More updates on our vintage travel trailer

Well my husband and I (mostly my dear husband) has been working on finishing up our little travel trailer.  He has finished putting on all the trailer's emblems, painting the wheels of the trailers, putting up trim and painting appliances.  We were going to paint the door to our trailer red, but it has a lot of dings so we opted for white right now.  We still need to add trim around the opening of the fridge and some quarter round around the floor, then I think we will be ready for the finishing touches, YAY!

Here are some pictures of all we have accomplished. If you want to see before pictures, check out my first post.

I put up the paper towel holder after I sprayed it with red spray paint made to cover plastic, it used to be a harvest gold color. The tray that you see also came with the trailer.  The seller threw it in with a bunch of other stuff he didn't want.  It was old and scratched up and had a picture of a pheasant on it.  I decided to use some left over red paint and a piece of scrapbook paper.  I used Mod Podge to adhere it.  There is a small hole behind the tray where the old gas light use to be.  I am going to look for a spice rack to hang here while on the Nebraska Junk Jaunt.


Some other things I would love to find, just to name a few, are salt and pepper shakers, a canister set, a  bread box, an old tin match box, a vintage aqua or red radio,  a little vintage stove top coffee pot that percolates, a vintage wall clock in red, some old lanterns, some old coffee cups, and lots and lots of enamel ware.

I am still trying to decide on a fabric for the seat covers, but I got this throw at a thrift store a while back for $1.50.  I guess it will do for awhile.  The other cushions are covered with red sheets that I got for $2.00 each.  One nice thing about having sheets thrown over the cushions is that it makes them easy to wash.  I got that cute little pitcher at a thrift store for $2.00 too.  I made the throw pillow the other day.  I was cruising through pinterest and saw a really cute pillow and wanted to make one of my own.  I am new at sewing but am having a blast making things I never dreamed I could before.  Although it is not as well done as my inspiration pillow, I love how it turned out! When I get back from the Junk Jaunt, I want to make some more pillows and some bunting.  Decorating is the fun part, and I can't wait to get started!

 Here is a better picture of it. Not bad for my first pillow ever!

 We added some trim as a chair rail! We still need 1 more piece though.

Taking my travel trailer on a Junk Jaunt!

I just found out that I get to attend the 9th annual Junk Jaunt that is held in Central Nebraska. This is a junkers dream. The Junk Jaunt is held the last full weekend in September each year.  This year the Junk Jaunt starts early on Friday September 28th and ends on Sunday September 30th.  There are about 30-35 small towns that take part in this with an occasional detour sign directing you to a farm. I've never experienced a sale of this magnitude before, but I've heard that the Nebraska Junk Jaunt draws people from all over the country. 

I purchased a route map for $7.50 and I'm very glad I did.  It list every town and some key items that each vendor will have, so my husband and I can skip the sales that don't really sound like they will interest us. The route makes a loop through some very scenic country. It includes the Sand hills, Journey Byway and the Loup Rivers Scenic Byway.

I don't know if this is realistic or not, but we are going to try to hit 6 towns the first day and 6 the second.  If anyone has actually done the jaunt and has experience with this I would appreciate hearing from you.  We are going to start on the southeast part of the loop and travel north on the loop and then start heading west at North Loup. There are 393 vendors listed in total for the towns we are planning on visiting.  Most vendors are open til 7 or 8 in the evening and later if it is a business, so we will see.

We are going to take our travel trailer and spend the night a couple of nights.  There are not a lot of places to camp in the middle of Nebraska, so we might have to rough it.  I can't wait for the adventure to begin!

QUICK UPDATE: It was a blast!  Here are just a few treasures I found.  I painted the spice rack red.  My favorite finds were the fan and match stick holder, and tea cart (I want to paint that red too). My favorite part of the trip was having people stop me to tell me how much they loved my little vintage travel trailer. 

We saw quite a few others little travel trailers on our little jaunt and even camped right next to another one.  It wasn't done up though and it was too dark to take photos and by the time we got around the next day, it was already gone.

1st time camping in my vintage travel trailer

We took our travel trailer out this weekend for her maiden voyage!  It was a last minute decision, so we didn't go very far.  It was such a great weekend, and it was my weekend off so we just couldn't pass up an opportunity to go.  Since I work every other weekend there were only 4 weekends for us to go camping before the 1st of November, and 2 of the weekends are ready are booked.  My oldest son is getting married the last weekend of October, so with time running out quickly, we decided it just pick someplace and go. 

