Roadtrip Trial Run

This past weekend we loaded up the Airstream and took her on a trial run. Basically we wanted to make sure we could make it down the road without any of our millions of redos and changes messing up. We also needed to see how camping was going to work, and make sure we had thought of everything before we head out across the country in a few weeks!

Our inaugural trip went pretty smoothly. We made it to our destination {and over a huge bridge that I shared a picture of on Instagram} without any trouble. Brakes, lights, hitch...everything worked just like it was supposed to!

 We arrived at the campsite and Jason got busy unhooking and setting up everything...and the boys got busy exploring:)

 We stayed close to the campground the first night because it was kind of late by the time everything was set up and ready to go. But the next morning we headed out to explore the island. We checked out the public beach area and the pier. 

 And we rode our bikes all over the island. I think we must have ridden at least 15 miles over the weekend..and I was so proud of Eli for keeping up with us the whole time! We did have to slow down for him a few times, but for the most part he stayed right with us pedaling his little legs as fast as they would go!

 We took in a little history lesson at Fort Gaines. I obviously didn't pay very close attention because I can't remember exactly what war this fort was built for...I'm assuming the Civil War though:)

 Then we let the boys play at the beach for a while.

 After all our exploring, we were ready for a snack! We found a little place that had yummy {but SUPER expensive} snow cones:)

 The next day, we got up early and did a little bird watching...well at least as much bird watching as three loud boys can do. Basically we just walked through the bird sanctuary and read a couple of signs. Grant did find a couple of birds though:) 

 We ended our camping trip with a quick lunch at the picnic table. Then it was time to start packing up to head home.

And obviously our weekend trip wore the boys out because all three of them passed out about halfway home! I think that means our trial run was a success!

Project Airstream Update: A Video

We have been working hard on Project Airstream....and it's been a while since I've shared about our progress. So this time instead of just posting a couple of not so great picture {It is really hard to take good shots in such a small space!}, I thought I would share a little video tour. I have to tell you that I went WAY out of my comfort zone to film and share this video. I hate the way my voice sounds on recordings...and I almost thought about doing a silent video tour. But I decided you really needed a little narration to know what you were looking at, and then I just couldn't stop talking! This video is a little longer than I was planning...apparently I got more comfortable talking and filming as time went by. And hopefully my shaky filming doesn't make you too queasy! Enjoy the video:)
Here's a few quick pictures just in case you don't have time to watch the video right now:

We've come a long way from the 1977 {retro & not in a good way} Airstream that we brought home last June {click HERE to see pictures of what we started with}, but we still have a lot to do to get ready for our big trip at the end of May! I would love to know what you think about our progress so far! Linking up here..

Tatertots and Jello

Serenity Now

Someday Crafts

Skip to my Lou
Remodelaholic

Never Underestimate the Power of a Hot Glue Gun

A couple of weeks ago, I came across this tutorial for Fabric Covered Roller Shades on Pinterest. I immediately pinned it to my Project Airstream board because I knew it was the perfect solution to replace the hideous 1970's wall to wall curtains that we took out of our Airstream. I kept the idea for those cute fabric covered roller shades in the back of my mind, and on one of the many days that we were shopping at Lowes last month I decided to grab a few of the cheap vinyl roller shades and experiment. 

Now if you can't tell from the title of this post, I did NOT start out using my hot glue gun first. Honestly I thought  for sure that the hot glue would melt the vinyl and make a huge mess. So I kept my trusty hot glue gun in the drawer and tried a few other things.

My first attempt was with spray adhesive {yes I know it's number 2 in the picture, but it was the one I tried first}. It was a major FAIL! The spray adhesive was way too sticky and it was nearly impossible to get the fabric attached to the shade without a ton a wrinkles. I sprayed the fabric and carefully placed it onto a scrap piece of roller shade, but it was really crooked and wrinkled. So I tried to reposistion it....and it just went downhill from there. Needless to say, spray adhesive is not the way to go when making fabric covered roller shades!
After the spray adhesive failed, I did a little more research and found a couple of people who said they used fabric glue. So I picked up a big bottle {for $12} at the fabric store, and came home all excited to make this project work the second time around. I was so sure that the fabric glue was going to work that I started with the actual shade and not a scrap. The only problem was that I think I was a little too excited because I used way too much fabric glue, which then soak through my fabric and left a gross dried glue film all the way up both sides of my roller shade...not a pretty look. I attempted to salvage the roller shade by covering the edges with some white ribbon, and it turned out okay. But I was not going to take the time to line all the edges of the {7 other} roller shades with ribbon...so it was on to plan C!
Plan C included my trusty hot glue gun {who I should probably apologize to for doubting}! I pulled out a scrap piece of roller shade, plugged in my hot glue gun, and decided that even if it instantly melted a huge hole right through the darn roller shade that I was at least going to give it a try! And surprise, surprise it worked! No melted hole, no soaking through the fabric, no weird dried glue film....just a perfectly attached piece of fabric! 
As of now I don't have a single shade finished and hanging to share with you, but I do at least know HOW I'm going to go about doing it now! And hopefully this post will help anybody who is thinking about making a cute {but not nearly as simple as it seems} Fabric Covered Roller Shade. When I do get all my roller shades covered and hanging in the Airstream, I will be sure to share a few pictures. And just in case you missed it, the moral of the story today is "Never Underestimate the Power of a Hot Glue Gun"!
Linking up here..
Tatertots and Jello
Serenity Now
Someday Crafts
Skip to my Lou

