The renovations have begun! We bought the Airstream at the beginning of May 2016 and we were able to work on it for a few weekends. We then decided we would never get it done if we only left it to weekends, so at the end of June we both quit our jobs and moved to Delta so we could work on it and do photography and videography full time. WE HAVE NOT REGRETTED THIS DECISION ONE BIT! :D
(We moved out of our apartment in Provo EXACTLY 2 years from the day we moved in!)
Though we bought it in May 2016, we have really only been working on it since July 2016 (when we moved to Delta), so about 6 months. It doesn't seem like there is much to look at, but there has been tons of progress.
Click Here to see all the "Before" pictures. The first thing we did was gut the trailer. We gutted the ENTIRE inside. We thought there might be some things we would want to keep, but as we were taking it all out we just realized it was all total junk. We also found out the trailer had an infestation of very large black ants! So I'm really happy we didn't decide to sleep in the trailer the night that we bought it.
(These are taken with a GoPro so these pics are distorted and make the trailer look way longer than it is... but it shows the whole thing nicely haha)
After gutting out all the furniture and such, we then had to take out the wall panels. These panels we did keep. They were in really great condition, we just need to wash and repaint them! After removing all the panels, it exposed the insulation, which we also removed. It was in okay condition but we are just going to redo it. After that we ripped out the sub floor!
After ripping out the floor, the next thing we had to do was remove the shell from the frame. We had to do this with a Loader, which luckily in Farm town Delta it is something we have access to haha. Chance built a wooden frame inside the shell so it wouldn't cave in on itself (see below). Seriously this whole thing would be impossible without Chance!
Chance's dad and brothers actually removed the shell with the loader for us while we were gone, which was really really nice of them! We are so grateful. And I'm so glad my mother-in-law took some pictures while they were doing it!
Then the real dirty work started. As you can see in one of the pictures above, the frame was pretty rusty! Overall it looked pretty good and there were only a few small parts that were rusted through. But we new we would want to get all that rust off. Chance spent the next few weeks taking all the tanks and materials off the frame, removing the tires, and grinding the whole frame and welding to get the it rust free and sturdy again! He then painted it with rust converter and painted it again with rust proof paint to hopefully fight against any rust in the future. Props to Chance, because he literally did this whole part by himself... I just found out I was about 6 weeks pregnant and was not feeling well at all! I mostly stayed in to do editing for photography, which in my defense, also needed to be done! Haha, but he definitely had the hard manual labor work. He's so awesome.
Once it was all painted and finished, he put all the tanks back in the frame. We had to buy new bigger axles for it, and Chance also installed those and put the tires back on.
While we had been waiting for when we can get the Loader back to put the shell back on the frame, Chance sorted through all the wiring and has been doing A LOT of research. Our next big project has been the windows. The windows were really gross! The film on the inside of the windows had started to bubble and they were just really dirty in between the panes, and some moisture has seeped into them. Really, so gross and dirty.
Chance researched so long to figure out how we could fix them. We talked to some window repair shops, but they were just really not helpful, though we don't blame them since this is a vintage trailer haha. Chance finally found all the right materials we thought we would need to replace them and he ordered them. They all arrived at different times, but when we had everything Chance started working on it! He removed the windows, took them apart, cleaned off all the film from inside, washed them and put them back together with the materials he ordered. There was a bit of trial and error, but he really figured it out well! THEY ARE SO BEAUTIFUL NOW!
We also have the wood for our new sub floor and we (when I say we, just assume I mean Chance) researched a lot about Solar stuff and batteries we will need. We've got all that ordered and here now so we are ready to go with the solar!
We finally got the loader back and put the shell back on the frame, which was a big job and a huge step in our project! We are finishing up with windows and we'll start on the electrical and building the inside back up!
So that's what we have done so far! Again, it doesn't look like much, but there has been so much labor time and research time that has gone into all of it! We are still really excited about it and we are still planning on living in it, even with our baby coming!
I will keep updating as we go along! Feel free to comment or contact us with any questions!
