Blog Buddy Blast

  At long last I get to real-life meet another friend I met through blogging. This is Ann of Ann's Snap Edit Scrap. We first got acquainted about 12 or 13 years ago at the height of the blogging craze. She was unable to attend the get-together several of us bloggers had (see link below), where Chuck and Sylvia (where I stayed last night), and David and JoAnn, and, Lin and Joe, and I all got together for a picnic. I finally worked up the courage to ask if I could stop for the night at her house with Sunny. She's located in a critically good place for me on my trips east. She said yes!

So, at long last, Ann and me in the same space.

And the adorable Gibbs, who is currently sleeping at my feet.

We've always thought it was a real blessing that this group of bloggers with much in common all lived within a few hours of each other. We'll have to do another get-together where Ann can come this time.

The day started off with an adventure. I discovered (thankfully before I left Michigan) that the license plate on my trailer had fallen off. It seems the plastic bracket on the tail light had broken off completely. Sigh... that took two hours of time to deal with. But at last I was on the road again. It didn't cost much, but what a hassle. Here's the joke of that experience. When one of the service people at the DMV was trying to find me an open appointment, she offered me 11:50 (more than an hour wait). When I looked unhappy, she said, "I can give you a later time." Um... no. This sort of felt like the parent telling the kid, "If you're going to cry, I can give you something to really cry about."

Then just south of Toledo, my oil light came on. What the heck? The newer Suburus eat oil, but I had just topped it off before I left the house. What I didn't do was go buy more before I left, since I was already running very late. Hmmm. So now I'm stopped at a corner with two gas stations. One is closed for renovations, and the other one does not carry the weight of oil this car takes. So... I saw a police car and chased it down on foot. Good thing he saw me before I ran out of steam! He directed me to a Menards that was only a mile away. So now I have lots of extra oil. But I seriously think that 2 quarts of oil in fewer than 500 miles is too much. This may be my last Suburu.

But at last I arrived at Ann's. She fed me a wonderful dinner of ribs cooked in a crock pot, potato salad (a favorite of mine), and green beans, with ice cream for dessert. Then we spent the evening talking in real life. What fun!

Just a heads up. I think there is a very high probablity that I will not have any internet service for the next 5 days, so if you don't hear anything from me, everything is fine. Sunny is doing great, and I got lots of rest last night, so today was pretty easy. Longer drive day tomorrow. I'm headed for the Adirondacks!

See Blog Posting Murderers Fest

Rollin' in the Sonshine - 2021 Interior Tour

  I am on my way, although I'm not yet sure how I pulled that off. If I haven't forgotten something major it will be a winner.

These pictures were taken in a big hurry, but you can at least compare to last summer if you are tracking the progress.

The obvious interior difference is the table. It's really neat, but it makes it hard to get pictures because it's so glossy! This is the right side, which doesn't look much different. However, the wall is now done correctly. There are nice hooks mounted at the top edge of the white. These pictures don't show the overhead light, which is a huge improvement. You can just see the corner of a small mirror that is added on the divider wall. The cushion covers are still just pinned on, but the extra spaces are now filled with foam instead of old pillows. That doesn't look much different, but it's much more functional.

And there is the little sunny pillow gift from blogger friend, Lin.

On the left side, there are huge improvements, but you can't see most of them. The bench underneath the cushions is all new. You can see a little of the white front instead of the old broken paneling. The wall is in place, but not completed. But over half of it wasn't even in place last year. Perhaps you can see a small stack of dishes on the table. Corelle came out with a design with blue and yellow so Sunny got a present. Ha! And there's a new set of salt and pepper shakers too.

One thing that does show is that these three windows have the frames mounted. Last year, I couldn't use the rear frame because of the problems with the wall going around that curve. If you could see it close up, you'd notice that it looks pretty weird. But it makes it much easier to put up the curtain, so I attached it anyway. There are almost no changes in the kitchen end. Just the addition of the electric outlets and that little hanging basket thing. We'll see how that works. I was in such a rush, I didn't even move the last few tools out of the way for the picture, and the wires aren't all fastened up yet. If you don't know what it looks like and care, just click on the 2020 tour link. It's all the same.

As a reminder, the huge changes were outside with the completion of the paint job, and re-wiring to have LED lights.

I was shooting to leave at noon, and made it at 5 pm. Hey... this is me. At least I got out of here on the day I planned. Tonight I'm with Chuck and Sylvia. They have been very patient with my ever-changing timetable.

I'll tell you that having a distinctive trailer is going to be interesting. On the way here two different people engaged with me. One gave a thumbs up, and one yelled that he'd like to buy my trailer.

OK, I am d-o-n-e. Four days of full-tilt working and packing have gotten me to the ragged edge of tired.

See 2020 Tour See 2019 Tour See Spring 2019 See 2013 Tour- how I bought it

My Trailer Redo - Days 141-145 - New Table

  You can say I kept the best for last, but the truth is that this had to be the last thing to go in before cleanup and packing, so it get posted last. New table and tabletop!

Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this now? The answer to the first question goes back to the philosphy post linked below. I wanted the table to be larger for when I am using this as a writing workspace. The more pertinent question is why now. This was NOT on my radar to do immediately. I was thinking it would be one of the last things... Until I took the old table out to do this year's work.

The old one is pressboard. I knew it wasn't in very good shape, but the truth is that it is coming apart so badly that it would no longer hold the screws for the new table mount that my friend Dick fixed for me last year. Rotten through and through. So this got moved up to NOW.

