Getting started…

I thought I was on my own and I was thinking I could do it myself if only I could learn how to use some power tools. I took a wood working class in high school with Mr. Dispensa as my teacher, and I made a fabulous butcher block cutting board for the final project but that was the extent of my experience.   Samantha, a friend of my daughters who is staying with us has been interested in the renovation since the day the camper was delivered. She helped me rip out the carpeting and take out a broken window on the first day.
In that first photo you can see that there was no window, just an old wooden frame with cardboard in it. I found two windows in the closet that look like they might fit. So now I need to decide if I should replace the matching window on the other side of the camper. The problem is that  one is original. The ones in the closet are similar but aren’t the original design. Below is the gross carpet we pulled out. We had a pile of smelly innards by the end of the first day. A few more before photos There was an incredible amount of water damage, from every window and the vent in the ceiling. The seats in the dinette area smelled awful and were destroyed also. Under the carpet we found the original tile. A beige with streaks of pastel colors in it.
 We have been scraping the floor taking turns with this great little tool, Chicago Electric Multifunction Power tool which I bought at Harbor Freight. It works great, but it is a slow process and the vibration gets to you after a while, that is why we take turns on the scraping. Some people just put another subfloor on top and don’t bother taking the old tile up, but I felt that it was too loose in spots and we might feel the bumps under the new floor, so out it goes. Slowly…