Van's done! - Almost..

Yay!!! The major painting on the van is DONE! It took two days to do the roof - I wanted to make sure it was dry before crawling up there again today. Cool weather made it so much nicer and although I got some sun, I didn't bake. I'm amazed how much cooler the inside of the van is now that it's totally white. At noon - with temps 80 degrees outside, it was still 65 inside and was sitting in direct sunlight. I think if I put the reflectix up it would have been even cooler. I still need to go back at some point, sand down the few runs, places where bugs and crud got stuck and touch up some things, but the bulk of the hard work is done. I can take my time on the other and it will give me something to do on the road when I get bored. I also need to touch up the area around the windshield and scrape the excess paint off of the glass. Piece of cake!

Now - moving to the inside. I need storage - more of it. Fortunately I've figured that out too. Just need to do the bed for the dog and a small box for supplies and I'm done. There's painting to be done inside and some cosmetic touches, but overall? I'm pretty pleased. I'm planning on a yard sale this weekend if it doesn't rain - then will head to TN for the week. Test run to see how the van will do.

Rainy Days

After a three day painting marathon - I'm almost glad it's raining again. Water has beaded up beautifully on my new paint job and I'm relieved to see it. Now work moves indoors.

Today I'm finishing up writing projects and designing a kitchen. Can YOU design a kitchen that holds stove, propane, cooking utensils, spices and all things kitchen related:

Paper Towels
Aluminum Foil
Saran Wrap
Plates and bowls (usually paper)
Napkins
Can opener
Cups
Matches

and so on....and ONLY occupies a 14" deep, 18" wide and 2' high (approximate) space? It's like designing a "Transformer" from scratch. I've taken a basic box form and created sides that fold down - or up, doors that swing open to reveal spice racks on them, a shelf that holds a one-burner propane stove I can cook outside or inside with, and a drawer for all my kitchen utensils. Oh - and it can't pop open or rattle around much while I'm traveling and the van is rocking. It's a challenge. FUN, but a challenge. The next challenge will be building it and building it so it doesn't weigh a ton because weight is everything! It has to be compact, clean and able to be secure from dust and dog hair - yuck.

So it will involve lots of hinges and hardware I don't even know exists. It will mean spending hours in the hardware store (which I LOVE - seriously!!!) and lots of sketches. When the design is done - then it's cardboard mockup time to eliminate lots of costly and time consuming errors in paper first. Then - by the time the sun comes out on Wednesday I should have a design and be ready to build and money in my bank account to build it with!