Life Right Now

Do you ever feel SUPER busy when you really don't have that much going on?

Like you are running around like a crazy person, but really things aren't that crazy?

That is how life has been around here lately!

Busy, but really not that busy. But busy enough to make sure that I don't get to any of the fun & frivolous stuff that I love to do...like craft and blog:)

Life lately has been:

P90X

soccer

Airstream

laundry

P90X

Airstream

P90X

laundry

dishes

P90X

soccer

Airstream

P90X

I think maybe I'm more tired than anything, which is why I feel so busy when I'm really not! This P90X stuff is kicking my butt...but it is also shrinking it! I'm down almost 15 pounds since we started the program a little more than 3 weeks ago {on March 27th}. But I have to tell you, it is HARD work! We have been getting up early...like 4:45 am early, and sometimes staying up late just to fit in the workouts with our busy schedule. Jason has been really busy at work lately too, which makes keeping a consistent workout schedule even harder. We are sticking with it though, and I know that by the time May rolls around and we start our summer trip, that we will be in pretty great shape!

We {and when I say we here I mostly mean Jason with a little bit of my help} have really been working on the Airstream a lot too. We bought a new AC unit and got it put in. Removing a really heavy hunk of metal from the roof of a travel trailer and replacing it with another really heavy hunk of metal is kind of a tough job.  

Here are a couple of pictures of the old AC removal for your viewing pleasure...

 ...and the giant hole that was in the top of the Airstream for a few hours until we got the new AC installed:)

So to recap:

We've been busy doing P90X and fixing up the Airstream....which means I haven't been crafting or blogging.

I hope to get back to a little more normal soon, but I don't know if that is really going to happen or not! 

*What has been going on in your life lately?*

Planning is Half the Fun

We are 98 days from our BIG TRIP! It doesn't seem possible that in less than 100 days we will be off on a journey to see parts of the world we've only ever seen in pictures {and on the Brady Bunch}. All kidding aside, we are SUPER excited about our trip! Jason and I sat down and mapped out a tentative course. We've made a few reservations at campsites, but the whole trip isn't set in stone just yet. This is a map that I used to figure out how far we will be going on our trip. In total it will be over 5,000 miles! That is a long way to drive...and a really long way to pull an rv! There are some definite stops on our trip, and I've included most of them on the map below. 

We are still looking for great places to visit along the way, so any and all suggestions or links are welcome! I picked up a few books at the library yesterday so that we could start looking for some "off the beaten path" types of places and make sure that we hit all the "must see" sites too! I would love to take the boys to some fun "kitschy" places along with all the great wilderness & learning things we are planning to see!

We are pretty set in our plan up until we leave the Grand Canyon. We have either made reservations or called about places to stay up to that point, but after the Grand Canyon it gets a little complicated. Apparently Yosemite & Kings Canyon can get a lot of snow in the spring so they don't always make reservations for their campsites until they know they will be able to open. I get that...but I also don't want to drive more than halfway across the country without a plan of where we will be staying {I'm not very spontaneous, can you tell?}. And after we leave Yosemite & Kings Canyon we are moving on to big cities...while pulling an rv. I have to say that is just a little bit scary! But we want to see San Francisco{which btw is totally spelled wrong on my map!} and our plan for heading home is to drive through Los Angeles and hit 1-10 and come all the way back to Mississippi {with a couple of stops on the way}.  
Even though we have a map, some reservations, and sort of a plan, we still have a lot of planning to do....and planning is half the fun:) Oh and we have still have a TON of work to do on the Airstream too!

Project Airstream: A Shelf, Updated Bathroom, and All the Walls

We are still working on our 1977 Airstream Ambassador. Things are going slowly, but they are going. I honestly didn't think it had been so long since I had updated about our progress, but my last post was in July! Apparently last year flew by without me noticing. If you want to take a look back at where we started with this project, you can check out these posts here, here, and here. 

