We did it! We bought a vintage Airstream Land Yacht! This was the first step we took in putting our crazy dream of travelling around the United States with our children for four months this fall.
We found it on Kijiji in New Brunswick and had quite the time trying to purchase it and get it registered since the current owner didn’t have a legitimate registration document with her name on it.
Here’s the tour of what it looked like when we pulled it into my dad’s yard to start renovating it:
During the first week (weekend really) of renovations we
Started to rip out the old floor that was soft from water damage.
Removed all of the water logged insulation and dirt. This was so messy and gross!
Welded in some new pieces of metal to support parts of the frame that had rusted.
Ripped up the floor directly above the black water tank in the bathroom as it had some water damage too.
We bought a new piece of plywood and measured out the curved corner of the front of the Airstream. We decided to install the new wood in two pieces so that we wouldn’t have to rip off the wall panels. The walls and electrical seemed to be in decent shape so we decided to save time by not taking them apart.
We made the decision to paint the old worn out blue trim on the side of the airstream with black paint so I started that process with a good outdoor rust paint. First I had to scrape off the old paint with a razor blade, screwdriver and pretty much anything else that would work. Then I cleaned it with a strong cleaner and sometimes I used a metal brillo pad.
There was also a lot of old stickers and nasty caulking on the trailer that needed to be cleaned off. My trick with old stickers is to use any oil, I used vegetable because it’s cheap, rub it on with a cloth until the stickiness starts to peel away and then use a strong cleaner to clean the oil and stickiness off. It worked great in most locations.
As usual I think I completely underestimated the time we would need to do everything I wanted to before we leave October 1st!
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram to see all of our renovation and road trip posts!
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