So, that was a closet, and the easy choice would have been to leave it a closet, but once you start tearing into these things you get ideas in your head. In this case I thought, what if I just get rid of this wall, eliminate the closet, and make a longer kitchen with cabinet space below the counter, and above? It really opens things up.
We managed to unroll it, but we couldn’t extend it. We were happy to find that the awning itself was in good shape. Maybe not the color we would have chosen, but hey, it’ll keep the sun and rain off the front door.
Ali seems to have gotten a lot of pictures of me lately where I’m sitting and staring blankly while I try to work out a solution to a problem. The inner workings of the awning slides were all broken up into pieces, so that we couldn’t unroll or set it up properly. The solution in this case ended up being brute force with a hammer. With all the broken pieces out we were able to find replacements online, and should have a nice, HUGE, functioning awning soon.
We drove the first thousand miles with hit-or-miss, mostly miss, brake lights. A brake light switch is about a five dollar part. Finding the time is the hard part. They are all working now (that one just had the bulb pulled out so we could buy a couple extra)—a nice little addition to any vehicle.
Two days later the kitchen is coming together. The destruction phase has moved swiftly to rebuilding.
Continuing to try and open the bus up a bit, we decided the back of this seat, right inside the door, needed to go.
All of these walls will be ripped out and rebuilt eventually, but in the meantime they are getting the rough treatment. Notice the wood behind me. This house doesn’t have a garage, and anything left outside at night was wet by morning, so the front half of the bus has been doubling as a lumber yard.
The kids were constantly drawing things on scrap wood and having me cut them out with the jigsaw. It’s a miracle I didn’t lose a finger. They painted a lot of cool little things while sitting outside the bus.
Checking my work.
9 Comments on “Regenerating”
That’s going to be a cool old bus when you are finished.
Lucky bus. It’s going to be nice! You are so talented.
Good job Mr. Bum…..you’ll forget all this as you roll along (maybe)…..That’s the kind of puppy I like. The awning looks awfully familiar!!! Stay safe….Marilyn
Pat, you need a haircut.
Funny you say that. I sat outside on a lawn chair a couple days later and Ali trimmed me up. 🙂
I certainly admire your ambition Pat. Great job by the way. I did something similar on a 1972 Alaskan truck camper about five years ago. That project significantly enlarged my swear word vocabulary. Safe travels!
Ha ha poor Brock. 🙂
Have you thought that some of those inner walls add structural support to the vehicle?
The one I removed clearly did not. It wasn’t attached to the ceiling in any way and took one tap of a hammer to remove. Also, this is essentially a bus. A bus roof is not supported by walls.