The Countdown Begins

As of today we have 35 days until our wedding day - eek! So the past week has been a hive of activity trying to get things finished in time as we need her ready for the honeymoon where we shall be journeying along the west coast of Scotland hopefully right up the the top coast if we have the time. There's nothing quite like a deadline to get jobs done!

Ryan got some help from his Dad and got the rear leaf springs replaced as they were very tired and done some welding to the underneath. He's also began getting to work on the extensive rust on the cab, before and after pictures to follow...

Ryan is also in charge of our gas system which needs re-routing from the gas bottle in the rear locker to a new LPG tank under the body, and the wiring and electrics. He's put the batteries in to their final resting place under the sofa and is sorting out the charging systems so while the sofa's in pieces I'm getting it painted as it was looking very tatty. He's made a switch panel too which is positioned on the wall between the living area and kitchen for the lights & heating etc so that we can reach it from either side for convenience.

I finally got a nice piece of carpet fitted in the cab as for far too long the cab has been still housing the filthy grim grey-black carpet tiles so I tore them out with pleasure! Ryan's parents had an off-cut of a tough beige and brown carpet spare which was perfect.

If you've ever fitted carpet before in a car you'll know that's bad, but Waki was typically far more trouble due to the huge foot wells and contoured arches. The process took quite a long time involving me laying on my belly down the slope between the two seats struggling with my arms outstretched, bashing my head on the seats and dash many times and getting in a tangle with the pedals but I got there in the end! As with previous experience though using spray adhesive in such a small space will always put me in a happier place ;) Don't worry I did have the doors open, but it's still strong!

My next job is to tidy up and fit the old cover strips and also a new length to bridge the carpet-to-laminate join to the living area. I'm also in charge of fitting the cupboards and doors, modifying cupboards, painting (of course!), making panels and boxes, cleaning the old laminate section of floor from ground-in paint and any other fiddly things I can find that need attention.

Another bit of women's work for me is to edge the rug to stop it fraying from where I cut it down to size to fit in the living area. I'm using some recycled wool from an old cardigan of mine which has untwisted enough to be like sewing with multiple strands, and so far it seems to be working really well but it just takes a lot of force to pull the needle through so I'm having to do a little bit each day to avoid blisters. I guess my fingers will toughen up soon enough and I've found a piece of rubber grip mat to use as a thimble which helps a little. It also works out that the off cuts will make perfect mats for the step and should help absorb a lot of water and dirt before we get to the walkway, as it's quite annoying in wet weather to be at home with our shoes off and tread in a wet patch on our way to the kitchen or loo! I love being able to get a use for something instead of throwing it out and we save money too!

At this point I'm really not sure if I'll have time to do lots of Blog updates on our progress as we go, or whether it will have to be after the wedding but I'll try!

Beautiful Bathroom

Who says that you can't have a little luxury in a 1m square bathroom? I've been longing to have the bathroom finished and properly working and I got to use the shower for the first time on Saturday night - this girl knows how to party huh?

We had ripped the old shower tray out after a failed attempt at repairing it, and decided to make a new one from scratch. In a way it was best that we did as it worked out that the floor was more rotten than we had previously thought in there, so now it has a nice new and much more stable plywood floor.

Ryan done a fantastic job tiling it all using some mosaic sheets, and even included a swish little strip of tiles behind the toilet to finish it off :)

We have a little cream bathroom mat which is normally left in the shower tray to keep our feet warm and dry when we're not using the shower, and when we are it's simply popped outside the door so that we can step out onto something drying when we're done.

There was a bit of a gap left next to the toilet which needed to be covered with plastic sheeting, and not wanting to waste any precious storage space I discovered it was just about big enough to fit a toilet roll into! Ryan devised a platform inside and a little door on the front so we can get into it when we need to, it turns out that we can store perfectly 9 loo rolls in there - how lucky was that?!

My birthday present mirror is now in place on the wall and beams some colour into the room, along with the bamboo pattern shower curtain. As it was a full size curtain I had to cut it down to size and re-hem it but with plenty of fabric left I also made a small curtain for the window for some extra privacy. The bathroom window is very well frosted but I still wanted something else there just in case - we don't want to get into trouble for public indecency when we're on the road!

