[life riveted] building

 Building inside an Airstream is much harder than I thought it would be....I knew there was curves and it would present a problem, but I was under the illusion that he was straight for a little while before his shell started to curve. Well.....straight for a little while (in an Airstream) mean approximately one inch. Its a good thing we had the top hand (pictured below)....oh and The Retired Guy, affectionately known as The Project Manager. The Project Manager maintains that he has nothing to do with design, but he strayed into the design every now and again.

Franklin felt HUGE after we tore everything out of it and I got a little carried away with what all we could actually fit back into him. We started with a twin bed with lots of storage. We salvaged some of the Airstream original roller drawers and added some under bed storage.

 

Next we tackled the barnwood walls.....to which I say if I never tear another pallet apart in my life that may be too soon.....BUT.....I LOVE the way they turned out. While they appear to be an easy task, just think curves. ggggrrrrrrr. And I may or may not have shed real tears when we had to go back for "one more load" of pallets. I'd be amiss if I didn't thank The Feedstore for letting us take some pallets off their hands!

Another one of my favorite parts of Franklin that turned out by accident is the kitchen counter. I think we ended up spending about $50 to build this counter top. I was freaking out because I had planned to use a prefab countertop until I realized that it wouldn't fit (because of those dang curves yet again). I was distraught trying to come up with something, knowing that custom countertops just wouldn't be in the cards. We ended up using 1/2" plywood and facing it with pallet wood. I dyed it turquoise with wood dye and put on several coats of floor grade polyurethane.

The Project Manager likes white. I do not like white. So you can probably guess who was in charge of picking colors for the kitchen cabinet doors, but the design, all the Project Manager.

We had torn out all the walls for the bathroom because they didn't really fit all that well and then we built walls, just a little better than President Trump. The bathroom was one of my favorite and least favorite rooms in Franklin. It made me cry, it made me cuss and it made me doubt this whole project, but it turned out perfectly! It has my most favorite pieces...a $4 enamel bowl sink that I found at an antique store in Montana and a stock tank shower tub, both of which were a B to put in!

The other side of the bathroom has a little storage and a place to sit if needed.

A few of the smaller details that tie it all together and I really like are....antique brass spray paint...where ever I could spray, a wine cork corkboard for storing keys and leaving notes for our guests, and our namesake on the door.

 

We were able to go on a few camping trips this year and got along just fine. We still have a couple of smaller projects to finish up before the final reveal, but we are mobile!