How do I stop my head from spinning?

[bookcrazzzy]

I apologize to those of you who were made to think of the movie The Exorcist by my subject line. With that out of the way, greetings from West Virgina.

My husband and I have been talking about getting a small RV for some time and have recently begun to get serious about it. After looking around at what is commercially available and doing some research (entirely my job), we have pretty much settled on doing a cargo trailer conversion - why pay for and then pay for towing around a bunch of stuff you neither need nor want?

I have spent hours and hours here reading various threads and doing searches and last night I told my husband that I wanted to buy a commercial RV after all. He was rather shocked and asked me why and I told him that if we buy commercial we make one decision - buy this RV - but with a conversion we will have a few zillion decisions to make! I was joking but my mind is spinning thinking of all the options and trade-offs!

Happily my husband is a pro carpenter with tons of experience in all areas of home construction, appliance repair, etc. He is down-right handy. To give you an idea, here are some pics of the craft room that he built for me six or so years ago: http://tinyurl.com/6jlmlg7 He also made this cabinet for the local university to house a model of Shakespeare's Globe Theater when it was donated. http://tinyurl.com/65djlvh The angles of the corners are different in the front than they are in the back, making construction ridiculously complicated with the addition of the angled top but you can see that the joints were perfectly tight anyway. He really does do great work.

Unhappily, the way this will work is that I will spend hours researching and planning and when I have a perfect plan, I will present it to him and he will immediately tell me that it won't work. He has an annoying habit of being right way too often but we still manage to get things done somehow.

In spite of the hours of reading, I do have questions but I'm going to let things gel a bit before I post them. I am extremely grateful for the amazing creativity and generosity of the members here for their willingness to share their knowledge and experiences. The info that I have garnered already is unbelievable.

I look forward to getting to know you.

Margie

[Shadow Catcher]

Margie welcome to the madness.
You probably need to involve DH in the thinking process and show him LOTS of pictures. Judging by what he has done I expect this will be a truly interesting build.

[Roly Nelson]

Hi Margie, good to have you aboard the best trailer forum on the internet. Now, it seems, your husband and I have a lot in common, carpentry wise. Don't let him restrict himself to a "commercial trailer" or a pre-built cargo unit, in which he will have to do extensive alterations, cabinetry, electrical work, inslulation, windows and doors, and who knows what else.

His talents lend themselves to designing and creating a fine woody teardrop trailer. It appears that your hubby has all of the skills and probably the experience to build you a one-off, absolutely beautiful wooden teardrop trailer, right out of his own head, just for you! I rarely encourage prospective teardrop builders to go all wood, but in your case, it seems like the logical choice.

This forum is expressly set up to encourage trailer folks, weather new builders, restorers or buyers of commercialy built units. There are plans available here, lots of tips and clues on how to build, in any shape or size you desire. Just ask, and you shall recieve (info, that is). That being said, the next post I expect from you, will be to tell us that HE has aquired a trailer frame, is nailing the cardboard or masonite profile onto the inside of the garage wall and asking for you blessing.......(so go on, bless him!) Hey, I know I've been there, and there is no better incentive than hearing from his one-and-only, "Oh Honey, I love it, go ahead and build it, right away, and lets go camping......soon!"

At anyrate, I look forward to seeing you make your maiden voyage out here to sunny So Calif , and sharing a campfire with many of my local camping enthusiasts..........(Hey, it's nice a balmy here today.........no sub-zero temps). Enjoy planning your build, encourage him in any way you can and just keep tellling him what a cute little trailer he is building, and when finished, you will have to beat off the many on-lookers with a stick! (I know, I've been doing it for 8 years, and counting).
Roly, an ol' woody teardrop guy........and lovin' it.

[bookcrazzzy]

Shadow Catcher: My dh will certainly be part of the thinking process but he works full-time plus does jobs on the side while I am retired, so I do the research, organize the info, and make proposals. He gets to sit back and shoot them down until I get to one he likes! I'm exaggerating some here. DH will certainly come up with suggestions and solutions to problems but I'll be the one pointing them out during the overall planning phase. When we get to actual construction choices, he will make virtually all of the decisions and all I'll do is look stuff up for him. He is the pro and I'm his personal assistant!

