Travels With Miranda

This afternoon, I got the floor up in the dressing room and began to make inroads in the kitchen. I need to make further inroads before I can consider putting down more flooring in the dressing room. I’ll work on that tonight and then get the dressing room floor in tomorrow. My work was interrupted more than once by my need to attend to splinters.

I stopped at about 3:30 to go and check out a used furniture store in Willowpoint to see if they might have the lingerie chest I need to finish up the dressing door. Finding the right item would be real motivation to work late into tonight getting the floor in so that I could then deal with my clothes. I need to do that to make progress in the kitchen. Picture what you will.

The store didn’t have a suitable dresser, although one came close to the right dimensions. Unfortunately 5″ too much is way too much in an RV. But it was worth it to go there when I found an item that was on my ‘unrealistic wish’ list.

Since I’m putting the dinette table at counter height, I planned to get a stool or two to sit at. I had a hankering for a certain style popular in the 1950′s that doubles as a step-stool and would be ideal for getting into my upper cabinets and maybe even the loft. I did some research and found out that those stools are rare and expensive now as they are a hot item. I decided I wasn’t going to expend any energy in looking for one.

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this at the store:

It just needs a good scrubbing with an SOS pad, a reupholstering (easy, the padded pieces are screwed in), and new non-slide material on the steps.

The lady let me have it for $20, taxes included.

This was after I picked up another small item for the study (more on that later once I figure out what I’m going to do with it) that was marked $9.95 and which she let me have for $9, taxes included.

While beautifying my RV and making it suit my personality is a perk of renovating it, I’m not decorating for the sake of decorating.

Most motorhomes, unlike fifth wheels, do not have a layout suited to a full-timing lifestyle. As my friend Donna pointed when she gave me the tour of her place, her fiver has an entrance closet!

I’ve been living in Miranda almost a year and a half now and I’ve clearly identified not only what my layout is lacking, but also how I aim to remedy those deficiencies.

By the time I’m done with the first phase of the renos I hope to have:

1) an entrance area with space for a coat or shawl and footwear;

2) functional storage place for clothing and all the related accoutrements;

3) a more efficient way of dealing with dirty laundry;

4) a way of counter-acting the dampness in the loft and against the far wall of the study;

5) a home office that I don’t have to completely take apart when I drive;

6) a bathroom that I don’t have to partially take apart when I drive;

Those are the big ones. I’ll link back to this post as I cross the items off the list… or add to it.

This weekend (Monday through Thursday!), amongst doing other things, I started to prep Miranda for the installation of her new floors. Now, I had just about decided to put in the rustic flooring, which is on major sale at Home Depot, but a reader really made me second guess my decision. My timing sucks, as usual, and my first choice, country pine, is back ordered indefinitely while there are new choices available. I’ve decided that soon as I’m ready to buy (could be as soon as tomorrow, but probably won’t be till Tuesday), I’ll go to Home Depot in person and buy six boxes of whatever looks best from what’s available there. It could still end up being the rustic since I do love that flooring!

Prepping the rig for the new floors is proving to be a logistical nightmare. I don’t want to take apart storage systems without having the furniture to replace them, but I don’t want to get the furniture until I have new floors to put it on. Moreover, the weather hasn’t been cooperating for the removal of the bucket chairs in the lounge, the bolts for which are only accessible outside.

Once the new floors are in, though, things are going to move quickly. I’ll be able be able to start looking for good deals on the items of furniture I want and do a major reordering in the study.

The next step will be painting. I went to a paint store yesterday to discuss my options. My preliminary research was confirmed; I’ll be going with a bath & kitchen paint containing a mildew-resistant agent. One thing I did not expect was to get talked into using a water-based Kilz primer. Everyone has told me to use oil-based. The tech told me it will cost me a fraction of the cost of oil, be much easier to deal with, and provide the same results provided I let it cure. He recommended that I paint the whole rig, cabinets and all, with the Kilz primer and then wait a full month before adding paint over top.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to try to get all my painting done by May or not. The damp climate makes me leery of jumping into the painting project here in Campbell River. I might do one small room, see how I like it, and then do the work this summer in Dawson’s wonderfully dry climate.

