Absurd Self-Assurance and other DIY Stories (part 2)

In hindsight, I’m so glad that we decided to paint and paper the cupboard doors first.  They came out so well and looked so great that we were able to draw on our elation at this early success to get us through the mid-project quagmire that threatened to overwhelm us later.

Dean and I got an assembly line going, stripping, sanding, priming, and painting each cupboard door inside and out.  We decided on white, with a papered insert on each.  We did the papering last, eventually getting the hang of the sticky contact paper and thanking our lucky stars that we weren’t making all our worst mistakes with R950/roll wallpaper!   The idea was that the paper on the cupboards would match the accented walls we decided to cover with contact once the painting was complete.  All done, they looked fabulous!  Our second weekend ended on a high.  We’d finished all the cupboard doors and only the painting of the caravan itself lay ahead.  Easy peasy, we thought.  We’re almost there.

Ha!

The cracks in the veneer of our confidence began with exactly that: cracks.  The sea of orange wood in the caravan was actually a brittle polyester coating over ancient plywood.  For the most part, it was intact.  However, years of wear and tear had caused sections of the coating to flake off, leaving an uneven surface that would be very noticeable under the paint job we intended.  A number of ideas on how to combat this were floated before we settled on a solution: decoupage.   On the Saturday of the third weekend, Uchenna and I began by tearing newspaper and craft magazines into strips and mixing woodglue with water to create a Modge Podge equivalent.  We then laid them over the sections of wall that had cracks in the veneer and slowly build up the layers until the surface was even.  In short, we papier mâchéd the caravan.

 

It was time consuming and painstaking work, and every time I thought we were done I’d find another section that needed doing.  While the caravan itself was solid, there has been some serious water damage to sections of the wall in the double bedroom that required total recovering in paper. Uchenna stuck to her task doggedly and we finally finished late on Saturday evening.  A whole day gone, and we hadn’t started painting yet!

While we’d been doing that, Dean had been discovering exactly how fried the electrics were and was in the process of building a very impressive Box of Power.  Literally.  Miniature DB board, back up battery, inverter and all.  He was also laying cable, working around Uchenna and I as we contorted ourselves into crazy pretzels, trying to reach into the back of cupboards and crevices with our paper-and-glue mixture.

   

I knew we were in trouble halfway through the next day when we’d been painting white primer on orange veneer/papier mache for 6 solid hours and there was still MASSES of it visible.  Very welcome help arrived in the guise of the wonderful Debs, who took one look at my face and commandeered the paintbrush.  By the end of the day, the primer was one, our backs were broken and my panic was rising.  We had set ourselves the end of July as the goal to finish the caravan so that we could focus all our energies in August on packing up the house.  We were nowhere near done, and another weekend had passed with very little to show for it.  Worse still, I knew we’d have to spend at least another full weekend repainting everything we’d just painted in white – two coats at least – before we could do anything else.

  

We’d been warned there’d be days like this.  The Twinkle Diaries, in particular, were spot-on in their descriptions of mid-project chaos.  Tools everywhere, paint everywhere and time running out.  So much left to do!

 

Our rescuers arrived the following Saturday, in the form of Abraham, Norbert, Fungai and Solly.  Four canny Zimbabweans with a mass of skills between them (Norbert is a plumber by trade, Fungai a professional house painter), they started early and by mid-afternoon on Saturday were done with the first coat inside the van.  They’d also removed all the windows and window seals and power-washed the exterior of the van in preparation for painting with the Hammerite Metal Paint Dean had brought home that week.  By Sunday afternoon, they were done.  Done!  Every surface glistened white inside the caravan, ready for the final Phase.  Outside, the gorgeous shade of blue chosen by Dean proved to be exactly the facelift our grand old lady needed.  She gleamed in the sunshine, and we felt hope return.  We might just manage this, after all.

  

As luck would have it, the last two weeks of the project saw a serious spike in work for me, and my days during the week started early and ended late.  By contrast, Dean’s day job quietened down a bit, so most of the final Phase fell on his broad, overalled shoulders.  With the interior painted, he could finally install the electrical system he’d designed.  As an addendum to this post, I’ve asked that he write his own post detailing exactly what he did, and how, and why.  I don’t understand enough of it to do it justice, but it’s a seriously impressive piece of tech.

   

And….we have lights.  We have ALL the lights.  There is no nook nor cranny of our caravan left un-illuminated.  On a clear night, you can see her from space.  We also have more plugs per square metre than Google HQ.  It’s awesome.  Apparently there’s also an inverter-thingy and a battery-thingy that does something to do with current storage and distribution….it’s very impressive and functional and, knowing Dean, likely to outlast us all.  I’ll leave it to him to explain the details.

In the time that I was able to take off from work, I managed to get all the papering inside the caravan done.  It went on so easily and looked so good that I was tempted to pretend it had been my idea to use the sticky contact paper all along!  Dean finished up the interior by rehanging all 21 cupboard doors, reinstalling the windows and seals and laying the vinyl floor.  The last job involved thoroughly washing the caravan floor, removing all the stray staples and adhesive, painting and sealing it with primer and then painstakingly cutting the vinyl floor tiles to fit each crevice and corner perfectly.  He also resealed the windows with silicon, reinforced the caravan floor under the small mini-fridge and reattached the rubber trim on the caravan’s sides.

In the meantime, clever Lynn converted the drops of curtaining I’d found at Mr Price in precisely the shade of blue denim we’d wanted (a lucky find!) into curtains to fit each window.  In time, we’ll use something similar to cover the cushions but, in the meantime, a couple of navy blue fitted sheets are all that’s needed.  We removed the last of the tools, vacuumed thoroughly, hung the curtains, installed the mattresses….and moved in!  Right on schedule!  Our caravan-home is done, and it’s perfect.  Homey, comfortable, cosy and all ours.  Perfect.

   

 

We’ve christened her Big Blue, and adventures await.

Just as soon as we’ve packed up the house.