Amazing - Eco-fi Fabric

We recently recovered the fabric ceiling of the cab as it was very grotty, and also decided to recover the curved edging covers on which the original fabric had begun to rot away! To keep it light and bright we went with cream felt for the ceiling, bought from Milton Keynes market, which took a massive amount of spray adhesive and awkward pushing and pulling to get into all of the dips and bumps. 

The light colour is a risk with Ryan around and his dirty mechanic hands but it really does lift the space so is a risk worth taking!

We wanted to keep to the brown colour for the edging but couldn't find the right shade at the market so went back to trusty e-bay. I came across some well priced felt material called Eco-fi, which also happens to be made entirely out of recycled plastic bottles made by a company in America! See below pdf about how it's made it really is amazing! I know, simple things...

http://www.kuningroup.com/dfiles/ecofi_SS.pdf

I've been showing it to everybody and no-one else can believe its plastic either so we have some good eco-karma in the project already without a compromise which is a rare thing!

I had to do some cutting and sewing to get it to fit the internal angles which I done by hand as I never have liked using a sewing machine, and it's a good way to practice my needlework. I intend on doing a lot more fabric craft work in the future and we don't have room for a machine anyway. The Waki Way is about doing things the simplest way possible, although we do joke that it's possibly about being the most awkward and inconvenient way possible which is how it's felt with the multitude of obstacles we've encountered so far but we persevere for a simpler way of life!

I can’t bring myself to throw away any fabric offcuts, especially with all of the crafty things that could be made with them so I needed a way to store them. I could just leave them in a plastic bag in a cupboard somewhere or I could have them to hand in a nice attractive bag so decided to make a cushion cover out of the ecofi fabric to hold it, and of course added a few embellishments that would complement our decor. 

I must own up to the fact that it wasn’t my original idea, I was actually inspired by someone on a YouTube video who uses her pillows for storing fabric! 

Click on the link below to view her video, she really is an amazing woman who in a similar situation to us decided to buy a trailer chassis and literally built herself a tiny house on top of it from recycled and salvaged materials!

Jubilee Weekend Work

The week before the Jubilee weekend Ryan took some holiday and got a massive amount done, in the evenings my time was taken up with a last minute commission from a friend at Bedford's Swan Hotel, see Chalkboards post on my art blog, so unfortunately I couldn't help much. We've had a great weekend since though and got lots done already. Ryan's Dad done a good job decorating the house so we all felt quite patriotic, especially on hearing the National Anthem so many times on the Isle of Man TT broadcasting that Ryan has been listening to on his phone for the whole time!

The awning, cleaned and refitted, created an area of much welcomed shelter when the Bank Holiday weather came!

Ryan bought a large sheet of aluminium and more wood supplies and removed the large front window on the cab bedroom overhang and got the hole cleaned up, now I have a nice solid wall to sleep next to at last! It was one of the last things bringing down the feel of the place.

We've slept in Waki every night since Sunday night and have had the best sleep in a long time so I think it's safe to say that I'm used to it at last! :)

Ryan then sealed and riveted the sheet on the outside and filled the gap with insulation, before lining it with foil and upright pine cladding.

He also finished where I left off cladding the rest of the ceiling in the kitchen. The cladding works brilliantly as a ceiling covering, and by running it sideways on the ceiling and upright on the front bed wall it tricks the eye into seeing more space.

I continued painting the ceiling to get it sealed and finished, we wanted it a nice bright white to again maximise the feeling of space inside. We also have the roof vents back up, though we have ordered another new one as the kitchen one is broken.

Ryan also finished repairing the back corner where our wardrobe will be and around the side storage hatch. Whilst the sun was out the two back side windows were cleaned up and resealed and the lower one was painted black as it will be under the level of the kitchen cupboards. We considered replacing it with aluminium sheeting like on the front but decided that it would stand out less with the window just blanked out from inside and screwed closed. I just need to finish filling around the repairs and then we can get the last bit of wallpaper up!

We went shopping on e-bay and finally ordered a toilet, the vent, and 2 x blinds for the roof vents. They've just been delivered today so we'll now get to work fitting those...

Road Trip!

It was my Mums birthday at the weekend (Happy Birthday Mum!) and we decided we would join them in their caravan up Skegness to celebrate, and thought it would be a good road test for Waki. Also with a deadline to work to it helped make us push extra hard to get lots done so we could enjoy at least a degree of comfort on the trip. So when we decided with only a couple of weeks to go we cracked on and somehow managed to achieve in only a handful of spare days what had taken us many weeks before!