The outside of the Airstream hasn't changed much. Jason has repaired a few of the outside vents, and all the windows have been repaired and rescreened. Most of our time has been spent working on the inside though.

 This is a view of the front part of the Airstream {this will be the living room/mine and Jason's bedroom}. We actually started working from the back so this is the least completed part of the whole camper...and it has become a bit of a storage space to hold all of Jason's supplies and tools:)

 This shelf is the one big thing that has been done in the front though. There was originally a big plastic shelf here that had a few cracks and was a lovely aged yellow color. Jason pulled it out and repaired the wall around it, then built this wooden shelf in it's place. I just painted it this weekend with the green paint we picked out a few months ago. I think it adds a lot of fun color to a space that has pretty neutral so far...and it kind of reminds me of the 70's:)

 This is the space that will soon be our kitchen. Jason gutted the whole area and reworked the plumbing. We bought a big butcher block slab yesterday to make a countertop out of of and we bought a new sink and stove top. Jason is working on reassembling this section of the camper right now, and hopefully it will be done in the next few weeks.

 We bought a new fridge for the space and all of the camper walls are back in place. There was originally a big shelving unit attached to this wall. We are planning to putting a flat screen tv here with a small shelf underneath it to hold dvds and books.

 This is a view looking down the hallway towards the back of the camper. You can see that all the walls are back up. The closet is past the fridge on the right hand side, and the bathroom is on the left hand side.

 The bathroom was completely gutted, but Jason kept all the parts and refinished them. Reusing what was originally there was a lot more cost effective and a lot easier to fit into this really small space. The countertop and shower stall was repainted with a special plastics paint. We bought new fixtures and a new toilet. Jason has also been really busy spray painting all the trim pieces white {they started out a nice bronze color}. We still have to find lights and a mirror for the bathroom, but all the plumbing is fully functioning which was a big step!

 This is the refinished shower stall....if you look back at the older pictures you can see how far this space has come. I didn't even want to look at the old bathroom because it was so gross, but now everything is new and shiny white!

 This is the boys bedroom. We reused the bed bases, mostly because Jason liked the sleek almost airplane look of the original storage cabinets. Everything got a good cleaning and a couple coats of white spray paint. We have foam mattresses for the beds, but I am still working on sewing covers for them. 

 Jason rewired the old speakers and bought new covers for the electrical and 12 volt power outlets. Our plan is to add bunk beds above the two bottom twin beds, but that is still in the planning phase right now:)

 This is the view from the very back of the camper looking toward the front. It may not seem like much, but we have come a LONG way from where we started....and there is still a ton of work to do!

Next on our list of things to do is getting the kitchen completed. Then hopefully we can work on installing the vinyl wood flooring. I am going to try hard to keep you a little better updated...and be better about documenting our progress! Hopefully I can share a couple pics of the kitchen and new floor before February is over!

Linking up here..
Tatertots and Jello
Serenity Now
Someday Crafts
Skip to my Lou

Football, That Stupid Pig, Ice Cream Sundaes, and Airstream Progress

So did you watch the big game {and the commercials} last night? I have to admit that we really aren't fans of either of the teams that played last night, but we were cheering for the Giants...mostly because the Mannings have a little bit of Mississippi history and that history trumped the fact that Tom Brady's girlfriend is a supermodel {you know, because supermodels affect the teams that people cheer for}.

Anyway, we dvr'd the game because we had church last night, so when we got home Jason got busy with the fast forward button while I fixed dinner {aka put a couple of delicious slices of Papa John's pizza on paper plates}. We normally fast forward like maniacs through dvr'd games, but this one was different because half the fun of the Super Bowl is the commercials so we couldn't skip all of them! We did skip over most of the beer commercials and ALL of the Geico commercials {Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks that squealing pig is the most obnoxious thing on tv?!?}. We LOVED the M&M commercial, but honestly there aren't really many great ones that I remember:) Lots of celebrity cameos {Seinfeld and Leno} and two products in one commercial together {Chevy and Twinkie} which just seems kind of weird to me! 

Now everybody knows that yummy food is SUPER important for proper Super Bowl viewing. We had dinner covered with pizza, so that just left dessert...and I had something really fun planned for us this year! Last week I pinned these adorable ice cream sundaes that I knew my boys would love! They're called Super Bowl Sundaes and they were created by Katrina. I recreated {aka copied} her dessert without changing much, because really they were pretty close to perfect! The one thing I did change is that I used chocolate to attach my sprinkles and I didn't pipe on my chocolate, I just kind of smeared it on with a spoon. I figured my boys would devour these before they noticed that the audience wasn't perfectly placed:) Anyway here are a few pics that I took of the process, but head over to In Katrina's Kitchen to get a great step by step and see her {not quite as sloppy as mine} version!

