Jun
2016

New wardrobe for Wolfie.

IMG_1220I made the Invitational Elite Team at Gymnastics! I am so happy!

IMG_3113He said

With the surprise, impromptu camp outing to the Pinery  next week that we cobbled together quickly last week with some unexpected time off around Father’s Day Weekend, that meant we needed to get Wolfie camp ready. Of the two most immediate (and safety related) things that was on our radar, was the safety chains getting re-welded to the frame was already taken care of thanks to our friend Chris. The second part – re-wiring the the hitch cable was a bit of a deeper dive as I needed to go to the Trailer Hitch Centre to find the right cable for the wiring harness for our truck which I made a trip over on Friday before work to do some research. The reality is, for about $100 we can get the wiring harness, new stabilizer legs, and hitch jack. And the best part is our welding-hobbyist-friend Chris likely can help us get all those on Wolfie. So we should be ready in time for our first trip out.

IMG_3115However all this getting Wolfe ready for camping immediately put the talks of the upgrades we have been wanting to do to her for some time… like putting in some flooring and replacing the fabric for the cushions. That all came to the forefront this week. And before I knew it, we were at Lowes buying an interlocking vinyl plank floor that was a dark espresso colour and would hide the dirt left behind from out camp feet, plus look a heck of a lot better than the bright, butter yellow (shows every speck of dirt) option we have been living with for four years. And then a half-off sale at Fabricland brought the topic of the replacing the cushion fabric as well. So there we were putting in the new flooring in our spare moments this week and organizing with a friend of Danielle’s who could do the new cushion covers for us and getting her the new material to make them.

IMG_3152It’s exciting to be finally putting all these personal touches on Wolfie as we haven’t done really much other than maintenance and enjoy her. But, now it finally feels like we are making her our trailer. The flooring is already down and looks amazing — it just requires some finish trim pieces. And as of tomorrow the cushions will be dropped off to be  remade with the new material. With any luck our maiden voyage this year will have all the maintenance/safety pieces done, as well as the upgrades to make her more ours. We will have had Wolfie three years this summer, and much like Emelia, she is so much pervasively a part of our lives that I can’t remember a time before having her. (Only we can because it involved tent camping, and that sucked!)

IMG_1210Aside from the trailer this week, the other big news was that Danielle and I broke down and had the company that did our upstairs and basement level windows come out and quote on doing the main level windows. As much as we don’t want to spend more money, with our old window loan finishing up this year, and that being able to open every window in the house would allow us to cut down on how much we had to rely on air conditioning, we felt it was time. And the good news is because this is the least amount of windows we’ve ever done, and they had a sale going on, the price was very reasonable and we’ve decided to go ahead and finish out the house. So, come this late August we will be able to – for the first time – open every window in the house and conserve the amount of energy we’re using.

IMG_1212Aside from that work has been great, and we’ve been enjoying the summer weather as much as we can. Danielle I am sure will share some long overdue news about Emelia’s gymnastics, but otherwise we’re feeling pretty great about the summer we have lined up with our newly dolled up Wolfie!

 

She said

IMG_1219This week turned out to be a very productive and albeit expensive one.

The main focus was getting some much needed things done on the trailer both cosmetic and safety. The trailer when we bought it was in amazing shape consider the age but with a trailer that is 35 years old there is still things that must be done.

IMG_1227The insane bane of my existence since we went on our very first camping trip was the floors. Seriously who puts butter yellow floors in a trailer??? After years of swearing and frustration we finally started having the conversation about what we can do to finally get this fixed. Both John and I belong to a few vintage trailer discussion groups so the questions stared going out about what options we had in flooring. John had been also talking to one of his co-workers about flooring she had put in her stationary summer trailer. Between what Michelle shared with us and feedback from other trailer owners we opted for a vinyl floating floor. It gave us a wood-like look but 100% waterproof. Add in that it was a floating floor meant that it was not going to be stuck down to the actual floor in the trailer making maintenance access a nightmare if we ever needed to get at the floor for repairs.

IMG_1229We went out this week and chose some flooring, returned that flooring, looked a more flooring and finally found one that we liked that also happened to be on a great sale making it about ½ the price of the first option we found.
As soon as the flooring was home John made quick order trying to lay a few pieces down to see how it would go in. I cannot speak from true experience because John did about 99% of the work but it seemed relatively straight forward less the swearing at the cuts in the odd corners and angles of the trailer. In the end we are about 90% done we (John) just needs to lay out and figure out the last of the trim but I can tell you it is already a massive improvement. Thank John for all the work you did today it looks great!

IMG_1224Now that we had the flooring in good order I had already started looking around for options to get the aging cushions recovered. Most were in fantastic shape but a couple were really showing their age. That and the fabric was terribly picky to the skin and well ugly. So with the beloved curtains in hand we went off to Fabricland today to find the right match to the curtains that came with the trailer. With the light yellow fibreglass in mind and the cream walls with the brown floor we found a softer sage upholstery fabric on sale and bought everything they had. We have enough to get the all the cushions done and with any hope we will ahve them back in time for John and Emelia’s camping trip in just over a week.

IMG_1230The other huge news this week was the long awaited email from the owner of Emelia’s gym. Emelia had tryout for the elite team for Emelia’s gymnastics club before our trip. We had waited a long 6 weeks but finally got the results. Emelia made the competitive team! She will spend the summer finishing her levels to secure her space but after speaking with her coach Emelia is pretty well if not already done that level so she is going to make the team and be able to go into 2 competitions next spring. We are SO proud of her, she has gone from no professional training less than 2 years ago to now on the competitive team! She has worked so hard and we could not be happier for her!

IMG_3163With that I am going to sign off for the week as we still have a few things to get done before we can relax and wrap up a very busy day.

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