Loose Ends

As the winter draws to a close, I'm working on tying up the loose ends and getting ready for travel.

7 weeks ago, my friend Ellen came to camp here for a week or two. She found it such a peaceful, relaxing place to be, and such a good place to take care of stuff and sorting and ordering needful items from Amazon and what not, that she stayed until today. I really enjoyed our visit.



While she was packing and loading, I was crossing things off my to do list. This is one I'd been meaning to take care of for a while.

Years ago, I dated a blacksmith. He made me a bunch of towel rods and hooks for the travel trailer I lived in at the time, and they've been moved from RV to RV ever since. One of the towel bars you have seen in my kitchen, holding pot lids.



Today I replaced the original towel bar in the bathroom with the last 2 unhung towel bars.



I moved the original towel bar down to the bottom of the bathroom door, where it now keeps slippers and shoes out of the way.

Getting Stuff Done

I have been here 5 1/2 weeks. It's been cold, it's been almost hot, it's been wet, it's been beautifully sunny, and it's been fun. I look at my time here, at Stagger Lee Music Park in Georgia, where I'm camp host, as a vacation from my regular work, as a rest from my usually more frequent travel, as an opportunity to catch up with myself, and with my to-do list... and this year, with an old friend from work who now lives in a Coach House van and came to camp here and do a lot of the same things.

I think sitting in the sunshine doing nothing more productive than making Vitamin D is a perfectly good use of time. And actually, making Vitamin D is pretty darn important. But I was kind of feeling that I wasn't Getting Stuff Done. Mostly because I have so much more stuff I want and need to do. But I made a list.

Since I arrived her on 1/19, about 5 weeks ago, in addition to running the campground, I have

* Cleaned my entire house
* Organized under the couch
* Organized under the bedroom counter
* Rearranged it to accommodate a new fridge
* Removed carpet and Installed living room flooring
* Done several blog posts
* Visited with Ellen
* Finished knitting the slippers that were on the needles when I got here, and another pair
* Re-covered the ironing board
* Completed the mending. (Hand-sewing)
* Dumped - and filled twice.
* Replaced the water pump
* Finished at least two books
* Sorted and organized all the tool stuff, toolbox, step basket, bin in compartment.

And a few other things.
So that's as of 2/27. Hope to add to it.

The Living Room Floor Is Done

It's been a busy couple of days. I don't know if I mentioned that my RV fridge died last fall. They are expensive, so I have not replaced it. I've been using one of those Coleman dc coolers, and it's been serving as a coffee table. And then it decided to melt its plug. While full of food.

I decided to make a run to Walmart and buy a fridge. I'd been considering the little 2-door mini-fridge with a real freezer and had been looking online at the various brands, but hadn't made any decision - mostly because I wasn't sure how I'd fit it into the motorhome. So much for research. The brand at Walmart is Block and Decker. There were less expensive ones out on the net, but not many. I could lift it into the cart. Mine.
Now, you know there's no extra space in a motorhome, right? And you know from my "before" pictures that there's REALLY no extra space in mine! I had to make some really quickly before I could even bring the little fridge inside. Fortunately, I've done a lot of house cleaning since the "before" pictures were taken.

The only place it could possibly go is to the right of the door, a space occupied by this stand full of stuff that my printer sits on. I thought maybe I could turn it sideways but tried it and it just really didn't work. The stand has to go. I've only had it since 1993. It was my copier stand when I did medical billing. It was my keyboard stand when I lived in the travel trailer. It's held my overabundance of paperwork in this motorhome. I didn't really want to let it go, but I couldn't quite manage to bend the laws of physics.

I decided that the printer and all the office supply and paperwork stuff could find a new home on the worktable in the bedroom, and cleared the stand out.
I also decided that, with the good weather and the need to rearrange, the time had come to tear out the blue carpet and put the wood-grain interlocking mats down in the living room. They've been so nice to have in the kitchen.

I sorted, rearranged, and peeled up carpet. Oh my! Whenever the previous owners put down the carpet, they carpeted right over a heating vent! Go figure.

Under the carpet was dark blue indoor-outdoor carpet in good condition, so I figured I could live with that ok until I could get someone to cut the bolts off where the old chair had been.


So by bedtime Sunday night, the house was clean, the fridge was cold, the stuff to be relocated was in Lowes Food bags in the dinette, and I was a tired puppy.

Today the weather was again wonderful. I gathered up all my tools and hardware and what-not and sat out under the awning sorting stuff. I have quite an accumulation of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, and odd assorted fasteners. They are now all neatly sorted out, stored in compartments in the tool box or in the hardware shoebox, in baggies. No more digging through to see if there are more of a kind of item. Everything is findable.


And I found my KillAWatt! And the outdoor sending unit for the indoor outdoor thermometer.
After a nice dinner
and a beautiful sunset,

a friend came and cut the bolts off flush with the floor, and the rug replacement could proceed.

I got the mats last summer, from We Sell Mats, and did the kitchen floor then.
Having done the kitchen, the living room was even easier.

A razor knife and a pair of scissors are all the tools needed for this project. Oh, and a screwdriver to remove and replace the edging strips by the stairs and the wiring protective cover against the wall.


Chaos reentered my just-cleaned-and-organized living room.

And chaos retreated.

I think it looks great!

