Table for Two

We've been pretty happy with the floorplan and layout we decided on when designing our Airstream, however there's one thing that we have been missing; a table for two! We have the one-seater bar at the end of the counter which is used heavily by moi when supervising J while he's doing his chef thing. But, when it comes time for both of us to take a seat, we just head to our couch. Eating on the couch can be tricky, especially when you have to find a place to put your wine glass when someone says "can you pass the salt please." We'd been tossing around the idea of adding a fold-down/flip-up bar to the original bar area to make room for two people to sit. We had a chunk of our birch countertop leftover from cutting out the insert for our stove. So, J cut it to size for our bar addition and I sanded it and finished it.

The hardest part of this project was finding the right hardware to hold up the bar! I had a hard time describing to Google what I was looking for: slide-out countertop hardware? fold-down counter bracket? floating shelf hardware? Drop-leaf table support? (Now we're getting somewhere). Drop-leaf table support for table with no apron? BINGO! Yes, that is apparently more or less what we made: a drop-leaf table extension with no apron - no vertical surface to mount a bracket on. Whew, so that narrowed our hardware choices a lot, given that our "drop-leaf" was kind of large; cantilevering some 21 inches into space, and kind of heavy: 1.5" thick-slab of solid birch wood. No puny hardware for us.

Here's what we ended up with - a pair of drop leaf table
supports made by Rockler, specifically for "larger loads."

Just pull those two black tabs and the counter folds down.

J finishes up installing the fancy hardware. This is what the bar looks like when it's not in use. 

Seating for two! We got a folding bar stool from Ikea that stashes away against the wall when not in use.

We are very happy with our little seating area. The counter is super sturdy (I was skeptical), and has no problem handling dinner, elbows, or our aging hefty laptop.

Also, our hardware came with the latest and greatest Rockler catalog, which we proceeded to fight over who got to drool on it first. I think that it is possibly a bad sign when the best thing that came in the mail is the hardware catalog...? But they have so much cool stuff!!

Airstream Life Hacks

Silly hardware company! This only works if
your walls are vertical!

If you have ever moved into a house that is 50 years old or older, you may know some of the trials we've gone through. Like that moment where you realize that owner #2 (or #3?) must have wired one of the light fixtures bass-ackwards, now causing you unending amounts of frustration. Or that because they just did things a little...differently in 1963, your house will never really be exactly the way you would have designed it. People admire Airstreams for their curves. We admire Airstreams for their curves. J and I have a standing joke whenever he is building something for our Airstream and gets frustrated that it isn't coming out quite square - that it doesn't really matter because the Airstream isn't square! But sometimes we really wish it was. Take for example the seemingly simple task of mounting a towel rack you purchase onto your wall. Screw it in and done, right? Not so in the Airstream! Of course I had to order a towel rack with swiveling arms so our towels could dry better near our space heater (news flash for our Colorado friends: towels do NOT dry in Washington - bleh). The Airstream walls are not entirely vertical, owing to the fact that they are reaching to meet up with those attractive curvy corners. So, if you hang the towel rack on the slanty wall, the towels will fall off those swiveling arms! So began a lengthy project of yet another one of what I have begun to call Airstream Life Hacks, all for the sake of having dry(er) towels:

Wood shims to "level-out" the towel bars. You can see the way the walls slant inward, eventually curving over into the ceiling. Our TV is in the background, on a swivel mount, so it too can be level.

And in other Airstream Life Hacks, I completed my first-ever DIY Pinterest-inspired crafty household project, and no, it wasn't cupcakes. We have precious few outlets in the Airstream, and they sort of are where they are due to the wiring. When we remodeled, one of our outlets ended up being right above the sink! The need to charge cell phones and other USB devices right there was landing expensive electronics right in the dishes, or creating a tricky system of cords that somehow always got splashed with water. All Hail Pinterest, which can solve this problem! 

           

I made a nifty cell phone charging holder out of an old shampoo container - I know, *gasp* How did I do it!?! Well, let me tell you: unemployment, that's how. Yes, still on the job hunt :-)

I may be a little extra proud of this one, so here's a close up. Commence ooos and ahhs.

We also got a magnetic knife rack (probably should have thought of that a long time ago), and good news: knife racks don't care if your walls are slanted! Yay for magnets! Our pint glass rack does double-duty as the occasional flower vase for our abundant blooming daffodils.

The projects continue: I painted the plywood floor underneath the couch to protect it from moisture damage. There is just no air flow under there, and it is subject to a lot of condensation unfortunately.

And Jacob installed flooring inside our kitchen cabinets. We had some pieces of flooring leftover from our initial installation (read: why didn't we just put flooring in the cabinets then??) that he put together to fit in there. The plywood was absorbing condensation, as you can see in the photo above - not good.

So, with our towels happily drying, our cell phone cords not trying to electrocute us, and our plywood subfloor finally protected, we can once more claim to be successfully continuing to Hack our way through full-time Airstream living.