The Camper Fixer Upper–Phase 2: Two bloopers and lessons learned

 

In my last post I told you about and showed pics of the awesome laminate sheeting we got for the ceiling of our camper (you can read about it here). Today I’ll show you what we did with the floor and some “fun” we had discovering how the mechanics work in the camper.  Both resulted in a couple of blooper type moments that are pretty much status quo for any day of my life.

Blooper #1:

On our way home from the hardware store where we bought the laminate sheeting we noticed the wind had picked up a bit.  We thought that we had strapped it down pretty well, but it turns out we were having one of our typical spring Colorado winds. Every year we get very high wind gusts that knock the joy out of all of us.  All Coloradoans have learned to strap down lawn furniture and grills and keep pets indoors or they’ll end up in Kansas.  It was that kind of day. So, we’re sitting at a stop light–almost home– and a gust picks up one of the sheets and knocks it against the back of Super Rockstar’s truck cab–splitting it in half.

Now, it would have been easy to get pretty upset (I’m not naming names, but SOMEONE in our truck blurted out a choice word or two)–it was now ruined and we would have to go back (on a less windy day) and purchase another one.  But, me–well, I’m a glass half full kind of gal.  I saw this as the providence and blessing of God. I’ll explain:

• We knew we wanted to use this laminate for the ceiling.
• We also knew that we needed to replace the floor.
• God knows how much I like things to match and come together in a way that Super Rockstar tolerates but often disagrees with (“the leftover linoleum we have from when our home was built will be fine”).
• The wind destroys one of the sheets of laminate forcing us to buy one more.
• We can now use the broken piece plus the leftover scraps from the ceiling to do the floor.

Coincidence? I think not.

Now, see? Isn’t that nice? The floor matches the ceiling.  All is right with the world and my heart is happy– Super Rockstar is just glad it’s all done. Haha!

        

 

Blooper #2:

So, we have the ceiling replaced, the floor is redone–and it’s all looking fabulous.  Now, it’s time to test out the more mechanical type features.  The camper comes equipped with a darling little “kitchen”–complete with refrigerator, stove and a sink that you can pump water into from a storage tank hidden under one of the benches.

The tank looked remarkably clean, so we decided to go ahead and test it out.  There’s a rather awkward entry point for filling it up that we fumbled our way through.

Once we figured it out we primed the pump and– Voila! It works great!

But, we also noticed that there was a way to connect a hose straight into the sink–for those occasions when we are at a site that has water and electric hook ups.  What we failed to notice is that this was an original asset to the camper that had been corrected later with the tank system.  What we thought were choices turned out to be an override.  Long story short–

• You can hook up a hose and run water directly into the camper.
• There is nothing inside the camper connecting the outside spigot to a hose, sink, tank or anything– so it was free to gush everywhere flooding the new laminate flooring we just put in.

The good news is that no permanent damage was done and the floor survived it’s first–of I’m sure many–baptisms.

No pictures were taken of this mishap–mostly because it was 15 solid minutes of shrieking, complete chaos, a few naughty words and surviving the situation.  Just picture about a half inch of water covering the floor with us in the middle of it all mopping it up like our lives depended on it. At one point we seriously considered tipping the camper on its side to get the water out faster. I’m thinking it was best we didn’t try this since it probably would have led to another blooper moment.

The fun continues.  Our next step is to have the rear bumper support re-welded–it had been knocked loose and repaired with a rather unstable looking L-Bracket (I’m beginning to think the former owners would have been great candidates for Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck” comedy routine). We then need to have the propane system that fuels the stove and heater inspected and repaired if necessary.  Super Rockstar attempted to turn on the propane tank and it made a scary hissing sound that made us both run and duck for cover…