We started searching for camping within an 1-2 hours of Kansas City, and quickly discover Lake Perry which only ended up being 1.5 from our house.  It was also close to Atchison Kansas, a little town I have wanted to visit for some time now. Atchison is known as the most haunted town in Kansas, but I wanted to go because Atchison is also know for the many beautiful historic homes featuring many architectural styles from the mid 1800's.

After we found a place to park, we strolled along this historic downtown area, ate lunch then took a historical trolley tour where I was able to learn quite a bit of history and view several of the beautiful historic homes in Atchison.

Around 4 o'clock we headed out to Perry Lake for our first camping adventure.

We found a seclude little site on a bluff overlooking the lake. 

My husband definitely needs practice backing in.  It took him several times to get her back in the sport nice and straight.

Since this was just a quick last minute trip we decided just to have hot dogs over the fire and of course I don't consider any camping trip complete without smores. 

When is was time to call it a night, we soon realized we had left the extra board that widens the sofa bed at home.  Since there was 3 of us, we had the bunk mattress, so one of has had to put that on the floor and sleep on it. 

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, then went on an hour and a half hike around the rocky shore of the lake.  It has been a long time since we have visited a lake, as we usually opt for sunny ocean beaches instead.  But we had a nice stroll, and my husband and son enjoyed seeing who could skip a rock the furthest. My husband won with 7 skips.

We saw another vintage travel trailer, but this one looked like it could use some work.

The trip home was even fun.  The route we chose to take home just happened to be on a partial route for Bikers for Babies.  There were people that were parked and scattered along route 92 waiting for all the bikers to ride by.  We got a lot of waves, thumbs up, and honks as we passed by people waiting for the bikers to pass by.  I felt like we were in a parade, it was quite fun.

Just playing around in my vintage travel trailer

Wow! I am getting really close to being ready to decorate my little vintage travel trailer, YAY!!!

Well if have read my previous post you know I have a really difficult time making decisions.  First picking out fabric for the curtains, then with picking out a paint color.  I never did choose a paint color, I just stumbled upon a bargain that I couldn't refuse, but ended up absolutely loving the result.

Well I have been pondering fabric choices just as long as I have been paint colors and I just can't seem to make up my mind.  I think part of the problem is that I like too me things and just can't settle on just one choice.

I am also a very visual person and have a difficult time knowing if I will like something without actually seeing what it looks like.  Not seeing it in person and seeing the exact color is another problem, especially when it comes to the aqua fabrics, are they too green or too blue? Ugg, just make up my mind already! I was originally going to go with the aqua on the top row, but my husband doesn't really like it. Here are some of the fabrics I am trying to decide on...

I am also thinking that I would like to use 2 fabrics, so that the cushions have a french country look to them.  Maybe something like these sofas...

Well then I remembered that a while back I bought a big bag of fabric for $2.50 at a thrift store.  It was originally $10.00 but it was marked down to half price, then the day I went in they had half off all of their linens, so I got over 10 yards of fabric for $2.50.  I bought the scraps so that I could make some bunting for my trailer.  In the pile of scraps was 5 yards of red western fabric and 4.5 yards of red and white gingham.  I have also bought some sheets and table cloths, so I thought I would just go out the my little vintage trailer and play for awhile.

Here I put a red sheet on the long bench, and some gingham fabric on one of the dinette cushions.  I brought some other stuff out and started playing around.

I threw on an aqua afghan that I bought at a thrift store for $1.50, (originally $3.00, but again I got it at half price) and a aqua table cloth that I bought at another thrift store for $2.00.

Here is a close up shot of the aqua tablecloth.

This little table cloth gives me an idea of what it would look like if I chose the large gingham fabric.

I just threw this on the back of the cushion for fun.  This is the little table cloth that was my inspiration piece for my color choices.  I really like the red aqua and yellow together.  I haven't been able to find any fabric with all three colors that I like, but I do like the pop of yellow!

Here is a shot of some vintage flatware that I found at a thrift store.  Each piece was .29.  It wasn't a full set but I thought they were adorable and just couldn't pass them up.  They need some polishing, but that will have to wait for another day.

Exterior paint on our vintage travel trailer

Well we finally picked out a paint color for our 1973 vintage Shasta travel trailer.  It was a little bit of an ordeal, but we finally got most of it painted and are putting on the finishing touches.