The floor panels under the sofa

We have completely replaced the battens and plywood for the drivers side wall, got it lined with the foil blanket and foam sandwich, filled the rough edges and even wallpapered AND painted! We also done the kitchen wall and window, didn't have the time to get it papered and painted like the rest but it does look a lot better than it did! Ryan mended the blinds and got them back up so we have some privacy in the living room again, and has replaced the plywood on the floor under the sofa area where the water tank had previously leaked and ruined it.

We also bought ourselves a gas powered blown air heater, but Ryan can explain that gadget in full detail in it's own post once it's properly fitted!

The bedroom area with our taped up front window!

Whilst Ryan was at work on Saturday I got to clearing out all of the stuff that we didn't need for the trip, and I got the ceiling in the bed area clad with the pine tongue and groove so we now have a lovely clean new ceiling to look at. It also means that we don't keep getting gritty bits of foam in the bed which feel as nice as the notorious bed toast crumbs and were just as difficult to brush out!


The sofa is now repaired and back in place too which took us until nearly midnight on Saturday night and some of Sunday morning, but with a good clean up Waki was as presentable as she's been in a long while and ship shape for the journey.

So on we went via the A1, on which she made excellent speed (so much so that Ryan had to keep backing off to a comfortable 60mph!) and then headed on up to the flat expanse of Lincolnshire farming country. After previous bad experiences in the Clio with accidentally ending up in the centre of Peterborough we figured it would be awkward at the very least with Waki so chose the Spalding route instead. The trouble is all road signs literally disappeared as soon as we turned into the place, (which I think is a ploy to try and get people lost so they stop for directions and cream teas!) and we ended up causing a little bit of mayhem in the old stone-cobbled town centre! It's great though how because of our size everyone sees us coming a mile away and suddenly becomes super polite and flashes us through all of the tight gaps, perhaps that will change once we get the paintwork done!

We stayed at Cottage Farm campsite in Addlethorpe which was a in pleasant and and quite peaceful area outside of Skegness. At least it was peaceful whilst we were there, there's a Banger Racing and Stock Car track just up the road and it can sometimes be heard from the site or the racers parties can be noisy but there was nothing on whilst we were there. We had some rain showers overnight but I slept better than I had to date and there were no leaks by morning either so the night was a success!

It was nice to be able to just wake up feeling good and put the kettle on like home. We hadn't had time to get the water tank cleaned out and re-fitted, and we need to fix the water heater yet too, so we just used bottled water for drinking. We also used Ryans 'camel pack' water carrier, which has a drinking tube and a stopper like a tap, suspended over a bowl in the sink for washing up. The trip to the toilet blocks and showering on a freezing tile floor for 20p wasn't particularly fun though, so can't wait for our own toilet and hot water!

We went home via Peterborough as my Stepdad assured us that the previous bad part of the road that messed us up last time had been fixed, and it was a much smoother journey though we met the rain again nearer home. We had taken out AA breakdown cover for the journey just in case, as none of our mechanic friends would be able to tow something of our size, but thankfully it wasn't needed. Not wanting to give up the holiday feeling we ate Fish & Chips for dinner in Waki and I then had a normal busy evening at St John Ambulance to attend. Better get back to work then... :)

The Roof - part 2

As it was such a glorious day on Sunday we got the last beam properly secured and sealed on the roof. The bad weather, fading daylight and then shortage of silicon last time we was up there meant that Ryan could only put one layer of the roof seal on to get it at least weather proof and to stop it actively dripping inside when it rained (or when the snow melted!).

So Ryan scraped the layer of roof paint back off to redo the sealant on the bolts, a messy job as usual for him, and once it had dried I got up there with a paintbrush and got a good couple of coats of the roof paint over it all and around the edges again to use up the rest of the tin.

I had a succession of pointing children asking their mothers "why's that lady on the roof?!" and a few odd glances from Ryans family, but eventually finished and climbed back down to normality - well almost normality, it is me we're talking about!

I'll definitely have to try and keep a section of the roof clear of stuff as it makes the perfect sunbathing spot, and I enjoyed a moment of laying down with my hands behind my head and my work boots crossed but had too much to do to be able to stay there too long. For now I've just reserved the idea for when we find a nice spot on our travels, around the Cornish coast perhaps? :)

So now that the bolts for the roof beams are properly sealed we can finish the battens on the ceiling inside and get the insulation and cladding done there, after the front window has been replaced of course, and the bed finished, and the walls papered... *sigh* better get back to work then! :)