[life riveted] franklin's bones

 

When Franklin came to live with me, I thought we'd slap some paint on the walls and get to decorating. Little did I know, Franklin needed a little more TLC than I was prepared to give. Did you know that 75% of all Airstream renovations never get finished? But, thanks to the Project Manager, who you know as The Retired Guy, I got prepared to give Franklin some TLC.

Bare with me, this will be the boring-est post about Franklin, there is no where to go but up from here, unless you are like really into demolition and plumbing and electrical and sealing up leaks. Click here to be reminded of what Franklin looked like when he arrived (also his name was Wilson when he arrived). If you are interested in knowing why Wilson became Franklin, give a little click here.

Ok, so now you are all caught up on Franklin....ready to see what happened in a little over 1 year?

 We got super lucky on the electrical.....everything worked, we just had to follow it and identify it. We did make a few adjustments due to how I would be using Franklin. For instance, I run on battery power or can plug into 110. Franklin has propane powered stove and hot water heater. Electric takes care of LED lights (I used 3 different kinds depending on where they were going, double, single, reading), water pump and 12V plugs to charge devices. Because I only anticipate glamping for a few days at a time, I saved my $450 bucks on an inverter and skipped that step along with skipping the generator. Of course the AC will only work when plugged in, but I live in WY so I don't think that will be an issue. We do plan on adding a solar panel suitcase in the future, just to be on the safe side. I didn't realize the difference between bright white and soft light...so my lights sport custom frosted glass spray paint on the insides of the lenses to soften the light a bit. There is no lack of light in Franklin!

Plumbing didn't exist in Franklin and there really wasn't all that much to tear out. We put in new Pex pipe with Sharkbite fittings, expensive but worth it. Leaks were minimal and fairly easy to fix. We used 3/8 Pex, in hindsight, go with 1/2" the fittings and valves are MUCH easier to come by! Amazon was my go to purchase point for most things Franklin, but in some cases I was proven wrong....I thought if you couldn't buy it on Amazon, you didn't need it!

After hours of searching and asking questions on Airstream Forums, I settled on this water heater. It's a snazzy little dude from the UK that is tankless and ventless. We mounted it in the cabinet underneath the stove and while I haven't had any problems, I try to remember to open the door to vent it a little better as it can get a little warm in there. It has provided many nice warm showers after long days on the mountain bike trails.....very much appreciated. I don't think I would change this one at all!

This Sur-flo pump fit the bill.....literally under $100! Its quiet, provides great water pressure and was easy to install according to the project manager.

 

Franklin's floors were in a bit of disarray once we pulled the carpet and linoleum out during demolition. So we gave him some new "sub-floor" which ended up being the final floor....more on that later. I used the cheapest 1/4 plywood I could find in town. Hindsight.....upgrade the plywood a little bit. We also built new wheel well boxes because the old ones were 1970's plastic.....which was quite brittle. Bonus the boxes that were under cabinets made cabinet shelves!

Franklin's shiny shell got a few upgrades too! We pulled off all the windows and doors, cleaning off all the old gasket and replacing it with new gasket.....a little spray paint and new screen and spline spruced the windows right up.

Franklin had no keys, so he got some new storage compartment locks too. And I used this sealant to reseal around the windows, doors and seams. Hint: using a large syringe to apply the sealant instead of a caulking gun is bomb.

Putting all this "on paper" doesn't make it seem like much...but this took a long time! I can honestly tell you I thought Franklin and I were going to be part of the 75%!