Although progress has not been as fast as I would like this past week, we’ve completed much of the Safari project list.

While the dinette was out, I had good access to the kitchen plumbing, and so this was the opportunity to get in there and alter the fresh water plumbing just a tad, so that Eleanor would have easier access to her pots and pans (stored under the sink).  With all the PEX equipment and supplies on site for the Caravel project, it was a simple matter to cut out a section of the original installation and re-build it to provide  a few inches more clearance.

Mike and I also managed to finish the floor installation.  It got harder as we moved rearward in the trailer.  Each wall required a custom-fit plank, as nothing was square and very few lines were even straight.  We put in an hour or two most days until it was finally done on Wednesday.  The process was frustrating at times and we spent as much as 30 minutes on some sections, but in the end it came out well and we’re both proud of the job done.

In an earlier blog I mentioned a special tool from half a century ago.  This is it.  You just press it up against a corner and it gives you a template to mark the plank for cutting.  Such a simple tool made cutting some of the complex areas much easier.  I only needed it in three spots, but for those spots it was a big time-saver.  I have nicknamed it “the Vince” in honor of Mike’s father who stored it in his tool shed all those decades.

When the floor was mostly done we switched over to a few other incidental projects in the Safari.  As you can imagine, eight years of heavy use and many thousands of miles (probably well over 100,000 at this point) do take a toll on the interior.  Screws back out, aluminum holes stretch, caulk lines will tear, rivets pop, etc.  We’ve actually been fairly lucky in this regard.  I have yet to find a single rivet needing replacement in our Safari–and we’ve never coddled it by avoiding rough roads.

I’ve already found a few screws missing in hidden spots, which have been replaced.  Sometimes the screw hole is stripped and a new one needs to be drilled; at other times it’s easier to replace with a larger screw.  This is all simple and routine stuff.

The big concern we had was the refrigerator.  It has been shifting in its position as we travel, and causing damage to the surrounding cabinetry, like scuff marks and cracks.  Mike and I disconnected the refrigerator and slid it out a foot in order to study the problem.  This required disconnecting the propane line, AC power, DC power, two bolts in the back, and four screws in the front, which only takes about 10 minutes if you know what you’re doing, or 30 minutes if you’ve never done it before (like us).  It’s slightly more complicated if you have the recall kit installed by Dometic (five more screws and some sheet metal have to be removed).

The major problem we discovered was that upon the last service, the two screws at the top front of the refrigerator hadn’t been put in.  Secondarily, the bottom screws were seriously cocked at an angle and didn’t seem to be well secured.  This allowed the refrigerator (which weighs about 120 lbs) to shift at the top, much like a person swaying on his feet.  On the road, this was a lot of force on the cabinets.  We replaced all the connections, slightly adjusted the position of the refrigerator, and re-secured the fridge with new screws in new holes.  It doesn’t move at all now.

The next project was the bathroom vanity.  It has been moving too, lately.  Over the years Eleanor has used her smaller hands to get through the maze of under-counter plumbing and tighten one of the two screws that hold the vanity to the aluminum wall to temporarily resolve the problem.  But that hole finally enlarged too much to hold the screw, and the screw has vanished.

The fix there is simple in concept.  Just drill a new hole in the L-channel that abuts the wall, and put in a new screw.  The problem here turned out to be that there was no way to get a drill in place.  We ended up removing the sink, drain line and stopper, and loosening the faucet, just to get access.  Once that was done it was easy to drill some new holes. I replaced that one screw with three.  That vanity won’t be going anywhere soon.

Of course, this meant we had to reinstall the sink, etc., and re-putty the drain seal, so the total job time was probably close to two hours.  It’s the kind of job I really don’t want to pay anyone to do, because it doesn’t take a ton of skill or special tools, just patience.  Eleanor and I did it together, and now that we’ve done it, we know it’s done right and the vanity won’t come loose again.

Today we’ve got some minor tasks to tackle, mostly cleaning up and finishing the caulk at the floor edges.  Being slightly ahead of schedule, I’m thinking about tackling one more major project: building a new multi-purpose cabinet to hold our microwave, laundry bin, and recycling.  I’ll post more about that in the next few days.

As predicted, the bug I’ve caught has really slowed down progress on the Airstream projects. Mike and I are still working every day on the Safari flooring, but only for a couple of hours each day.

It also doesn’t help that we’re now doing the really difficult part. Toward the rear of the Airstream the cuts in the vinyl planks get much more complicated. We’ve got many obstacles to work around, such as the power converter, bathroom door frame, Emma’s bed, and kitchen cabinets. We are removing what we can, in order to slip the new flooring beneath furniture as much as possible, but most of the interior elements in the rear are impractical to remove without gutting the entire trailer.

Many of these spots require long and tricky cuts. It would be much easier if the furniture all fit into the Airstream exactly square with the body, but when you are down on your hands and knees studying it with a framing square, it becomes painfully obvious that nothing goes in a true straight line. Some of the lines are more like waves on the sea than straight edges.

