Trailer ReModel

So, people have these remodel/travel blogs where they show you the progress in a sort of glamourous way. They get free stuff from Lowe’s and Home Depot. I don’t know how they score that, but they do.

I am sort of jealous of them.

But that’s not the point.

What the point is that I am all about authentic experiences especially when blogging.

So, I am going to blog about us remodeling this trailer thing we just bought for $2,500 from a friend.

I know! TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS IS SO MUCH MONEY! AND THEN YOU ADD FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS MORE.

My husband has convinced me that this is an investment.

We live in a big tourist area in the summer. It’s Bar Harbor, Maine and it’s beautiful. Acadia National Park takes up a good amount of the island and there are all these carriage trails and minimcmountains and also lobster. So, tourists come from May to October, but mostly July and August.

It turns out that if we rent our house for eight weeks, we can pretty much pay our mortgage for the entire year. This makes me less frantic about making money as a writer. Me less frantic is such a good thing. Believe me.

So, we bought this thing – this travel trailer thing. I honestly don’t know the right word for it, which is totally fine because it’s not like I work with words for a living or anything, right?

My husband’s truck is so broken that we had to use a friend’s truck to bring it home, but it’s here, and now we are going to remodel it, which will be like another $500 or more, but it’s an investment, right? Nothing could go wrong, right?

We shall see. And you shall see, too, if you follow this blog and check in and stuff.

But it’s not looking awesome. We decided the first step was to clean our garage because we have to take things out of the trailer and put them somewhere while we paint and fix the rotten place in the floor and stuff.

But as we began to clean the garage, my left knee decided it hated me, garages, travel trailers, and the whole world and it popped out. It decided to do this last month at the Atlanta airport. That time, I got it right back in. This time? Not so lucky.

So yeah. . .

We bought a travel trailer.

Basically the gist of it is:

1. We bought a travel trailer so we can rent out our house for six weeks next year.

1. The travel trailer needs to be remodeled because it’s way too 1980s for me. There is fake gold trim on things. There are a lot of floral patterns. But mostly, I’m allergic to it. I get allergic to dust in fabric. It’s my thing.

1. I tore apart my knee just standing in the garage during our first day of remodeling the trailer. This does not bode well.

Sparty: Humans! I am so concerned about this!

As you can tell, Sparty the Dog is worried, mostly because the Man has now increased this amount of time that we are going to be spending in the travel trailer to EIGHT weeks! Here’s the conversation.

Man says, “I think we should actually do eight weeks.

I say, “That’s two months.”

Man says, “I know eight weeks is two months, Carrie.”

I gasp.

I say, “Why do we have a house if we aren’t going to live in it?”

He says, “It’s an adventure.”

I sigh, because basically if you tell me something is ‘an adventure,’ it’s basically the same as daring me to do something. It always gets me to do it. He knows this. Clever Man.

So, our first steps to remodeling the travel trailer are these:

1. Clean garage so we can put pieces of travel trailer in there and the Man has a place to work. TOTALLY DONE!

1. Take out things that are in the travel trailer so that we can tape it off and paint the heck out of it.

We have not done step #2. We aren’t even close to finishing step #2 and it’s been TEN DAYS! It’s like we’re working on a state-funded construction project because nothing is happening.

Kitten: People reading this blog, please, please, please save me from these remodeling humans. They know not what they do.

Wait. Sorry. Something has happened. We have purchased blue painter’s tape.

No! That’s not exactly true. That’s me being all drama. The Man also took down all the valances and blinds, which was wild because the blinds are drilled into the wood of the valances. It also exposed some yuckiness when he took out the plastic brackets that were holding the curtains.

The Man is being super awesome at keeping all the construction bits in a big, plastic bucket because he is smart like that.

So, um… Do you have any suggestions for how we should proceed with this? Have you ever done this? DO YOU THINK WE WILL BE ABLE TO GET THIS FINISHED BEFORE JUNE 2018?

All burning questions, I know.

Update #2

So, on the day of FLYING’s paperback release, I completely failed to celebrate.

A lack of celebration is intensely wrong, but I am totally okay with it because I am super busy today anyway. Why am I busy?

1. I have to go to a Town Council Meeting
2. I had to go to a programming committee meeting for the Criterion Theatre.
3. I actually had to do my own writing work and other work work.
4. I have to erase our house of all of our existence because we accidentally double rented another house. This has happened twice this year and it means we have to vacate our house so people on vacation can stay here. It is terrible to move out of your own house for a week, but it gives me good practice for when we have the travel trailer next summer and do it on purpose.

Speaking of the travel trailer . . .

There is a rotten place in the travel trailer. I kind of posted about this on Facebook, but I’m going to elaborate here. So, on August 10, The Man started ripping up the floor in the travel trailer thingie because there is a rotting place by the door.