I look forward to getting into the design discussions with the folks on this forum. We don't have RV experience ourselves so I'm sure people will bring up things that simply wouldn't occur to either one of us.

[bookcrazzzy]

Roly, If encouragement is what you're up to, you're doing a great job! The pictures you paint are beautiful indeed!

I love your beautiful teardrop, and of course, we both love beautiful woodwork. Unfortunately, I am retired because of health issues and having the larger enclosed space of the cargo trailer is very important to making camping doable for me. I promise you, though, that you will see some pretty woodwork from him even in a cargo trailer!

As I wrote earlier, dh works full-time and also does a lot of work on the side and he won't retire for about 2.5 more years so he really won't have as much time as he would like to work on our home-away-from-home. I've told him that since we have tent-camped next to friends with campers up until now, we can use the cargo trailer like a hard-shell tent and he can work on it between jobs as he can. Using it that way will help us refine our plan over time anyway don't you think? We'll be using it mostly on weekends until he retires but once he does, I'll take you up on that invite to So Cal! A cross-country trip is at the top of the list!

We won't even be able to get the trailer for several months because we're in a bit of an iffy financial situation right now. I'm a third owner of the business that my Dad started before I was born but it is in the process of being liquidated under the direction of my older sister. I might get some money or I might have to pay some money at the end of the process and that will have a big impact on what we can get and how fast we can do the conversion. We'll have to content ourselves with dreaming and planning for now.

As for the "Honey, I love it!" part, I'm a shameless cheerleader when it comes to my dh. I really do think I got the best man on the planet! And while I'm doing the research and planning, believe me that he is the one setting the main requirements. I really am just a personal assistant to him trying to do anything that I can to help him. I love tools and used to love to work with wood myself but I can't do it anymore so the computer and book stuff is the main area where I can help.

Thank you so much for your lovely welcome and pictures of our future!

Margie

[Shadow Catcher]

One thing that I will recommend is that you might want to come to some of the gatherings and see what folks have done. CT's are a bit of a different animal than teardrops and there have been some great looking outside the box thinking conversions, and as you say you can hard side tent camp once you have the trailer which may well have the additional benefit of helping you decide what you want where.
Were it me I would be looking at an aluminum trailer http://www.aluminumtrailer.com/custom%20trailers
added benefit is that they have some layouts that may help

[bc toys]

welcome to site a cargo is a great way to go I also did a cargo convertion there are so many opptions that you can do I choose not to do a galley but you can do one if thats the way you want it might I sujest you get tape and lay out your trailer thoughts on the garrage floor let it stay there a week and see if thats the way you would like it this way or if you would like to change any thing this is my $$$$.02

[bc toys]

welcome to site a cargo is a great way to go I also did a cargo convertion there are so many opptions that you can do I choose not to do a galley but you can do one if thats the way you want it might I sujest you get tape and lay out your trailer thoughts on the garrage floor let it stay there a week and see if thats the way you would like it this way or if you would like to change any thing this is my $$$$.02

[bookcrazzzy]

Shadow Catcher:

We live in WV which is Appalachian mountain territory. Nothing like the ones out west but nevertheless the weight we tow will have a lot to do with where and how far we can go so it is a key consideration. We want to be able to get to the highest and most remote areas in our state and those south of us. We'll go all aluminum if at all possible and even put off getting the trailer for another year if necessary to do it. Thanks for the link!


bc toys:

About drawing out the layout, I saw a pic on the forum where someone did that and used boxes, styrofoam and anything hand to pile up to represent stuff in the trailer. I thought it was a brilliant idea!

Actually, I've seen lots of brilliant ideas on this site. I'm blown away by the creativity and resourcefulness here!

[mary and bob]

Another thought is to buy a teardrop or small trailer that is ready to use for this year, see how it works out, and over the next year or two take your time and build exactly what you want. That way you can be out camping this year and take your time planning and building. We were lucky in that we just did a restoration on an old trailer that we were able to complete over the winter after buying the trailer in september. Bob

[Errant]

This is the route I think I'll be taking. I'm going to try to find something inexpensive, but workable, to get a feel for what I really want in a trailer, then work my way up

[WV Evie]

Hi, Margie.

I'm a newbie to the forum and from WV also.

I'm looking for small and lightweight. This seems a good place to find that.

WV Evie