This means that each plank that abuts a piece of furniture has to be approximately cut to fit, then carefully trimmed here and there, freehand, with a knife. This takes several tries, with test-fitting between every new trim. Just about all of the planks we have to lay need some sort of customization like this, so in an hour of work we are lucky to get four planks laid.

On Saturday we did two hours of work, and laid only five planks, plus we re-hung the bedroom door and re-installed half the dinette. It’s not nearly as impressive looking as the progress we made last week, but this is the phase we are in. There’s no way to speed it up. We’ll just have to keep whittling away at it for the next several days.

In the meantime, the Caravels waits for its final few plumbing connections. I’d like to get out there today and finish it up (it might take only a few hours) but I know this isn’t the time for me to getting into that. The Safari is the priority because we will be leaving on a trip soon and it has to be 100% ready by then. I may even take it on a test-tow just to make sure nothing that everything we’ve re-installed is staying put.

This is psychologically a tough part of any project. The end is in sight, but now we know that rather than coasting into the finish line, it will be a long and tedious slog to finish up the last few square feet. Worse, even when the floor is done there will remain a list of other tasks that the Safari needs as a result of the new floor (I listed some of those projects yesterday). So it’s clear that we will be at this task right up the deadline for our trip.

On the other hand, I can find great motivation to keep working on the project, and that’s what keeps me going even on a day when I have a virus. There’s the joy of making the trailer look better, the opportunity to resolve a number of things that have been annoying, the pleasure of knowing you “did it yourself”, the good feeling that comes from working with your hands to make something tangible (a big change from my desk job), the knowledge that your efforts will help your Airstream investment last longer and retain value—and if you are really lucky, adulation and love from friends and family who appreciate the results. Not a bad return on investment.

Things were going well with the Safari flooring project, but now progress is going to slow down.  I woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat, which inevitably means a cold the next day, and if history is any guide I’ll be unable to do the long days I’ve been putting in lately.  Thursday we didn’t work on the trailer at all.  Instead I ran around town trying to get everything done that I could before the virus really hit.

One of those errands was to get a nice piece of black walnut, measuring 2″ x 2″ x 30″, at the local woodworker’s supply store.  This will be used to replace the oak entry door threshold that came with the trailer, once I’ve shaped it and coated it with polyurethane.  The original oak was looking very tired, plus it never really matched the rest of the decor, and it didn’t fit well.  The new piece will fit perfectly, because I’ll take much more time to fit it than a factory assembly line can afford to do.

Today Mike and I laid six more pieces of vinyl plank, just so that the center of the trailer could be considered done, and then we re-installed the master bed platform.  With that, the bedroom is done.  We can haul the mattress back in and make the bed.

I think for the next few days an hour or two is all I’ll be spending on this project.  I won’t work on the threshold for a while, because with a virus in my system I’m likely to cut off my own fingers on the table saw.  There are plenty of other little projects to wrap up instead, and maybe some small improvements I can fiddle with as we put the rest of the furniture back in place.

So far I’ve noticed that the thicker vinyl planks are slightly softer on the feet than the original floor covering.  The darker pattern definitely masks dirt and minor gaps (1/16″) between the planks as they shrink and expand in different temperatures.  But these are only first impressions.  It will take a real roadtrip to prove out this material.

The Safari floor project is looking good.  I started at my desk around 7 a.m. and things were thankfully quiet, so I edited a couple of articles and shot off a bunch of emails asking people for things needed to complete the Summer magazine, and headed to the Airstream to work on the floor while awaiting responses.

Mike and I were able started laying floor around 9:30.  We found the process fairly straightforward, as long as we were patient with the tricky cuts.  The vinyl plank lays straight & true, and it’s easy to re-position the planks as they are fitted in place.

One of the first problems we encountered was the staples in the bedroom.  These were under the carpet and they bulged up enough to mess up the planks’ adhesion.  Even when hammered into the wood they caused some slight disturbance in the planks, fortunately mostly under the bed where it won’t be noticeable.  In the rest of the trailer where vinyl was originally laid, Airstream used a different sort of metal connector that sits level with the floor, so it wasn’t a problem.

For the most part we have been able to slip the planks under the edges of furniture, which means there has been little trouble fitting the new flooring without visible gaps.  Where we couldn’t go under, it hasn’t been a huge problem to cut around things, and I bought some dark brown silicone caulk to fill in gaps if needed.  We’ll need very little of it, as it turns out.

Some of the planks have taken as much as 20 minutes to properly cut, test-fit, cut again, and finally adhere in place.  It can be a challenge to get one right (and we’ve had to abandon a few attempts), but when it does finally go in, it looks great and feels great.

The tricks are simple:  work from the centerline outward, keep a sharp blade in the knife, cut from the top whenever possible (there’s a thin layer that has to be broken on the top side), keep the floor clean, fit each plank tightly before pressing into place, measure twice & cut once.

