Goodbye madam butterfly

There is retro cute and there is retro nasty.

Shasta vintage campers are retro wonderful!

This butterfly decal on the refrigerator is retro huge no-no.

Just say "No" to 70's butterflies.

It had to go. Lots of scraping and cursing happened last weekend.

Gone.

Shasta Love

painting the roses red

A beautiful day to do some Shasta door painting!

more to come soon.

Shasta Love.

the cushions are compete!

A little preview of the completed cushions. woohoo!!

Isn't he handsome?

Shasta Love.

let there be light!

Ask me who is the most wonderful and I shall answer with two people in mind. Anthony and the man at Home Deopt whose name I did not catch (though he looks a lot like our friend Mike so I will refer to him as such). Anthony and I ran into Mike at the trim and molding section of The Deopt where he helped us create this!

The molding around our new skylight! After getting us the trim we needed I sweet talked him into finding the perfect piece of plexiglass for us also. This is why Mike is wonderful.

Anthony is wonderful for cutting the plexiglass down to size and putting the mold up. Two wonderful people shedding some light on the Shasta for me.

Shasta love.

and the color theme is...

Aqua and lemon yellow!

We headed to JoAnn Fabrics last week to check out the fabrics to reupholster the awful 1970's plaid. We found these two combo fabrics in the sale aisle! What more could you ask for?

I have started the first cushion back as you can see in the photo. We are making the seat backs in the lemon and the seats in the aqua.

I think it's perfect. The daisy outlines stay true to the year of the trailer while the color combo really brings it up to date. Hope it turns out well! More pictures to come when its done

Shasta love.

Hello paneling!

Back half newly paneled

Birch wood paneling. Yes, we are trying to move forward into the 21st century and not back into the 1970's but since we only had to replace half the panels we just wanted it to match.

Left-old. Right-new.

Okay, so the coloring is a little off, but the wood is the same. This means when we do get to the point of modernizing it by paint it will look the same! Yay!

So I completely screwed up the measurements of the panel on the ceiling. As Anthony called out the measurements he took of the roof, I took mental notes. We headed back into the garage to measure and cut the board and he asks me what the measurement was. I told him in confidence "90 inches by 34 and 3/4 inches" He then asked if I was sure and why I hadn't written it down. I told him I had a wonderful memory and didn't need to write two numbers down and who did he take me for? A dummy?

Well, I guess I am.

I don't know where in my ass I pulled 34 and 3/4 inches from but it was very wrong. As we are trying to fit the panel above our heads and I am getting dead arms (the same kind you get when you spend too much time trying to put your hair up) I hear "aww shit". Apparently the correct measurement was 57 inches and not 34 and 3/4th. oops. We figured it out and it looks fine but there was a small amount of Kate gravels to Anthony time happening.

insulating for dummies

There are very few things I am naturally good at. I can bake cookies and make them still chewy good, in college I was naturally good at drinking like a fish, and I would say that lounging on the couch all day doesn't take much thought for me. Thank God I can add a new talent to my very short list. I am a natural born camper insulating master. Now, how many times I will actually use this skill? Oh well.

Anthony did an amazing job re-framing he wood he took out while I resealed the outside edges around the windows then I insulated the back and ceiling.

Next job- new paneling to cover it all up!

Hopefully it goes just as smoothly as this did.

Shasta love.

getting to work

So after we got the Shasta home, it was time to get to work. Both Anthony and I are Shasta restoration virgins so we were not sure how to get started. Buying the trailer we knew that there was some water damage in the back left corner so that was the place to start. This is where Anthony really took charge. We (and I really mean he did this) ripped out the back panels, insulation, and some of the framing.

Next stop, the lumber store to replace everything we took out.

Shasta love

We bought our first Shasta!

Rather than renting a trailer to move to Wyoming in this summer then paying more money for a honeymoon we would combine the two and save money. The idea of a vintage travel trailer was born. Of course, anything within our price range and year point was going to have to be a "fixer-upper" but we knew we could handle it. Within days we found this beaut on Craigslist.Pretty huh? She/he has no gender or name yet. We are going to wait until we are all finished sprucing her up again to decide.The 1970 Shasta camper is 14' long, about 7' wide, and sleeps six. I cannot wait to get started and rip out those AWFUL curtains and redo the cushions.After picking it up we were on our way home with our baby behind us and project at hand.
Shasta love