Hello, Brighty!

Homeless no more! Well, I guess technically if the whole world is your home, then you can never be homeless. But philosophical musings aside, I bought this vintage trailer and am jumping on the vintage trailer rehab bandwagon. Unlike some trailers I have admired online, this one needs some major rehab due to water damage and, also unlike those parked “glamping” trailers, it must be actually roadworthy. Some of those photos on Pinterest with the regular fridge, barstools, granite counters, and other apartment furniture just do not make sense if the trailer is actually moving. I learned that a trailer moving down the road is equivalent to a house withstanding a 3.4 Richter scale earthquake. That is a lot of wiggling!

Her name is Brightwater Dive, a play on the name of the private road on which she will be parked this winter. She was born in 1971 and is a Kit Companion model RV trailer. I call her Brighty and am excited to share the journey of her remodel with you. If you have any suggestions, please do let me know! I tend toward a romantic sense of style and am stretching those boundaries for this project with at least a passing nod toward crisp spa-like minimalism and dirty-dog-proof sleekness. We will see how it goes…

So here she is just 10 minutes after I bought her. My vehicle can pull her with no problem. Towing weight is certainly a factor, which is why there will not be granite counters or tile floors, but as long as I make good choices on materials, Brighty will stay well under the recommended weight for towing that my vehicle can safely manage. I have never trailered anything but it doesn’t seem that hard. I mean, I have pulled little kids in wagon a lot and how different could this be

Famous last words… I am pretty sure I heard the demi-god of RV trailers say, “Hold my beer.”

So about 30 minutes into owning Brighty I discovered at least one big difference between kid wagons and RV trailers. No photos of the next part because it was a little traumatic for me. While driving along the 2-lane highway in the middle of Nowhere Eastern Washington there was a terrible explosion and the right tire literally exploded. It must have been something to see because the people in the vehicle behind us stopped to offer help. The tire blast bent a part of the trailer frame next to the wheel and blew off/up the fender cover. I cannot imagine the force it takes to bend this metal. I looked for the fender cover and it could not be seen anywhere along the road, nor was there any appreciable pieces of tire. Then getting the lug nuts off to change the tire was a chore. the don brilliantly came up with the idea to use the hydraulic jack he brought to apply steady pressure to loosen the damn things. He put on the spare (thank God there was a spare!) and then he checked the tire pressure; sheez they were terribly over inflated! No wonder it blew up. The previous owner had let us use his air compressor and tire pressure gauge to inflate the tires and the measuring device must have been horribly off. An interesting side note, out of all the people who passed us on that Washington highway where Brighty sat keeling over due to the embankment (there was no hazard lane), the only two people who stopped to either render aid or see if they could help in any other way both looked, how to say…, a bit rough around the edges. All those people in nice cars and apparent access to dental care just stared as they zoomed by, not even bothering to scoot over in the lane to give Brighty some space. One chick, absorbed in her phone, had less than 6 inches between her car and Brighty as she hurtled by.  A pox and infestation of fruit flies on the lot of them! “Well Toto, I guess we are  not in Texas anymore” In Texas a woman standing on the edge of a highway with an apparent vehicle issue would have several people stopping to render aid and probably, once the flat was changed, enjoy a beer and discuss bar-b-que recipes too. Oh well, that is that.

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As soon as Brighty got to the RV makeover spa, aka the back yard, her tires were removed and I bought new ones. When I took the old tires to the local tire store, the young fella working there exclaimed with delight when he saw the rims. Apparently these are not the original rims but are off of a vintage Camaro so Brighty will have a bit of sporty to her! Hmmmm, maybe I need to look into more chrome-plated accessories. I know they say beauty is only skin deep but Brighty’s gonna need a bit more than a cute personality. Here she looks pretty much worth the $600.00 I paid for her.

So here is her interior. Classic 1971 color scheme, just missing the shag carpet.

We knew there was some water-caused damage as the floor was soft in one spot. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the next thing coming?

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When some of the siding was removed, the water damage became obviously rather extensive. The final decision was to rip out the whole kitchen and bathroom as those two walls were completely rotted. How Brighty made it down the road without collapsing on herself is beyond me! I learned a lot from the demolition about how these RV trailers are built. Just leave everything you know about building construction at the door; all you need is a mondo staple-gun and an inside-out attitude. These guys are built by putting furniture and then walls together to form what I would think of as supporting walls, the so-called framing and skin come last. Hunh.

Here she is demo complete, with some repaired flooring and walls.

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All the while, I’m envisioning how I want Brighty to look. I decided it would need to happen in stages; it could be totally overwhelming to go from party dump to chandeliers in one step. And she needs to be livable by October. Sadly, the closest big hardware/homeware store is an hour drive away and is not a very good representation of Home Depot. I have to go to the west coast anyway so am going to go by the Ikea in Seattle. Wish me luck!