Other than watching football this weekend, most of our time was spent working on the Airstream and planning for our big trip. Jason has been making pretty good progress lately. The bathroom is completely put together and fully functioning. We still need to get light fixtures and figure out what we are doing for a mirror, but all the plumbing is working and there are no leaks! We ordered our flooring a few weeks ago and it should be in one day this week. I am SUPER excited to get the flooring in because I know it is going to totally change the look of everything because right now the floor is white painted plywood! I helped out yesterday by painting a shelf that Jason built in the front of the Airstream. 

We had originally planned to paint the shelf white, but I remember that we bought some {almost avocado} green paint back when we bought the paint for the walls. So I made the executive decision to go with green and add some color, because up until now everything has either been gray or white {with the exception of the boys room in the back that is a pretty turquoise/blue color}.

We also sat down and mapped out our trip and decided where {and when} we are going. Using google maps, I added in all our stops from start to finish. The trip should take around 17 days and during that time we are going to drive more than 5,000 miles! That just seems a little crazy to me...but I know we are going to have such a great time and see so many amazing things! I'm planning to take a few more pictures of the progress we've made on the Airstream and share it later this week, and {if I can figure out how to do it} I am going to share the map showing all our stops along the way.

Now, I must go do laundry because this morning I was digging through a pile of clothes trying to find uniform pants for Henry...and because all of Eli's clothes are piled up in a basket in the living room and they have been there for almost two weeks...and because there is a load of mine and Jason's clothes in the dryer that has been there since last Monday. Sometimes I get lazy and leave that last load of laundry in the dryer:) 

Wordless Wednesday: At the End of the Rainbow

Project Airstream: Demo and Paint

A few weeks ago I shared that we were the proud new owners of an Airstream travel trailer. I shared a few pictures of the {in pretty good shape} exterior, but what I didn't show you was the interior. This is partly because it is outrageously hard to take a decent picture inside a tiny travel trailer, and partly because the before is pretty bad! But since we have made a little progress and now you can {hopefully} see a little bit of my vision, I have some interior pictures to share with you:) 

This is the front of the Airstream when you come in the door. This is a fold out couch, and the place that Jason and I will call our bedroom at night. There is an overhead compartment and some storage underneath as well. This entire room was covered with those beautiful cream colored curtains. In the bottom right side of the picture you can see just a little of the kitchen counter top. The kitchen area consisted of a small sink, an ancient oven, a non-working refrigerator, and a small pantry.

This is the view looking from the front toward the back of the Airstream. On the right is the fridge, pantry and closet. You can see all the lovely 70's gold colored trim, and the weird vinyl wallpaper that was on some of the walls. The thing on the ceiling is the {dirty by still working} air conditioner. You can also see the really cool overhead storage compartments which we are currently trying to salvage just to keep a little bit of that vintage 70's Airstream feel.

Down the hall to the left is the bathroom that was covered with 70's floral wallpaper. The bathroom also had a ton of gold colored trim and a yellow & wood grain toilet.

In the back of the Airstream there were two twin beds with a night stand between them. You can see more of the same curtains, and you can also see just a little bit of the {pink} carpet on the front of the nightstand. We are planning on putting bunkbeds in the area so that the back will sleep four instead of two.

When we got ready to demo, Jason started out just removing some of the furniture and some of the things we knew we weren't going to use. He quickly figured out that it would be easier for us to clean and paint if EVERYTHING was removed. So that is exactly what he did. This is a view looking toward the front of the Airstream where the couch used to be.

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This is the kitchen/bathroom side of the travel trailer. You can see that the only things left are a few pipes and some hanging wires.

This is the side of where the fridge, pantry, and closet were. Right after I took these pictures, Jason and I got busy scrubbing every surface with bleach and scrub brushes.

After all the walls were clean, we painted. The front area of the Airstream as well as the bathroom got a coat of Sherwin Williams Gris. A lovely gray color that isn't too dark, but also isn't beige either. The back of the Airstream {aka the boys room and the closet} got a coat of Sherwin Williams Drizzle. We actually matched this color to some bedding that I bought for the boys from Ikea a few weeks ago. I thought this color was light and airy without being too girly and it also goes really well with the gray we picked. 

You can also see that we painted the floor with primer just to make sure that any leftover 70's germs were sealed up:) We are planning on putting in laminate wood floors later, but for now the painted floors are much better than the dirty, stained floors that we had.

This weekend we worked on painting some of the partition walls and getting them back into place. I will share more pictures as we  make more progress!