Laying the floor

Yesterday I laid the new laminate flooring. It was easier than I thought it was going to be once I figured out the proper way to make the cuts for short pieces. With regular flooring you just measure and cut a board to length. With laminate you have to make sure to cut the proper side of the board because each board edge has a tongue or a groove that needs to connect to the piece next to it. I messed the first cut up but was ok after that.

Since the first 3 feet up front will be covered with the couch I decided to use plywood for that area. It's hard to start thinking like a renovator and not a restorer, this is something I would never do in restoring an old house. I would have laid the flooring from one end to the other, my thinking being that someone years down the road might want to change the layout of the room, I dont ever want someone coming behind me and saying "what were they thinking!" But in the camper this is fine, the layout of the room will never change because this is the only place for the couch.

I was able to get the shape of the plywood to fit so perfectly by cutting a piece of underlayment to fit in the area then tracing it onto the plywood.


Here are a few pictures of the progress:



And here are a few shots of the finished area:




I still need to stain and install the 1/4 round molding.

I also repaired and installed the smaller shade on the curb side of the camper:


Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the repair itself. It was broken about a foot from the back end. the metal pipe had rusted away. I cut it back to good clean metal then cut a piece of schedule 40 PVC to the proper length, then I trimmed down a pressure treated 2x4 to fit inside both pieces of pipe and used deck screws to hold it all together. It came out very strong, I cant flex the area at all. I put a PVC cap on the end, drilled a hole in it and used a threaded rod for the pin that holds the shade in place. I made sure to screw the rod about a foot into the 2x4 inside the shade. then I drilled a hole in the end of the threaded rod for the cotter pin. the shade itself covers the PVC so it looks perfectly normal.

Attaching the shade fabric to the camper was tough, there is a small groove that the edge of the fabric has to go into then you use rubber window screen trim to hold it into place.

The shade mechanism still works fairly well but the threaded rod in the repaired end makes it tough to roll up the shade. I may revisit this fix sometime down the road for something a little better.

Next up is sanding and staining the cabinetry.

New sub-floor

Yesterday we got back to work on the floor. There was rot further back on the street side than I had first thought so I had to cut back all the way to the doorway.

I then vacuumed the entire area out with the shop-vac.

I was able to make a template for the curved area out of cardboard.

I filled the wells with foam insulation boards 2 to 3 deep and used Great Stuff foam to seal it all in:

Then I cut the new pieces of sub-floor one at a time and installed them. I'm using self-drilling screws to secure the edge camper shell frame to the wood. I will be using larger self drilling screws with large washers to secure the wood to the cross braces.



The screws that held the camper shell down to the wood were corroded and rusted in place so when I pulled the wood out the screws stayed. These had to be removed to put the new wood under the camper shell frame. I removed them with a sawzall and a dremel grinder:

More foam insulation:

Sub-floor in place:

Yet again more foam insulation:

Sub-floor complete:


Today I'll be moving on to the walls. I need to remove most of them to get at the wiring. Once reinstalled I will paint the walls then start laying the laminate.

Work begins - tearing out the sub-floor

Yesterday we began work on the Airstream. In the morning I picked up a couch that we cound on Craigslist, it's a wicker pull-out that fits perfectly. Getting it in the door was very tough, we had to turn it on a 45 degree angle to get it in the door. All 3 sides were rubbing going through the door, if the couch had been even 1/4 inch bigger on any dimension it would not have fit.

We will eventually re-do the fabric on the couch but it's good for now.


We had the intention of putting the couch in place just to test the fit then take it back out so we could rip up the floor, but the difficulty in getting the thing through the door changed our plans. Instead we moved it as far back to the kitchen as possible, this way I could tear the floor up at the front of the camper.


The above picture gives you an idea of how rotted the floor is at the front of the trailer. Ripping it up was hard, the plywood is very strong, very old, 3/4 marine grade plywood. I had to use a circular saw set to 3/4" depth and cut it out in strips. Around the edges the plywood is sandwiched between the trailer frame below, and the camper shell frame above. this makes it especially difficult to get out.

Here I am cutting the old floor out:

Here is the bad area cut out. I made my cut at the center of a cross brace for strength.

Here is the debris pile left over.


I also took out the home made bed on the curb side of the camper, someone made it twin size and it stuck half way out into the hall. I will be cutting it down and reinstalling it. Note the flooring in this area, I'll be keeping the parquet floor, the rest of the flooring is coming up and wood laminate will be going down.

I'm hoping to get back in there today and install the new, marine grade sub-floor up front and maybe even start laying some laminate!