As to paint colours, I’ve decided to be bold!!! I have the luxury of having four rooms and six separate spaces total to play with, so I do not want a uniform look throughout.  Since I do want the rig to coordinate, so I will be relying on fabrics to tie the thing together. Once I have my fabrics picked out, I will be able to confirm my paint choices, but the general colour I’ve picked for each room is pretty much set in stone.

Study:

A study has to be green, it’s the colour of money! Oh, and it’s my favourite colour. I had a dark green bedroom growing up and a dark green study when I had a house, so this time I decided to punch up the colour a bit.

Now, displaying colours online is always tricky. Even if this is the official virtual paint chip, it’s not quite right. The real colour has a touch more blue to it, much more like a muted version of the real colour of a kiwi fruit.

Toilet Room:

I knew the minute I first saw Miranda that if I ever painted her insides, the toilet room would be lavender. Miranda was built in 1996, which was just about the time my dad was renovating one of the apartments in his triplex. What he had done was rent out the not-so-bad units and live in the one being renovated. Anyway, the linoleum in the kitchen was the exact same linoleum in Miranda’s toilet room!!! I came to stay with my dad one weekend in this apartment and discovered that he had painted my bedroom a grayish lavender colour that he knew I’d love.  Long story short, taupe and white lino + greyish lavender paint=happy memories. Not sure yet if I’ll leave the lino in there or cover it, but the lavender will be a tribute to my dad.

Onward…

The dressing room:

I used to think that I hate pink, but I actually just hate baby pink. Deeper pinks, like rose and this colour, are perfectly lovely. I thought that a shade like this would add a feminine touch to the dressing room and complement the lavender in the toilet room and the green in the study. The two skylights in the dressing room allow it to take a darker shade than one would think.

The kitchen:

Kitchens have to be yellow. In my case, the kitchen is just two small walls, one above the sink and the other above the stove. A brighter colour will therefore work.

The library:

The lounge needs to be a colour that will coordinate with the dressing room, the kitchen, and the loft. It was therefore the perfect place to put the vibrant orange I’ve been craving. The actual shade I’d like has a drop more black in it, making it just the weeist bit less bright.

The loft:

I’m one of those rare folks who loves the combination of blue and orange. Even though most people would never realise there’s a blue room next to an orange one, I would. Painting the loft would be a low priority since you can’t see the walls in there, but I’d like to do it because of the mildew-resistant agent in the paint.

Finally, the cabinets, doors, trim, etc.:

This is the colour that is giving me the biggest grief and which I won’t settle on until I have my fabrics. I want a neutral ‘cream’ colour, but not something that will seem washed out against the bright wall colours. It will be the most visible colour in the rig so it needs some punch of its own, even if it’s a neutral. I plan to ‘antique’ or ‘distress’ the cabinets for a more cottagey look. My reason for painting the woodwork is that while the doors are all solid wood, the cabinets themselves are laminate and starting to show their age. I’m also starting to have a mishmash of finishes, so a coat of paint will unify everything. Painting the cabinets is going to be a huge job and is the last one of my makeover list.

Tomorrow, I’m going to continue my fabric shopping. I’m looking for plaids and checks that combine the colours I’d like to have in my new home and which will coordinate between themselves. I won’t have a lot of fabric in the new Miranda, but there will be enough to tie in the rainbow I’ve selected.

As for the sewing, I have an aversion to sewing machines, so hand sewing my new curtains and coverings is going to be an on going project for some time.

While the makeover will in no way be complete by the time I leave Campbell River, I will be very satisfied to have my new floors and some if not all the new furnishings I want as well as the fabric and paint so I can continue on this project later. The smaller touches that will be purely decorating can wait. However, the carpentry that’s missing, like finishing the dishwasher counter (a subject of a future post) and putting new doors on the wardrobe can’t. Soon as the floors are done, they’ll be my next project.

How much I get done will depend on time. Time is precious now that I’m so busy with my 33 hours at the convenience store, 10 hours at my analysis job, and 10 or so hours for my writing contract. Plus, I’d like to get some more exploring done!

At least, things are finally coming together and my dream home is within reach!

There is nothing like having had a vision for more than six months and seeing it come to life. The new counter is far, far from done, but the steps I took today have brought Miranda much closer to realising her full potential as a solo full-timer’s home.