Another time-consuming aspect has been planning out the flooring so that we have minimal seams in high-traffic areas.  The planks fit so snugly together that it’s not really a problem to have seams, but we figured it would be nice to have a seamless space under the dinette table (where frequent sweeping is necessary), and in the entry to the bedroom.  So we adjusted the cuts accordingly.  In one of these photos you may be able to see where we collected a lot of cuts together next to the furnace; these will be entirely covered by the dinette seat later.

Today we worked a total of seven hours and managed to lay down about 3/4 of the trailer.  The front bedroom and dining area are done, and half the kitchen.  We’ve got to do the bathroom and a little bit around Emma’s bed tomorrow, which will probably take an hour or two because of some tricky cuts around the bathroom door frame.  Then we’ll caulk a few edges and move on to other incidental fixes in the Airstream before we start to put the furniture back in place.

This was the longest session of the project, and I can definitely feel it.  At the end of the day I had multiple small cuts and scrapes on my hands, I had pulled three small slivers out from under my fingernails (and several more from my fingers), my fingertips were covered with excess glue, and the kneepads were starting to feel like tourniquets.

The floor is nearly done but the work isn’t.  I’ve got to build a new threshold for the entry door, add L-channel supports to some undercabinet areas, re-plumb part of the kitchen, install a few pieces of trim, modify the chase that hides the furnace lines under the dinette, and then put back the dinette, master bed, and some other stuff.  We’ll be busy into the weekend, I think.

Tearing up the Airstream is more fun than we expected.  Today Mike and I started on the Safari in the early afternoon after a trip to the hardware store and tool rental shop.  The original plan was to find a way to smooth the transition from where the old vinyl ended in the bedroom, to the bare plywood floor.  We started on one idea, but then (coincidentally) Colin called.  When he heard what we were up to, he said, “Just cut up the old vinyl. It’s not attached, except at the edges.  Get a sharp carpet knife and just cut it all out.”

So we tried it, and of course he was right.  (He is, after all, a professional at this.)  In about 90 minutes we had the old vinyl floor removed (except some bits under cabinetry).  The staples at the edges were easy to pull out with needle-nose pliers, and the vinyl cut like soft cheese as long as the blade was sharp.  We used two blades in the process, and the Airstream now has bare plywood floors throughout.

What a relief to get rid of that nasty old floor.  It was permanently dirty, meaning that whatever finish it originally had seemed to have worn off, and the debossed “grain” in the pattern just trapped dirt and wouldn’t come clean no matter what we did.  I was glad to slice it up into small pieces and toss it into the trash bin.

Also, removing the floor revealed a few surprises.  In the bathroom we found evidence of a prior water leak.  There are no current plumbing leaks in that area, but there have been in the past, and you can see in the photo how that water discolored the floor.  It seems solid throughout, so I’m not worried about it.  We will need to do a good leak check on the exterior later this season, to be sure rain isn’t seeping in somewhere.

Under the kitchen counter, in an area that was inaccessible until we removed the dinette, we discovered evidence that a leak or spill occurred and black mold grew in a patch measuring about 10″ x 4″.  This is a more serious situation, because some molds can be toxic.  However, I think we’ve been living with this one for a while.  As with the bathroom, it seems to be a very old past leak, perhaps dating back to when we had a bad kitchen faucet in 2005.  [UPDATE:  It appears that this was the result of condensation dripping from the cold water line to the kitchen faucet.]  Disturbingly, the mold was growing just inches from where we store the pots and pans.  The good news is that the floor is fine and the affected area is small, so the job here is just to clean up carefully with bleach.

I’m also going to re-plumb this area slightly so that we have more space for storage, and better access to this spot so we can inspect it again in the future.  It may take a flashlight and a mirror, but we will be able to see in there, just to be sure nothing is happening.  I don’t like inaccessible spots in a travel trailer; that’s where problems get a chance to advance unnoticed.

Along the way I saw a few opportunities for improvement.  I’m going to replace some fairly lame chrome trim around the floor edge with aluminum L-channel.  I also want to make a new wood threshold at the entry door; I’ve never liked the one we have.  The bedroom door has some issues that I hope to fix, and I discovered several furniture screws that have stripped so those will get replaced with larger ones.

The big fix will be re-attaching the kitchen cabinetry and the bath vanity to the walls.  Over time, the screws and brackets work loose. The aluminum stretches and the screws just won’t hold, and then the cabinet is free to go for a walk.  The solution is to make new brackets with aluminum L-channel, which can be made long enough to attach to the trailer’s structural ribs, not just the interior walls.  This isn’t strictly necessary but we’ve long wanted to be ready for rough roads in Alaska or Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and this is what the trailer needs to avoid being shaken apart.

With the floor stripped out and the trailer vacuumed again, we are ready to start the next phase: laying the new floor.  Both Mike and are pumped to get started, so on Wednesday we’ll give it a go.