizes it's going to look even smaller.

Well, I found two patterns I like. One is a closeout price (very much in my budget), one is not. Of course, at the store, I liked the expensive one best. Here they are. Want to guess which is which? Which one do you like?



He gave me these decent sized samples to bring home and play with. I've been checking on them in various lighting conditions and holding them next to fabrics (I have a couple of pieces of fabric I may use in the trailer).

I'll tell you at the very end which is the cheap one and which one I actually like after several hours of playing.

Of course this sent me to the internet to look at fabrics. Something about that just seems wrong to me, but the only local place I can get fabric any more is Wal-Mart. If you have to drive a long distance to even look at fabrics, you might as well browse on line and even pay a little bit for samples to be mailed to you. I try to look in stores I stumble across on trips, but seldom see anything that grabs me (although I did find a print with sharks on it, on a trip, for my next pair of pjs). I now have two swatches on their way to me to consider their colors and weights.

Thinking about fabrics got me back to thinking about my mock-up. I didn't like the long curtain that would be the thing right across from the entry door as you walk in. I went back to the trailer and moved things in that end around again, but you know what? They still won't fit the way I was originally thinking.

Then it hit me. I can make it look about the way I first envisioned, get rid of the long curtain and give myself another surface for a bit of decor. And, I can make the back-end-upper-storage compartment less distasteful to me.

So here's the digital mock up of what you can see again. The drawers and stuff behind the curtain is all the same.



The door to the clothes closet is really all one piece, but the lower portion is a cutout with curtain to carry the line around from the kitchen counter. Much nicer looking.

Here's the back end. The upper storage door will also have a cutout with the blue curtain mounted inside it and secured both top and bottom. The entire front panel will come down on a piano hinge. The cutout will keep it from being too heavy, and the piano hinge will let it drop vertical so that short people (me!) can actually access the interior.



In other news, yesterday I got the flat tire off the mower (difficult only because I had to empty the back of my car to get out the jack). This morning I dropped it off to be fixed. On the way home, I picked it up, and it's now back on the mower. Pat me on the head because the jack is put away and all the stuff back in my car. Of course, the grass hasn't stopped growing just because the mower had a flat.

I also spent some time on a contract job. All in all, for a regular work day, I got a LOT done!

Oh, the vinyl? The one on the right is the expensive one, and the one I really liked at the store. But the one on the left is brighter, and looks nicer with the fabrics I have, and now the expensive one is starting to look moldy to me. I think I'm going to get the cheaper one. Both are good quality, although the expensive one has a Scotchgard coating to make it clean better. Well, we know how often I clean, right? I have saved enough money to get me well into this trailer project, but being a bit frugal is good. That said, if I'd simply loved the expensive one, I probably would have paid for it. But I really do like the one on the left better in situ.

(BP -15 and counting)

	See Index for Trailer Refurbish Redo Day 8
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