Cutting the new shape was the easy part, and I painted that flat white both sides. Remember I did all those sample acrylic pour boards? That was to try to figure out the mixture that would give me the look I wanted. Had to mix lots of the flow medium (Elmer's glue, water, and then paint) See My first two pours. This is a big project, which is supposed to be really hard to work with, but I never let things like that stop me, right?

Got all the quantities of paint figured out and painted the board again so the surface was wet and slipperier.

Upturned them on the table and then (after this picture) smeared them.

Well, it was hard. The paint ran too much in some places and not much in others. So I laid it down and spread the paint with a stick. That was a "mistake" as I forgot that the way you get really pretty "cells" is where the oil that is mixed in stretches. I got some spots with cells, but not many. The result is pretty, and it's growing on me, but it's not exactly what I was hoping for.

Now we move on to resin... well, after letting that dry for 3 or 4 days. I guess I didn't take pictures of the resin step, but it's pretty straightforward. You mix the two parts and pour it on. It self-levels.

Oops... I guess there were some places where I did not have the oil wiped off the surface well enough. The resin just fled from those spots and would not cover it. It left small bare wells. Yikes! I went and bought more resin. Friend Monica helped me add this second coat making sure that we filled the wells. Better, but the final surface still has some dimples in it. Bummer. Probably a third coat would completely fix it, but I'm not willing to spend the money, and I do not have the time now because this had to cure for 72 hours. It was hard to take pictures of the dimples, but you can see some in front of the reflection of the curtain. (Yes, I did check to be sure you can put resin over an acrylic pour. Nobody mentioned the oil issue.)

After the 72 hours...is now! Cut a new support of the correct length and hinged it on the table. The sock and rubber band is a temporary scratch prevention for the floor.

Added the hinge bracket that Dick fixed for me. I even remembered how it went together without looking it up.

This is looking down on the surface inside the trailer. I can see that the high-gloss resin may be an issue in sunlight. Sigh. Well, it's pretty anyway.

And bonus! My friend Sue suggested making an extra piece that filled the rest of the bench space so that you could have a wider bed. Easy to make from the rest of the piece out of which I cut the table. Done!

Now it's on to cleaning up the trailer and putting back the kitchen pieces I had to remove to do the wiring.

See Beadoard Walls See Philosophy

My Trailer Redo - Days 136-140 - Beadboard Walls Again

  These walls are getting close to being finished. This is as good as they will get for this trip. They look nice, but they are not 100% properly done. This is the right side, which looked good last year, but now it's really close to actually done.

You may remember that I made a lot of cuts in the back of the masonite to try to curve this paneling around the corner. I couldn't get it to curve quite enough and it put a lot of strain on the screws to hold it to the braces. It actually pulled the fiberglass on one brace away from the trailer shell. Not gonna work. So, I cut it in sections to angle around the corner. This is working well, except...

The right side of the trailer shell is not symmetric with the left side. The right side is forced inward a little too far making it ridiculously hard to get around that corner. But I finally did it. What would be really good is a product that isn't made- a paneling seam cover strip that is a little wider than standard.

The remaining issue is where it meets the window at the back wall. I'm just going to have to build some kind of custom frame that brings the window casement out to be vertical. I also would like another product that is not made. The window knobs come in 1/2 and 1" shanks. I would like one that is even longer or some sort of extension piece because I have to bring the bottom of the window frame outward by almost 2". I'll also have to do some sort of custom fit moulding for where the vertical side walls hit the not-vertical middle back panel. That has to stay close to the shell because of the table mount. These will happen next round.

I also need to finish insulating behind them probably with fiberglass batting. There wasn't room to put the foam sheets in there in a lot of places.

How do you put a flat board on a curved surface? You make a lot of funky little framing pieces.

Then you glue them to the wall. I'm trying the regular Loctite on these because the tube was opened. If they don't hold then I can go to the premium-strength Loctite. I'm sure hoping that product works because it's SO much easier than fiberglassing every piece of board in place. Here's how those two little pieces fit on the left side.

And the left side of the trailer. (Wires behind wall are encased in that plastic channel stuff.) This is definitely not done. The two pieces that go around the curve are not painted, and the one by the back window needs trimmed at an odd angle, but this is what it's going to be for this trip.

How am I doing? I'm behind my schedule by about 45 minutes. I wanted to have this done and the table back in by noon. Need to finish my lunch, so I'm calling it 45 minutes behind.

There will be extra blog posts today as I get these projects in order, and (after the packing and cleaning) then the 2021 tour of Sunny, although I might do that tomorrow.

See First Curved Wall Done

My Trailer Redo - Days 134-136 - Second Bench Seats/Lids

  The second bench is done with the lids that lift to access the storage underneath.

Finished this early enough that I could spend some more time on the beadboard walls. They won't be 100% done, but I think they will at least be temporarily in place. I still have to solve one issue.

Here are the lids opened. I'll just remind you again that most of this was used plywood. They are under cushions except when you want to get in the storage. And I only polyurethaned them for protection from damp- not for their beauty.

Then I went to Onekama to help break down the vendor display at the fair. Everyone sold something, but it was not very successful. Live and learn. On the way home, I stopped at the beach again. Not quite sunset, but very dramatic.

And out on the horizon was a freighter.

All the other news is doing small things on the trailer. There were, of course, some tweaks of things I thought were finished, and another trip to the store. I'm beat, but it's all good. It was very hot today, and I did fade a bit mid-afternoon.

See Second Bench Front