One Chapter Closes and Another One Opens

We all experience chapters, seasons, or phases in our life. We became custodians of this little Westerner at a time when it was broken, battered, tired and neglected, but if it could talk oh the stories it would tell. It was truly our pleasure to take this treasure of a trailer and to give it the love and attention it deserved. To give it back its beauty, it's life. To make it once again roll down the road with pride. With us it got the start of a new chapter in it's life.

After 7 years of pure enjoyment, we felt it was time to pass the Westerner on to another owner that would love it and have as much fun with it as we have. The chore for us was to find that perfect owners. I am so happy to say that we found them. It's new tow vehicle is a 1966 El Camino and it is obvious that the new owners are just as in love with the Westerner as we are.

            Good bye little trailer. Best wishes on the beginning of yet another chapter of your life. We will miss you!

  

                                                The End

Cool Radio for the Westerner

Our friend is an avid collector of many things and one of the things he collects is radios. I asked him to keep an eye out for a cool radio for the trailer and this is what he found. It is a 1957 Westinghouse Cordless Transistor Radio. The color matches perfectly and it works! Thank you Vern and Susie!!

 

First Camping Trip

We went camping at Stub Stewart State Park this past weekend. It is a beautiful park near Vernonia. The weather was perfect and the trailer was awesome!

L. L. “Stub” Stewart Memorial State Park is a 1,654-acre park in Washington County near the community of Buxton. When the park opened in 2007 it was the first new full-service State Park in Oregon since 1972. The park includes hiking trails, horseback riding, RV and tent campsites, and cabins among other amenities. It is located on the side of a mountain and at the top has a day use area with gorgeous views.

We are hoping to get out at least one more time this year but already have lots of things planned for the upcoming weekends.

We are goin' campin'!!!!!!

Haven't posted in a while so here is what we have been up to.

We finished the exterior by adding the pinstriping. We also added the trim rings and the baby moon hubcaps.

We decided to hide the battery and the propane tank in a vintage cooler on the trailer tongue.

The interior is also coming right along. The last post detailed the dinette seats and since then we have gotten the table finished, complete with a cool retro looking laminate and ribbed metal edging.

Here is a picture of the kitchen sink. This is the original sink and trim. We found a bathroom pull out faucet that fit the decor perfectly. Since we have no water heater, one side of the faucet is plumbed to the city water and one side is plumbed to the on board tank. 

Our trailer did not originally have a cabinet above the bed, but we were in need of more storage. Steve built this awesome curved cabinet that looks like it was original.

Bed is finally in.

Microwave is under the bed. Small trailers call for creative appliance placement.

Kitchen area.

Next weekend we will take the trailer out on it's maiden voyage to Stub Stewart State Park, near Vernonia, OR. We will post pictures of that soon.

I see light at the end of the tunnel!

We have had many interruptions this spring that have caused Steve's goal of June 30 for completion of the trailer to come and go. But things are coming along and I think by the end of July we will probably be done except for little decorating details.This weekend the trailer had its first trip off the property. Its first journey was to the tire store for some desperately needed new tires.

The wiring is nearly completion and all that is left to do is mount the battery and get that hooked up. The plumbing is pretty much done too, with the exception of the faucet which will go in this next weekend. Here is a picture of the fresh water tank, pump and some of the wiring. These are located under the bed.

Small trailers need creative use of space. So we placed the microwave under the bed too.

This weekend we got two tasks completed that we were kind of dreading...painting the trailer and upholstering the dinette seats. I have been sewing practically since I was born, but had never tackled an upholstery project like this. I bought some cheap vinyl to do a practice run and found lots of tricks and ways to make things look better by doing that. We used the original seat frames and hinges, but decided to go with foam instead of the original springs. Here are all the parts I need.

I put the foam on the frames and rounded the front edges of the foam with an electric knife. Then I covered them in batting.

And here the first seat is complete and in the trailer...yay!!

While I was working on this Steve was working on the painting. He first laid the old aluminum siding out so that he could get paint lines in the correct place. Then he started taping off the area.

 Then came the masking.

Then the painting began.

And with paint finished.

We still need to add the silver pin stripe tape that finishes off the paint detail. We are using the vintage cooler that is on the tongue as the battery box.

And finally a picture of one of the distractions that has slowed us down...Gemma the new grandbaby.

This next weekend we will get the counter top, sink, faucet, and table top in.

Little by little.......

We are making progress! It often seems like it's progressing at a snails pace, but between our jobs, families (new granddaughter - Yay!), life in general, and maintaining two houses there just isn't as much time to work on the trailer as we would like. I (Steve) have set a personal goal to be pretty much finished with maybe a few loose ends by June 31.  Since our last post Jeanne has made curtains which look really nice contrasted next to the Cherry interior.

We got the cabinet doors made, made the drawer boxes and got them installed, installed the doors with cool retro looking hinges, and installed knobs. One of the parts that we have enjoyed during this whole project has been the process of finding and selecting what we think are the perfect parts and pieces that fit the theme and era of our trailer. Case in point was the cabinet knob selection. We looked at several places and online and found several ones that were okay and would have been fine - but none that really grabbed us. We were at Home Depot and out of the main line of sight Jeanne spotted a knob in the special order area. I had walked by the same spot numerous times an had not noticed this particular knob. As soon as we saw it we were like "That's perfect!" I know - we get excited about such things. We're dorks!

Here are a couple of shots of the cabinets.

The closet area was originally open top to bottom but I added two large drawers at the bottom leaving room at the top for shirts, coats, etc.

We have also been working on the plumbing and wiring. We will post some pictures of our progress in a later post. There is still much to do before we can take it on it's maiden voyage - But I'm optimistic my timeline goal is do-able!

Retro-vating the refrigerator

So how do you make a new refrigerator look like it should be in a 1958 trailer? You retro-vate it. And who better than to take on this task than Steve, a master retro-vator. Here is a picture of the new fridge and the original unit, which was an ice box not an electric fridge.

First he took the door off and made a wood frame.

Then he added aluminum trim.

Next, the trickiest part, how to make a new door that would looked appropriate. Here is the back of the new door.

He had to cut, hack, and chisel the plastic door insert off the new fridge.

Next, he put this piece on the wood door.

Next, he added aluminum trim and rubber gasket.

Next, he installed the refrigerator into the trailer and attached the door. He used the original hardware from the ice box. It looks awesome!!!