To top it all off we now also have a neat little corner sink in place, a wire rack to hold our shampoos etc, a shiny new shower set and beautiful mixer taps to run it all (big thanks to my Step-Dad Richard for gifting us those!). Ah luxury!

Paintwork

We had the good fortune of a few days of sunshine late in March and April so Ryan got to work on Waki's paintwork. She was literally peppered with holes and we have been gradually filling and protecting areas with duct tape which had left her looking very shabby indeed. So Ryan bought a compressor and smoothed the fillered areas down and applied several layers of white metal paint with a roller. He also managed to get another coat of paint on the roof so that's finally got a good weather seal on it.

This is really a base coat to protect the body and there is still much more smoothing work and dent removal to be done. The immediate result though was fantastic! No more grubby beige and brown flakiness but an expanse of clean fresh white!

We plan to use a nice white car paint for the final finish, and Ryan's already very handy with a spray gun what with his previous experience painting cars and aeroplanes :) We both agree that she needs some sort of coloured stripes or a design down the sides to break up the white a bit, but we can't yet agree on what yet...

Icicles!

This Winter really doesn't want to go, and so Waki has been adorned in an array of quite spectacular icicles again. The door was also frozen shut at the bottom the other morning and required a bit of a kick to get out, which proves that we still have some work to do regarding the rubber seal!

It's hard to believe just how well the insulation works though for a mere 25mm of foam + 4mm of foil/foam sandwich (and I'm very glad of it too!) considering that I sleep literally inches away from those icicles! :D

We bought a set of Milenco insulated covers for the cab windows and the windscreen before Winter really kicked in. Before these we'd just been using the previous owners' windscreen cover, which seemed to be sized for a tiny car, and some foam offcuts stuck up to the side windows with masking tape! The Milenco ones really are fantastic, they're a universal fit type but are at least actually designed for motorhomes/vans so do cover all of the glass and even overlap slightly, but we noticed a temperature difference immediately. They have the usual bubble wrap and foil combination but with a few extra layers of metal mesh and a smart fabric backing and come with suckers to hold them up. Hopefully they'll help us out in Summer too in keeping the interior cool, perhaps sunshine is wishful thinking though...

The cab in currently blocked off from the living area by a duvet for extra insulation and privacy as we still haven't done the curtains (despite having the fabric already, as usual the curtains are looking complicated to design as we want to block the cab windows but still use the seats) and there's quite a draught from the old door seals and probably a rusted hole or two!

Ryan had managed to get some protective paint on most of the bodywork before this wave of cold weather hit, I'll explain & get some pics up in another post, but for now it looks like we're back to inside work!

A Loo With A View

Ryan was tasked with cutting the hole in the bathroom wall for the toilet cartridge to go through - he’s been good at making holes in the wall so far, though not all required holes which is why I done most of the batten chiselling in the end! 

View from the loo of blue skies no less!

Our loo is a lovely little bench type with an electric flush and even has a little toilet roll holder built inside so the paper won't get wet when we have a shower. I know, simple things...

We also needed to make the roof vent hole in the shower room larger for the new vent we bought that won’t fit the old size holes that we have. The kitchen vent unfortunately got broken as the plastic was a bit brittle and we had to seal it closed with silicone as rain was dripping through at an annoyingly rapid rate! We've been waiting since summer to get this job done but just haven't had a day free without rain to do it!

So with the help of a much awaited sunny day the old bathroom vent has now been moved to the kitchen and the shiny new vent is now in place in the bathroom. We thought it would be nicer to have the new crystal clear vent in the bathroom where we need the best light anyway for applying make-up and shaving etc, and it will probably get the most use for letting the moisture out from showering and drying clothes. I'm very pleased with it, the first night it was in was a clear sky and I could actually see the stars and the moon from the er, yeah OK from sat on the loo! :)

We got a new shower head, two mixer taps and a nice little corner sink - thanks Richard! The old sink the fold down type and was far too big for the room and made from a brittle ugly orange-brown plastic so had to go! I also didn't like the fact that when brushing your teeth you essentially had to just spit in a bowl then tip it down the back.