I said, “Is it a big deal?”

I said this because I worry.

Sparty the Dog whimpered and moved back to sit on the porch and just watched. He also worries.

And The Man said, “Of course not. Do not worry.”

He said this because he never worries.

Sparty the Dog and I just kept watching and worrying.

Then The Man started poking at other places of floor by the little rotten patch and he made a noise I’ve never heard him make before. It was a sharp intake of breath with a possible gurgling noise. I thought about calling the EMTs. I paused. Honestly, you should never pause when thinking about calling an ambulance, but this time it worked out.

So, I paused and I said, “What!?!”

And he said, “Nothing. Something. Nothing.”

He is a terrible, terrible liar.

So, since then, there has been (cough) no redoing of the travel trailer. Instead, we are cleaning the house. A lot. And moving all of our possessions. There are absolutely no rotting places in our actual house. It’s a nice house. Win! You should rent it for a week next summer.

Update #3

So, the trailer remodel?

Well, it was on hold for quite awhile becaue The Man and I were busy doing other things. Note to self: Quit all other things.

https://vc.videos.livejournal.com/index/player?player=new&record_id=828861

So, the trailer remodel?

You’ll notice via the video above, that I went into the trailer all by myself today.

This was a mistake.

I should never ever go into the trailer by myself.

Also, I totally found Sparty. . .

https://vc.videos.livejournal.com/index/player?player=new&record_id=828860

But I have learned something and that something is:

The Magic of a Pressure Washer

So, this weekend we finally had a day to focus on the travel trailer remodel.

I know that most remodeling people post a BEFORE AND AFTER triumphant end post where you see the beautiful end result. I am not like that. I’m here to tell you about all the boring tantalizing aspects in case you want to do this yourself.

So, the outside of the trailer looked like… Well, it looked like a dirty trailer. In order to paint it, we had to clean it, and it needed a lot of cleaning.

See that? That’s lichen and stuff. That’s basically the beginning of an ecosystem on a trailer. Or maybe alien parasites ready to demolish the earth. So, of course, we needed to kill it.

I am not a person who knows a lot about tools. My stepdad was a contractor and my dad was a mechanic and a truck driver, but none of their handiness or mechanical savy was passed on to me despite my dad’s insistence on stopping the car and getting out and touching every tractor we ever drove by. So, I thought a house and a scrub brush would work. It totally did not work.

Me: This is impossible. This whole thing is impossible.
Man: We just need a pressure washer.
Me: What is such a thing?
Man: It is basically magic.

So, I had to defer to The Man on the purchase of this DeWalt pressure washer from Home Depot.

Me: Is it good?
Him: Yes.
Me: Okay.
Him: Are you going to ask me how much it costs?
Me: With some things, it’s just better not to know. Like houses and pressure washers and engagement rings and dog surgeries.
Him:
Me:
Him: Maybe we can write it off somehow.
Me:
Him:
Me: Okay.

This is the magical, little monster we bought.

I know! I swear this reads like we received a sponsorship from Home Depot or DeWalt, but sadly I am getting no money for this blog. I am only spending money.

*Obviously, I need to get a bit more skilled in this sponsorship thing.*

Anyways, The Man put the monster together and once he figured out how the fuel switch worked, he fired up the baby, which roared like a dragon from Game of Thrones and completely took names and demolished the mini-ecosystem on the travel trailer.

The Man is about 6-6 or so, I guess. This is why I look so short in pictures. At least, this is why I tell myself so I feel okay about the veritcally challenged label that everyone gives me.

Anyways, the man did all the high parts of the trailer, and most of the middle parts of the trailer. I did the low parts.

Note: It is super helpful to have a tall person around when you are cleaning a travel trailer’s exterior. It’s also helpful at the grocery store when the top shelves seem like these unreachable summits.

Look at how long the hose is! I know! I know! That’s what she said.

Seriously though. Look at that ridiculousness.

I got a little excited and started killing the lichen on the front porch. Can you guess which post was attacked by the magical pressure washer? I bet you can!

It basically took about four hours to pressure wash the entire trailer. Sparty found this process a bit boring and retreated to the back of the fur-strewn Subaru to supervise. Obviously, he is a fantasic and constantly watchful supervisor.

I am super excited about how shiny the travel trailer is now. I’m even having second thoughts about repainting it. I am also COMPLTELY in love with this magical pressure washer. We’re going to use it on all the decks, roaring around the place like a water-breathing dragon, and then we’re going to move on to our rental properties and use it there, and then we’ll probably loan it to our friends.

It just needs a name.

Jason Gallaher, author of WHOBERT WHOVER, OWL DETECTIVE

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The Magic of a Pressure Washer

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