Today, I completed most of the ‘rough in’ for the new counter. It will need a lot of finish work, but I am not sure yet what material I will be using, so I am holding off for a bit. Croft left me something that could be perfect, but I have another option to explore first. Another thing that I need to do is install a door in the front that I will close when I drive so my dishwasher won’t go flying. As it is, I’ve installed it over skidproof material, which will go a long way to ensuring it stays put. Finally, I need to put a shelf over the drawer to hold a garbage can. Recognize that drawer? It’s going to be much more useful now!

So far, the project has cost me nothing other than the bottle of wood glue I’ll need to replace. I got the counter supports from Croft’s wondrous scrap bin and all the angle brackets and screws came from the dismantled dinette back. Under the dishwasher, I put the other dinette bench’s thin plywood covering and then a few spacers to raise the dishwasher up a few more inches. I’m running a test load right now and if I find drainage wasn’t adequate I can move the dishwasher up another two to three inches.

The only thing that hasn’t gone according to plan is that the hoses are much too long and inflexible to be poked through an opening and coiled away. Moreover, they tend to hold a lot of water, so leakage could be an issue. I therefore need to rethink how I’m going to store them neatly when the dishwasher isn’t in use.

Injury count for today was just one. No matter how many safety precautions you can take, power tools can be unpredictable. I managed to get hit in the right wrist by a piece of plywood flying at high velocity and the result was some pretty impressive cuts and bruises. Now that I have been properly injured while working on a reno project in Miranda she is officially home.

Even though the project isn’t done yet, I can already see that it does not look too out of place. Using existing materials and components has kept certain proportions and enabled me to greatly improve the kitchen’s efficiency without compromising Miranda’s balanced layout.

Another thing I need to do is get some stools so that I can sit at the counter and work on the laptop or eat! It’s not obvious from the pictures, but I did build this like a proper sit-at counter, with the counter being wider than the base so there is space for my legs.

Wait till you see what I have in mind for the other dinette bench. But that won’t come for some time yet as I want to get this project buttoned up first.

From the minute I began planning the front room renos I had a very strong image in my head of just how I was going to install a countertop dishwasher. After doing research, looking at other people’s installations, and actually squeezing a dishwasher in here, I am very surprised to discover that my exact original idea will work.

Taking apart the dinette will entail a lot of work, especially the bench near the stove. I would have to relocate heating ducts and the propane detector, cut through a steel frame, and find a new and not-so-optimum location for items stored in the bench. More than once I had the thought that the bench frame has exactly the right dimensions for the project I had in mind. Why not leave that bench intact, rest the dishwasher on it, add on supports for the countertop, and create a new hinged door in front to get at the stored items previously accessible from the top?

Another issue was how was I going to get water and power to the dishwasher? By having it face the kitchen, I would have to route the hoses around the unit and possibly create a draining nightmare. The obvious solution was to face the dishwasher towards the lounge then cut a hole in the paneling at the rear through which I could fit the hoses and power cord. Not ideal but not a big deal. Another issue that was brought up while discussing the dishwasher with someone was how low it could be installed before drainage became a problem. There cannot be more than 3′ difference between the bottom of the unit and the tap.

So, you can imagine that I thought that getting the dishwasher into its permanent position was going to be a huge hassle.

Behold the dishwasher in its permanent, albeit naked, position:

Right now, it’s just resting on a very thin piece of plywood. I’m sure it’s strong enough to support the weight since it’s meant to hold the weight of an adult, but I do plan to use some plywood scraps to make a stronger base just in case. A drill and jigsaw combo will make short work of making a neat hole in the paneling at the base of the dishwasher for putting the hoses and cord through.

The icing on the cake is that the hoses and cord are long enough to reach the sink and plug and the height difference is less than 2′!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a drawer that I will be installing next to the dishwasher and over that will be space for a garbage can.

As for my new counter top, you can see it in the above picture. *gives her readers time to go back up and stare at the picture for a second then nods* My dinette table just happens to be made of the same material as the kitchen counter top and even has the same oak trim. It’s exactly the right width for the project and only a tad short, but I’ve already figured out how I’m going to compensate for that.

Hopefully, it’ll stop storming tomorrow (been going strong for 30 hours now) and I can get into the workshop to get to work on my new counter!

Needless to say, the carpet at the bottom of that unit is staying and I’ll be laying the new flooring around it. Much less complicated!

The rest of the details of this project shall remain shrouded in mystery until I get this project done.