Our first build - a vardo

[Big Woodie]

WOW!! Never seen or heard of one before, but it's beautiful.
I am in awe of your skill and talent as builders and artists.

Big Woodie

[Wolfgang92025]

Great looking trailer.
I'm sure you will get questions very time you stop.
But that's part of the fun.

[lgatlin]

I'm sure you will get questions very time you stop.
But that's part of the fun.

That's the truth! We enjoy showing it off.

So this morning I was finishing getting the wallpaper up. Got this wallpaper at a thrift store, very 1980s vibe, hunter green. Still have some trim to do around the door and front window, and add some shoe molding along the bottom edge of the wallpaper. I started building another storage cabinet over the refrigerator - I'll probably paint the inside, but for now it's just raw wood. And I gotta get doors under the bed --




It looks kind of navy blue in the pics, but it's a dark green.


I've got some more shelves to paint for the walls, and then I can get started on painting flowers and stuff on all the cabinets.

[S. Heisley]

It's perfect!

[cigarsnjeeps]

Wow. Beautiful build. Enjoyed flipping through the pages and following the progress. Congrats.

Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk

[S. Heisley]

Do you plan to live in your trailer full-time?

[lgatlin]

Do you plan to live in your trailer full-time?

Nope, it's just for weekend trips. I am going to outfit it as an art studio this winter and take it out and do some landscape sketching/painting. I am just making it comfy as possible for our jaunts!

This afternoon I got most of the upper storage cabinet and trim done around the front door and window. The drawers under the sink were not running on the slides they came with very well, so we switched all those out to nice new glides, so they slide in/out better. I also painted a bunch of small shelves/baskets to store stuff in. So just odds and ends. I got the doors cut for under the bed and the storage cabinet, but I want to make them more interesting before I install them. I've got some panels left from some of the furniture I picked up, so I'll make it work with them.

[pohukai]

I really enjoy looking at your camper. I'm inspired and reminds me of Professor Marvel's in this movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps, someday I'll build one of these!

https://youtu.be/PJaxd1BQr9g

[bam1028]

This is a wonderful build! Everything to me is very whimsical and it all works so well together. Nice Job.

[lgatlin]

Finished nearly all the interior cabinetry. I have just a few touchups and small trim pieces here and there. So it's all got a nice coat of white paint (some places need another coat, plus touchups on filler/caulk), and it's ready for me to get painting some flowers, birds and butterflies on. Our shakedown trip made me realize I needed more cabinetry by the back door so I can reach in and grab things, so I built a fairly shallow cabinet for misc. stuff.

I added a sliding door because the door would otherwise hit the curtain rod (that isn't installed yet) over the small window - Dale suggested a slider and I liked that idea. It would mean I don't have to clear off the tabletop everytime I open the door. We also switched out all the sliders on the drawers under the sink because the old wooden ones had a tendency to stick, which was annoying. So we were in a slide kind of mindset.

I picked up a few small shelves at thrift shops on my way back from the midwest, so I painted those to match and added those. I have small things to put there (mostly art supplies, small bottles of paint, brushes, soap, washcloths, etc).



I finally got the doors to the storage under the bed done this morning. They still need knobs, but I'll find something to put on there.

The benches are pretty dirty since I've been using them to stand on to get trim installed/painted, but I also picked up some fabric to cover the foam I got earlier. I might sew those covers tonight --

So the view looking in is much improved. I've got the mattress out of there for now so i can climb over things without worrying about getting it dirty. I need to stain the edge of the wooden countertop, and touch up some nicks in the top. I also have some shelves to make for the bed wall -- I have a nice long shelf to install over the bow window, and shelves over each end of the bed as well.



Inside, looking towards the door. I need to get some trimwork done on the bottom part of the door especially. I'm thinking of adding some shallow bins so I can tuck things in and reach them without having to climb all the way in. At minimum, I will add some molding to give the door some kind of personality. Still need to get my curtains put up, and add a threshhold.



We still haven't gotten the water/plumbing done, we need to get that done this week. We have a small -- 5 gal, I think -- water tank, and a 12v pump, as well as a shore water port and faucet for the back to get plumbed. We've got some USB 12v inputs, a digital readout of our electrical that we need to get put up. I need to build a set of fold-down legs for the pull out table, and paint the trim there. In the home stretch!

[S. Heisley]

Using drawer slides for the cabinet door is a really clever idea!

You now have a nice white "canvas" on your cabinets. It will be fun to see how you decorate/paint them!

The whole thing is just awesome. I don't think anybody will ever top your vardo build.

[rebapuck]

WHEW!!!

[lgatlin]

We decided around 5:30 on the friday before Labor Day weekend that we should take off and go north to both visit my daughter, and get out of the heat of Southern California. We tossed a bunch of stuff in the trailer and took off a few hours later, ending up half way at a rest stop off the highway that first night. Slept like a log in our comfy little house on wheels, then got up in the morning and got to Woodson Bridge State Rec Area around noonish. Beautiful campground, and we had a nice private spot.



My daughter lives in Chico, so we had her and her partner over, enjoyed playing cards and catching up, then relaxed in front of a campfire. My daughter made fun of our crazy food selections (looking for things that we could prepare with a minimum of pots/pans/misc tools), but we were pleased to have a nice meal.
Next morning we hiked along the trails, and then met my daughter for lunch. Again, nice comfy sleep. Had a goodly number of curious inquiries, and gave some tours.

Drove back to the LA area and got home around 1:30 am, only to have to dash out to my school for an hour to get my supplies ready for an in-class project we worked on today. It was completely worth the last minute crazy preparation getting away for the entire weekend, however, and we can't wait to get out again next weekend. A shorter trip -- we put another 900 miles on the vardo over the weekend. I think we'll find something a little closer to home next week!

Oh, and we decided to upgrade our batteries -- we like to be totally self-contained, so we replaced our smallish sealed batteries for a pair of larger batteries -- had to rework the battery box shape to accomodate them, as well as create some ventilation for these batteries, as they are not the sealed type. But it looks good, reused all the parts and added a squared off bottom.
I think this picture is before we had the holes drilled, and completed the touch up paint. But you can see the changes to the shape --

[MadMango]

Truly an awe inspiring build! Great craftsmanship and artistic license.

[lgatlin]

Took the vardo out for the weekend, to a nice state campground in southern California by Lake Elsinore. My husband is still fruitlessly looking for a local fishing spot -- Lake Elsinore was too soupy with algae to even attempt fishing. But we got some nice hikes in and of course, a lot of tours of the vardo.

We've been adding something from each site as we visit - some places have nothing local to buy, so I did a little painting of a logo or a picture I took to mark the spot.

still making tweaks. Ran out of power on the last day, realized that nice shady spot we had probably didn't supply us with enough direct sunlight for the solar panel to keep up. And we need to be a little more conservative with our energy use! Picked up a shower tent and some solar showers, that was refreshing! Looking forward to our next weekend -- trying to hit 2 a month. Fall and winter are our best bets here in SoCal -- looking forward to visiting Death Valley and other hot spots in the winter!