Thursday, July 21, 2011
Curtains!
Most of them are all stitched up and ready to go. Kind of a premature project considering I'm not done waterproofing yet, but I couldn't resist. I've made 8 curtains and I have two more to go, and then the privacy shades for the front cab windows (for camping during the nighttime) as well.The total cost for all of the curtains was less than $15 because I found an AMAZING deal at Tempe Sales, an upholstery store... only $10 for tons of the sweetest perfect plaid fabric. Honestly, the texture of the fabric and the color of plaid... you probably couldn't use it for anything other than curtains for a VW bus.
It seems to me that the camper interior company, Safare, produced a variety of color themes for the camper interiors, usually to complement the exterior color of the bus. I've had trouble finding out what the original curtains for a blue themed interior might have looked like... I'm going to assume it was a blue plaid, since the photos I've seen of a red themed interior had red/brown plaid and the green interior had green plaid:
So that's my curtain project. Almost done! I'm pretty satisfied with them. They make a big difference in the look of the bus.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Bus updates:
New spare tire cover (old one was "creamy dirt white" and all cracked)
Scrubbed door panels with simple green and elbow grease
Old seatbelts (gray, crusty, not retractable, barely adjustable)
New seatbelts (retractable, so you can pick things up off the ground without unbuckling!)
Cupholder added into old ashtray (NECESSITY)
Removed wood top bunk to gain access to top side windows
Removed inside aluminum(?) window frames so I could remove water damaged wood.
Rotten, splintering off, nasty moldy wood...no refurbishing this, must replace!
But before I replace the wood interior top sides, I need to waterproof the windows and top vent without the wood getting in the way. The brown is the bare fiberglass of the top. The darker brown stuff on it appears to be old adhesive.
"Weatherproofed" one of the side windows on the top...made more sense to do that first because I was waiting for a good deal on a ladder on craigslist to pop up before tackling the top vent.
Old weatherproofing was a rubber seal (now fully crumbling) around the window edge
New weatherproofing: Caulk. I know it's a little ghetto looking and functionally probably not ideal, but I couldn't find anything like the old rubber seals for the life of me. It's waterproof for now anyway! If I can find a better way of doing it, I'll redo it that way.
New spare tire cover (old one was "creamy dirt white" and all cracked)
Scrubbed door panels with simple green and elbow grease
Old seatbelts (gray, crusty, not retractable, barely adjustable)
New seatbelts (retractable, so you can pick things up off the ground without unbuckling!)
Cupholder added into old ashtray (NECESSITY)
Removed wood top bunk to gain access to top side windows
Removed inside aluminum(?) window frames so I could remove water damaged wood.
Rotten, splintering off, nasty moldy wood...no refurbishing this, must replace!
But before I replace the wood interior top sides, I need to waterproof the windows and top vent without the wood getting in the way. The brown is the bare fiberglass of the top. The darker brown stuff on it appears to be old adhesive.
"Weatherproofed" one of the side windows on the top...made more sense to do that first because I was waiting for a good deal on a ladder on craigslist to pop up before tackling the top vent.
Old weatherproofing was a rubber seal (now fully crumbling) around the window edge
New weatherproofing: Caulk. I know it's a little ghetto looking and functionally probably not ideal, but I couldn't find anything like the old rubber seals for the life of me. It's waterproof for now anyway! If I can find a better way of doing it, I'll redo it that way.
