we bought a camper! part two: clean out and sealing
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We were lucky enough to have some sunshine and decent temps this last weekend in February so we got to work on our camper project!
I want to document our progress because she looks prettttty rough right now, but I have such high hopes for what we can do!
Since we had a really heavy rain for the first 24 hours of owning the camper, we definitely knew it had some areas that needed sealing. Some of the four corners were obviously in need of some attention so my husband resealed each corner with a combination of this tape made specifically for the job and this lap sealant.
While he was busy with this project, I cleaned out the inside. It was FULL of stuff. After lots of help from my little movers and going through every cabinet and compartment I filled up 2 giant trash bags of throw away items.
I bet 70% of it was window treatments, there were SO many curtains.
Even still, I did end up keeping quite a bit!
I was thrilled to have anything from a set of camper cookware, a coffee maker, some tiki torches, a fan etc. Anything that I knew I could clean up well was one less thing I needed to spend money on to stock the camper this summer.
Sam and Tom moved all of this over to the front step with the little cargo area in their car…they were so excited to be helping with the camper project!
Next up was a full on bleach cleaning. I thought it was looking so much better at this point.
But then I started taking a peak behind those walls that were soft/wavy from water damage…. yikes!
So there were more areas of damp wood than I thought! As Travis worked away outside getting her as watertight as possible I pulled back what I could by hand and pulled out any wet insulation.
I felt like Chip and Jo on demo day! It always gets worse before it gets better right?!
This afternoon called for rain so while the kids napped I knocked out one small project so I could feel like at least some aspect of the camper is pretty and complete.
I used spray paint I had on hand and painted this frame that came in the camper. Luckily this old print I had stashed in a closet somewhere fit pretty well with a random paper “matting.” Hey, free and easy!
I’ve always loved this quote and I can’t wait to start making memories with the boys. My hope is they’ll look back fondly on camping and remember it was one of those “true places” and that’s what counts.
Wet walls or not–ha! Hopefully with a little luck we can fix that.
The next long chunk of time we have will be dedicated to resealing the windows we know are leaking and replacing the paneling inside. That could be a few weeks out considering we have a crazy March but you know I’ll post a part three as soon we are ready.