I couldn't decide what color to paint our little trailer so I let my husband do the honors and he picked out a color by Valspar called Ocean Whisper.  It was a pretty aqua color and it was bright enough to make him happy but not too over the top for me.  We went to Lowes to have them mix up our paint, but when we got there they did not have the tintable variety, but said they had a exterior paint that worked on aluminum.  We wanted to spray the paint on using my husbands air compressor and spray gun but the guy said that we wouldn't be able to do that.  So after reading many reviews about rolling paint on my husband decided he would give it a try.  He was not happy with the results.  We used a primer and roller for smooth surfaces but the the paint came out bumpy and did not level out like we were hoping it would.  So we went to our local hardware store to see if they had any tintable (oil based) paint and what do you know, they did.  It was Do it Best Industrial Enamel.

They had a deep base and pastel base to choose from and a gloss and satin finish.  I chose gloss because we wanted a nice shine.  In hind sight my husband said we should have use satin because the dings wouldn't have showed up as much.  Oh well, live and learn.  I guess that is the purpose of sharing blogs, so we might learn from others.

We sprayed in on using an air compressor and spray gun.  We could have used spray cans to paint our trailer but that limited our colors.  Although I wish the color would have come out just a little more green, I have to say it is still pretty darn cute!

I was really undecided as to whether to paint the trim red, so we did a quick test stripe to see what we thought. 
                                                                                                                                                                  
I didn't like the red as much as I thought I would, so we decided to just go with a white accent stripe.So we finished up painting our travel trailer with the Ocean Whisper Valspar paint color and painted the trim white.  But when my husband went to put the red brake lights and reflectors on I really like how the red popped against the aqua.   So we had some drip caps and decided they would look awesome painted red.

We are still putting on the finishing touches, but couldn't wait to post some pictures.  We will paint the screws to match so they don't show so much.  I really like the red, now I am second guessing the red stripe.  What do you think? Comments welcome!

Interior paint in our vintage travel trailer!

Wow, we finally got around to painting the interior of our vintage travel trailer. I had a really difficult time choosing a color, but then I stumbled upon some aqua paint at a outdoor flea market of all places.  Can you believe it, I found a can of can of mistinted paint from Sherwin Williams. The color is called Waterscape. Although I didn't have any swatches from Sherwin Williams (There are not any stores that are close to me) it was very close to one of the Benjamin Moore's colors that I liked, Antiquan Sky. Best of all it was only $5.00.  Well the guy wanted $8.00, don't get me wrong $8.00 is a great price, but I didn't want to buy it and then not like it and have it go to waste, so I told the guy I was going to think about it for awhile.  As I was walking away he asked if I would take it for $5.00, so I thought to myself , "what the heck, it's only 5 bucks, go for it" and bought it. 

  I have also been really busy making curtains and finally got them finished too.  Here is a picture of both the paint and curtains together.

I love the color!  I can't believe I got a $40 dollar can of paint for 5 bucks!  The curtains were a fluke, but I really like how they turned out.  They were just supposed to be the blue fabric with the polka dot ribbon on the bottom.  The ribbon was to help these curtains tie in with the curtains in the back of the camper.  Well, I am new at sewing.  I sewed some curtains earlier for the rear of the trailer but those were my first project ever.  Well I measured the fabric and cut it out, once I cut it out I realized that I didn't measure enough fabric for rod.  If I folded the fabric over to make a pocket for the rod, the curtain was too short, so I decided to add the gingham to the bottom.  Once I folded the blue fabric over to make a pocket for the rod, I didn't like how the blue fabric was almost the same width as the gingham, so I decided to sew red gingham to the top of the fabric to make a pocket for the rod.  I think they came out great! See the light fixture?  Well, we got that for free.  The vintage light fixtures that came with the trailer were dry cracked and brittle.  My husband and I go to thrift stores on a weekly basis. (he sells stuff on ebay) and so we were keeping our eyes open for an old light fixture.  Well he was on his way home and just a few houses down from us, someone was throwing away a pole lamp that had 3 sconces on them.  The base of the fixture you see is original but he painted both the sconce and base red and we have 2 left over for the other fixtures in the rear of the trailer.  We still have a lot of work to do, but we are getting close to doing some finishing touches.  We are going to paint the fridge red with some appliance paint, and frame the old opening with some trim.