My $24 Kitchen Remodel

Back when I first moved into the Holiday Rambler, I made some modifications. One of these was a bifold door which became a countertop across the back of my dinette. Half the door held my appliances and things that are in constant use, and the other half flipped down to use as counter space and up to keep things in place while driving.



That was in the Spring of 2011. Since then, although that has been very useful, it was slightly aggravating. The counter, when down, did not allow eating at the table, but did not come all the way to the aisle for use as a prep surface. When up, there was room to sit and eat, but it was rather claustrophobic. Instead of appliances and window, there was this brown wall.

Finally, I'd had enough. Parked for the holidays at my daughter's inlaws' place, where there are tools, it seemd a good time to take care of the issues. I took a trip to Lowes and got a discontinued $35 board for $10 and an L-shaped aluminum piece and some 1x1 for supports. This is my $24 kitchen remodel:



The board became a new countertop. The existing bifold doors fold up and stow beneath it.



I can still flip the door up for travel.



I can pull it out all the way, unfolding it to be a truly useful surface. I will probably do something with paint or contact paper in the spring, but for now it's useable as is.



Folded over, the bifold door slides under the counter and there is plenty of room for 2 people to sit at table.

It was a well-spent Friday.

Screens for the Van

I am going to go adVanturing in the National Forest next week. I have work close to the Forest, so I get to go play even though I have to work. It'll be a test of the new loading method.
I prefer to camp alone: no mosquitoes, no flies, no moths... so I've been working on screens.
A few days ago I stopped at Harbor Freight and picked up on sale a screen for a double garage. It's as wide as my RV awning, with a split in the middle. There's a strip with grommets to hold it in place on top, and weights in the bottom to keep it down. It's great if you have a garage. I have a van. I rearranged it.
First, The Rear Door. I started there, because it is the largest space to cover. I cut the garage door screen in half where the split is, and used half of it for the van's rear opening. This was the easy part. It was more than enough screen, and attached nicely to the roof with binder clips.




I left the weights in the bottom, even though the screen is a little long for the van's height, because that's my kitchen and maybe bugs will stay off me while I'm messing with it. And I didn't want to sew new channels.



Hmmm... I wonder if I can close the door with the screens in place? Yep.

The clips aren't totally invisible, but they don't need to be. They're not the weirdest thing about this van.

The next largest opening was the biggest challenge. Time to tackle The Side Door:
This is the first time I've ever wished for the other kind of side doors instead of this sliding one. I like the sliding kind because you can still open it when someone parks too close next to you, but it's lousy for adding screens.
The first thing I did was tuck the top strip into the molding where it meets the headliner. No surgery required.

I ran leather ties through the grommets in the top strip.

They will help it stay tucked in, and hold the screen out of the way when it's not needed.





With just the window open, I can put a magnet to keep the screen close to the door.
I discovered that the magnetic strips I had were only barely magnetic! Although the package says they will hold light items, they will barely hold themselves onto metal. I am annoyed. I have 20 feet of this inadequate stuff.

The screen hangs nicely when the door is open. Magnets will keep it tight.


For that awkward, impossible area where the sliding door comes in, I'll have to hang another bit of screen, with stronger magnets than I've got right now.

So that's a problem for another day.

Next, The Front Windows. If I'm very careful to only have one layer of screen between the strips and the door metal, and if I surround the entire screen with magnet strip, it will hold. Just barely. OK, it's not like I'm going to drive with the doors hanging open.


The best way to make sure it fits right seems to be sewing the magnet strips onto the screen while it is in place on the window.

A little awkward, but it works.



One up, one to go.

The second door was easier.

The window can be open, and the bugs can stay out.
Another thing off the to-do list :)

I Can Sweep My Floor!

Whoever decided that RVs should have carpet - anywhere - wasn't too bright about housekeeping. Carpet in the kitchen is just plain stupid. I have removed carpeting from every motorhome I've owned. On this one I kept procrastinating, because it is NOT a fun job. The carpet is laid first, then they put the walls in. So all you can remove is what you can get at. I own a very nice Kobalt carpet knife set, but it's not magic.
Today I cussed the carpet for the last time - at least in the kitchen.


I had bought this flooring for the van project, and then decided not to use it. I wasn't sure how it would hold up to the stress of heavy camping gear being loaded in and out and sitting on it all the time. And I found that neat rug on craigslist which works perfectly in there and can come out for cleaning if necessary. Having 3 boxes of interlocking foam mat flooring didn't bother me, though - I have a place for it.

The removal was easier than usual. The original kitchen carpet had already been removed and replaced. The replacement was tacked in some places, but I didn't have the usual dusty can't breathe for a week underlayment to deal with. Yay.

The foam blocks are a snap to install. They cut with a knife blade or scissors.

The hardest part was where the room was just the wrong size - by under half an inch. I trimmed the interlocking fingers and used the off-cuts to interlock with them.

It looks good, it's cushy to stand on, dropped items are not as likely to break. It took me one package to do the kitchen. Some other day when I can take everything outside with no threat of rain or work, I will put the other two down in the living room.

Round Tuits

I've been wanting to put this towel bar here for a while and got it done today.  Having no counter space, it will be nice to have a convenient place for a few lids.

Rainy day, van is waiting for parts, with all my rendezvous gear tarped in the yard.  This is the first time I have blogged from the tablet, so here goes....