Winter Restoration Success!

After leaving our trailer for a winter at Frank’s Trailer Works, we finally reached pickup day a week ago last Saturday! Frank truly put his heart into all the restoration tasks we threw at him and the results really show up now.

To our surprise, the floor became a completely unexpected crisis at the end of the project. Early on, we’d picked out our flooring…However, a few weeks back, Frank let us know that could not find an installer willing to lay the linoleum we’d chosen (it was only available as sheet goods and installers wouldn’t consider such a small job). As a result–we found ourself limited to colors in the “Click” line–so I made a hurried effort to get new samples. What I received was difficult to judge–since we couldn’t see how it tied into the interior colors. So, we gave it a wild guess and quickly decided to go back to a dark color that tied in with what we thought the wood looked like. However, though we took only two days to make a new decision, Frank ran into epic problems getting the tiles. First of all, Marmoleum skipped a weekly shipment. So, we pickup became delayed on a task that inherently is a finishing project. Then Marmoleum delivered the order to the shop after they told Frank to pick it up at their offices. I think “Marmoleum” must have become a vulgar word in Frank’s shop–that is, up until it was installed.

When we arrived, the floor was truly a thing of beauty. Magically, it worked well with the cabinetry. It’s a perfect neutral foil for any interior.

That wasn’t all that blew us away!

We’d known Frank had a long experience as a master furniture maker before restoring Airstreams, so it didn’t come as a complete surprise to find that the cabinetry to be stunning. However, Frank took it further. He ended up rebuilding one wall and the kitchen cabinet frame–completely invisibly. What really impressed us were the small extra touches added in that blended modern equipment with the old decor in subtle ways. The finishes look and feel amazing–and the wood matches better now than it even did originally!

We also had Frank blow in Zolatone–and that came out perfectly. Zolatone was the original finish–that the previous owner had painted over with latex paint (actually, she painted even more, though I think the vintage finishes eventually did probably look dingy by the time she got it. The Zolatone paint ended up being a big deal to us–it makes the whole trailer look cleaner and more finished. The pebbly surface gave the trailer a whole different feel–and we are so happy that it came out better than we’d expected. And for the record–we didn’t take a fancy mix–after getting chips a few years back (Rick somehow impressed them as a pro paint shop, so they sent him a few samples that usually don’t get sent out), we realized our model was originally painted in stock “Apollo Grey,” which ironically doesn’t look very grey at all.

Now while we’d liked the size of this unit, Rick had really not liked the gaucho couch that filled the front end. It became a symbolic frustration point for him that tainted every other trailer experience. So we asked Frank if he could work out a way to have a dinette in the front. The unit built converts from a seating area into a bed just like the period ones did (indeed, the hardware perfectly matches a 59 trailer we saw the following week). Best of all, he built stowaway bins under the seats–just perfect for storing our kayak paddles and life jackets, as well as our batteries!

One really impressive feat was the restoration of the side light fixtures, which had been badly painted with layers of latex paint–yet still featured ample rust. This was something that took a bit of back and forth on. Originally, we’d considered plating–but the metal was too rusted and damaged for that. Then we looked at the idea of powder coating–but again, the metal was too delicate. Ultimately, Frank ended up sanding off the rust, painting and lacquering them. It’s a lot of work on what were probably very cheap fixtures–but the result is absolutely stunning. They look new and perfect. Wow.

There were a number of structural upgrades. He reconfigured the front of the trailer tongue so we could store our spare tire there, along with our flag pole mount. He also welded our rear bumper back on, resurfaced it and repainted it. Lots of time was spent checking and stoping up leaks. New water tanks, plumbing, water heater and propane connections tied it all up. We also had him replace some olympic rivets we’d placed in structural places with buck rivets (which are much, much stronger).

I’m certain I missed something (there’s a lot of work there), but the result really are superb…

There was one matter hat ended up being no concern. Shortly before we arrived, Frank had let us know that the plumbing on the vintage toilet was malfunctioning. It would not flush correctly (of course, my reaction was to laugh and torture him with truly awful potty jokes). As it turned out, the flushing problem wasn’t really that big of a deal. Wally Byam had planned a redundant system for flushing (YAY Wally!)–the bathroom has an extra sprayer for flushing–so the plumbing flush wasn’t really necessary. It was kind of wacky realizing that this trailer (which had been one of the last trailers Wally had supervised before his brain tumor got the best of him) reflected a bit of genius from the master… After a few days of use, we decided we preferred the vintage china and determined we would stick with what we have.

We left a tired Frank behind and returned home to hurriedly pack the trailer. All night and the next morning we devoted ourselves to sorting and stowing. Bringing in things like curtains, rugs and cushions (well, except for the new seats) finished it off: it’s a trailer that works like a time capsule, but features inconspicuous modern conveniences. If you are interested in the construction details, Frank blogged about the repairs at his blog here.

We are truly happy with the results! Frank has other trailers in his shop…but I really feel this is his best work yet!