We now need to find something to adapt into a corner pedestal to hide the pipes, and our attempts to fibre glass the old cracked shower tray failed somewhat so we've ripped it out altogether.

We've decided to make a new one from scratch with plywood and tile it as unfortunately, as with anything we do The Waki Way, we can't find a new purpose built shower tray to fit our custom loo room. A lot of this project is trial and error, but the end result will be a motorhome that fits us perfectly.

Every cupboard has a plastic lining…

Every cupboard has a plastic lining…

Well the kitchen ones do anyway! J

(This is a job that was done before I got ill, but I hadn't gotten round to taking any pics sorry!)

I like to have clean food storage cupboards, it stops smells and so discourages pests from finding and spoiling the food. Nearly everything has the storage advice ‘keep in a cool dark place’ written on it as well so for the best storage life I decided that our main food cupboard (the old wardrobe at the rear) needed to be kept as cool and clean as possible. The problem is that as the back wall was structurally ok compared to the rest of the walls which was a bonus for the refurb, but it meant that it hadn’t got the foil and extra foam lining that the rest has. Also the blown air heater is underneath that same cupboard and we have plans to have a generator in the locker which is also underneath which will generate its own heat as well!

So to stop any generator fumes from creeping into the cupboard and living area it has been thoroughly sealed with silicone, and then insulated with our magic foil and foam sandwich. That is now topped with a lovely white wipe clean plastic the same as for the spit and splash zone wall in the kitchen, with an extra bead of silicone to seal the edges of the plastic lining.

The shelves in the big cupboard are now in, though they need painting and an edge putting on the fronts to stop everything ending up at the bottom in a pile when we move!

We have two excellent spice racks on the inside of the door, bought from Amazon (see the bottom of this post for the link if you want some too!)  which stop them from rolling around the cupboard when we’re on the move. And also crammed cupboards are frankly irritating when you have to unload your entire food stock just to get to one can at the back which will probably be past it’s expiry date anyway as it’s been hidden for so long.

I also ordered another rack for the kitchen wall which we can keep our cooking oil in. They’re the type of item that happily live on the kitchen worktop in a regular house without mishap but definitely need to be secured on the road. Unfortunately I accidentally ordered the wrong size :/ but luckily it fits perfectly in the shower room for our shampoo, we're still yet to find another solution for the oil!

I came across a beautiful set of hooks on ebay which looks stunning up in front of the cupboard holding our utensils. Bargain at under £2! The spoons rattle a little when driving so we're likely to fit some form of securement for them up there - my mind's heading in the direction of some sort of elastic strap but you'll have to wait and see...

I've been trying to pretty things up where I possibly can as we won't be able to have big pictures hung up or ornaments etc to decorate like we would in a house. Little things like that matter to me and I think that's what makes a place feel like a home, it's gradually becoming our home. :)

3 Months of Silence

Wow, three whole months of silence! Sorry people but I have been somewhat distracted from my writing duties recently due to a number of things. Doesn't it just seem sometimes that whenever you think you're getting somewhere you get sent back to the start?

We have still being doing odd jobs around the Motorhome, well when I say we I mean Ryan's been working hard and I've managed mostly cleaning and sawing the occasional piece of wood for shelves etc!

I've recently discovered that I have a form of Arthritis, I often joke that I feel like an old woman sometimes despite being only 26 but this is just silly! My back will often ache which it's done for years and I can happily live with that (apart from the odd spasm that had me bedridden for a day over the past couple of years), but my knees and ankle joints have been the worst of late. I'd been getting up for work and feeling like I was walking with broken bones for a hour or so until I got moving enough for the pain to ease off! Then to top it off a few weeks ago I developed painful swellings and hideous bruising around my joints and feet that the Doctor reckons is actually Cellulitis (which the blood test seems to confirm) so I've been taking a mixture of Antibiotics and Ibuprofen daily to get over that.

Needless to say I've been feeling very sorry for myself of late and have not felt like socialising or writing anything either, but lets face it there's always someone out there worse off so I need to just suck it up and try to move forward - again.

So I pledge now to write about the things that we have been doing during the silence, and get myself up and out and about. Thanks for your patience and support, and see you soon... :)