Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Free to Sail the Seas Beyond the Edges of the Map...

We are nearing the end of our precious time living by the sea in a real house. It's bittersweet because we love the bay, and we love this house, but it isn't ours. The owners are moving back in, and we are moving into our beloved Blue Moon in just a few short weeks. This past weekend was full of progress on the airstream, which is a relief because time is running out. I got a little crafty and ventured into the realm of mod podge to solve the issue of our ugly front endcap. The endcaps of the our trailer are fiberglass, and when we got Blue, someone had already started stripping the paint up there and it just looked horrendous. I have a strong negative gut reaction to painting anything in our trailer now because I know how much work it is to "undo" it. So, what to do? I had come across some images from other folks online that had put up maps in their trailer, so I decided to cover the whole thing in vintage west coast maps. A big thanks to Michael for donating all of his old maps for this project! 

Here we go...

Jack Sparrow is a dying breed. The world is shrinking, the blank edges of the map filled in.

Wrapping those round edges of the overhead storage bin in map pieces was a real pain, but it looks so nice! If you ever want to go anywhere on the west coast, from Vancouver Island down to the Mexico border, just come on by and stare at our ceiling for awhile. Hopefully the roads haven't changed in 30 years :) And if you are lying on the couch, you'll be able to find your way to our childhood homes in a great little town that we grew up in called Fort Collins. There may also be a section of Colorado's Arapaho National Forest in which you can find Lake Agnes...

Meanwhile, another original Blue Moon item needed some cleaning!

Fitting all the pieces together for the countertop. The fridge is installed!

Roomie Andrew helps J move in another piece of beech wood countertop. 

J cuts out the spot for our sink!

The trailer really feels like home with the kitchen nearly complete and the maps on the end. I still need to trim off the painters tape of the maps.

J installed this insulated panel next to the fridge to try and help keep the noise from the compressor to a minimum. There will be cabinet doors and a unique water and hand pump system coming!

The current state of things... 

In other news, we have tent caterpillars EVERYWHERE. They are disgusting. They gather in massive piles on deciduous trees and defoliate them completely. Then, right about now they all leave the tree and start clamoring over anything and everything outside (you, the dogs, the deck) looking for a special place to make their little cocoons. I regularly find them in the house because one of us tracked them inside. They have sticky little feet and are quite friendly in that they just latch on and hop a ride! Summer is here!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Traveling Osprey!

    My husband and I just bought a '68 Overlander and are starting a complete overhaul on it this summer. I have been perusing your blog for layout ideas and discovered we are from the same endearing little town of Fort Collins. I had just a couple of questions for you. What do you do in terms of a shower? Was there a reason you decided not to create one inside the airstream?I love how you mounted the toilet over the wheel well. Is that a nature's head toilet?

    Thanks for all the fantastic photos of your projects!

    Cheers,

    Meredith

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    Replies
    1. Hi Meredith!
      That is awesome you are from the Fort also :-)
      Super excited for you and your Airstream project! We are still living in ours and enjoying it. So the property we pay rent to park our airstream on has an old cabin on it that has a shower/bathroom in it that our landlords got working again so we use that. But the whole first summer it wasn't working and we just took solar sun showers outside- the property is pretty private. Out here in the northwest, condensation and moisture and mildew can be a real problem, so we just decided not to put a shower in the airstream and figure it out based on where we ended up parking it. The toilet is a nature's head. We don't have it anymore and we just use he bathroom in the other cabin. We have a space heater where the toilet used to be. The nature's head works ok, especially if you aren't going for full time living. It runs a tiny 12v fan constantly, which although is quiet, I found annoying. If you don't run it, the toilet starts to smell kind of earthy. I don't know if there is a "perfect" rv toilet system out there! Have fun, give a shout if we can try to offer any more advice!
      -Heidi and Jacob

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