Well, after three years of thinking about and hoping for Tracey & I have finally pulled it off to get our first travel trailer. She is a 2006 Aerolite 26RKSL and not in too bad of shape for being a 2006. Well, there has been a lot more work than we thought just to get her set up for us to use. If you've followed any of our previous posts, you know that for us to travel the way we want, Tracey has to work 8-5 while I need to work when I need to but still need an office. So that was our first big mission with her...
Oh, I should introduce her to you; we named the trailer Abby after the Roman Goddess of outward journeys, Abeona. Our Tundra has become Addy after Abeona's companion Adiona who is the Roman Goddess of safe return. So there you go, the Tundra is Addy, and the trailer is Abby.
OK, now back to the remodel. Geez, where to start? I've been thinking about this the whole time we've worked on Abby. Abby is a 15-year-old lightweight trailer that can carry up to 6,000lbs which is great for us since Addy can tow 9,800lbs. The inside has a small slide with a couch on it, and across from that was a dinette (which we figured we would never use) and a great spot for our office.
Before I get going about what we did, we are not professional RV repair or remodeling people, but we tried to make her look as good as we could, and we are happy with the outcome... And the steps below are in no particular order, I bounced around as a problem came up, and I need to figure out what else to do to fix that; I'd work on something else.
Step 1: Water -
Figure out how to make the office work; we first thought about taking out the couch and dinette, but after looking at that, removing the couch would only gain us about 3 inches because of the slide mechanics. So the couch stays. But the dinette created a whole set of issues on its own, primarily because of the placement of the hot water tank, water pump, and pipes coming out of the water tank. So after some figuring, we decided to make a smaller box than the original bench, get the water pump off the floor, and mount it on the box. This worked for the box, which isn't completely done because I'm trying to figure out how to get the water line going to the hot water tank to help fill the water tank since the only way to do that is with the gravity fill. More to come with that...
Step 2: Desk -
We got super lucky when we stumbled onto a warehouse sale up the road from us and found this beautiful piece of 9' x 30" wood. There were two problems with it; first, it is heavy, 92lbs to be exact, but we felt we had the weight difference to carry it. Abby dry is 4,100lbs loaded up to 6,000lbs. The second problem was there were a bunch of big holes in it. I tried several ways to lay it out to not have those holes in it. We got lucky and have a few friends that love woodworking and said they could help us fill the holes in.
A big thanks to Tracy and Russ for helping with that board; we took it to their house one night, filled the holes in, and cut it to length. I would never have been able to do that without them. We figured out the overall dimensions we needed for the main top and figured out where we would sit. Since Traceys legs are shorter, she is sitting near the box over the water heater. We took the larger piece of cut-off and made a keyboard tray, but that tray comes out 2'x30" and gives us a dining/card table. We used one of the old table legs to mount it and a few angles to hold it to the wall (basically used the old holes from the dinette). We had a little oops with the awning, but that gave us some lightweight, strong tubes we used for three legs to support the desktop.
Step 3: Fixes -
Well, we know that things will break when it comes to RV's, and we didn't even get Abby out of the driveway and had to fix the awning, ugh! We had a garage sale one Saturday, and it was raining but not windy, so we opened the awning to do some cleaning of the outside and still be near if anyone stopped. It started to clear up, and a couple showed up, so we went into the garage, a bad move. Then, all of a sudden, the sky got super dark and started to rain. Tracey and I had the same thought at the same time; WE SHOULD CLOSE THE AWNING! So we took a step in that direction, WHAM a big gust (only one of the day), and bam, our awning was on top of the trailer, which created a whole new issue of finding the parts for a 15-year-old awning with NO Numbers on it. I found one but needed to do a bit of retrofitting to get it to work.
Step 4: Lights -
More fixes; these were just some things that we wanted to fix up. So we replaced the kitchen faucet (It was cracked and leaked) and the drinking water faucet (Even though it wasn't hooked up to a filter, Yet). And we changed the showerhead, just for S&G (sh!*s & Giggles). We added LED strip lights around the inside ceiling just for some more light; I also had to change the three lights in the center of the walkway (I hit my head on them); we got flush mount LED lights.
Step 5: Kitchen -
OH BOY, I almost forgot about this big change. So Abby had about 3" of counter space, and Tracey couldn't do without her coffee (I don't drink coffee, it will stunt my growth). So we removed the stove; I know some people's heads just got scratched. But what we did was across from the stove is a wall; we made a shelf with a door that comes down across the entire opening and gives us a nice counter space. So how did we fix not having a stove? Well, We have a small Blackstone with a side burner and an induction hot plate which should be good for the two of us. The propane line that went to the stove, I put a T and ran one line under the rig to put an outside quick connect, and on the other part of the T, I put a quick connect for inside to hook up the Blackstone on the inside by the back door. It is nice we have two doors, and if that one has the counter down, we can use the front.
Step 6: Steps -
OK, so this was a big one while we were talking about the doors. With the age of Abby, there was some water damage by the front door; under the door, there wasn't much holding the steps on. Another friend (thanks Chase) welded the steps (both sets) to their own piece of angle iron, which I then attached to the frame, problem solved, almost. The back door had something I could screw the front of the steps into, the front door not so much. So to solve that problem and another problem. Well, I'll just tell you that one now. Abby was built; the frame is about a foot inside the outside wall; it makes sense, but there isn't any support for the walls, hence the roof without the floor having strength. And the front door area has nothing really strong holding the wall up. We thought about getting new wood for the floor but didn't want to take that project on right now, maybe down the road. So to solve that problem and the one with front steps, I have a steel bar about 4 feet in length and 2" in width that I mounted the front of steps to then got a shelf bracket rated at 600lbs. The bracket is mounted to the frame and the steel bar. I know there is a weight concern but the amount of 3/4" wood planks the old owner had under there that were barely hanging on weighed about as much as the little bit of steel I added.
Step 7: Beautification -
We didn't hate the patterns that Abby had, but they were dated. So we removed the blinds with those boxes around them, and Tracey made some curtains; we also added a UV block with a mirror finish to the windows for daytime light blocking. Tracey also found a peel and stick wallpaper that we both liked; she and our daughter, Josie, and friend Anna helped put it in front of the bed and the wall behind the sink. Looks nice, thanks girls!
Step 8: New Shoes -
Yes, we got Abby new tires; I just couldn't swing the Goodyear Endurance that everyone pushed, but I think we got a good tire to get us going.
Step 9: General Maintance -
We also did some general maintance including cleaning and resealing the roof (Well my son did the roof, he's lighter than me and he likes heights). We recaulked around the windows and doors, cleaned the seals and treated the ones around the slide. Put the conditionier on the toliet seal, put a bigger shower curtian in the bathroom and a whole host of things like this.
There are still a few things we want to do, but we WANT TO GET OUT THERE too. So we have our first three trips planned, and I'm looking at a few more. So join along in our journey...
