My husband, Chuck, and I (Theresa) have been lurking. We may be the longest running lurkers you have, though not sure how we could prove it! Some time in early 2010, we saw a show on the travel channel about Tiny Trailers. Funny thing is that we watched it separately,and both of us separately unbeknownst to each other, were surfing the net about the world of Teardrops. One day one of us showed the other a picture of one on the internet - and the idea of building one was born.
We found so many websites, including this one, and so many plans online! But none of the plans met our wants/needs. My husband, in an earlier professional life, was a product designer - so he dusted off his Autocad skills and got busy. His design is loosely based on the generic Benroy plan by Mike Schneider, though bigger. We bought a flatbed 6 x 10 trailer in June 2010, and the build began.
Jump forward 2+ years. My husband says this trailer is his white whale. Any of you who are familiar with Moby Dick will understand. He has worked so hard to make this happen. There have been times where the frustration was so bad that he didn't work on it for periods of time - but he always went back, like any other addict. Last weekend, he finally put on the last piece of the exterior plywood skin. Now it must go to the body shop to be skinned in aluminum. Unfortunately, the body shop where my dad works is pretty busy right now. We will find out tomorrow maybe of a possible time frame for the skinning to be done.
Once the aluminum is on, the final trim work needs to be done, a few interior items need to be finished, and then it is camping time! We really hoped it would be done in time to camp in it over Labor Day, but dunno if that will happen. We hope to maybe meet up with the Land of Lincoln TJ group when they do their Tears by The River at Thomson Causeway, because that is one of our favorite camping spots.
We started in tents years ago, graduated up to pop-ups, and then for some stupid reason in 2006 jumped to a brand new 30-ft travel trailer. We camped in it a lot the first couple of years, and then got infected with the Teardrop Bug. We sold the 30-footer this past Spring, and actually camped in a tent over Memorial Day - and it SUCKED. I mean it SUCKED!
Ok, sorry, didn't mean to write a book. The time for lurking is over. OH - Hubby has been documenting his entire process from day 1. We have over 200 photos and need to read up on how to upload them.... Looking forward to "meeting" some of you!
