Our 1986 32' Excella Rehab -- from rear bedroom to bunkhouse with two bedrooms

[Skatiero]

Here are the kids this past summer at Alumapalooza. They are the reason we need all these bunks! That's Bob Wheeler of Airstream, Inc on the far left, then our crew: Rob, Kate, Harris, Kit, Claire, Reilly, Cary, Elise and Carter. The kids are in age order, oldest to youngest.

[rippie]

How did you refinish your shower? What cleaners/methods work the best? Yours looks really great!

[dbj216]

What a wonderful looking family you have. I'll bet you have a blast together in your Airstreams. The renovating you guys do to accommodate your family is very complex. You have advanced capabilities beyond average handymen like me.

I have an 86 also. Your shower renovation looked great. Did you remove the vinyl wall coverings, or were your shower walls already smooth plastic? Our trailer has vinyl "wall paper" over wood bulkhead walls with a plastic pan. It's a big project to renovate our shower.

David

[Skatiero]

Thanks! The shower: We scrubbed the shower stall, removed all of the caulk (if there were a market for used caulk and bulked and other sealants, we would be very wealthy) and then washed the walls with an ammonia cleaner. Then we wiped it down with denatured alcohol. Then, after serious masking, we used Krylon Fusion plastic paint-- satin on the walls and gloss on the shower pan. E walls are coated in vinyl-- we did have to do some smoothing and some regaling first. Krylon Fusion plastic paint is great stuff and it chemically bonds to vinyl and plastic, including ABS. it is not exactly paint since it makes a chemical bond and does not just "stick." Our friends did this to their shower five years ago and it is still in perfect condition, and they have been full-timing for several of those years. We have tried to find an accordion-style clear folding shower curtain/door with no success. We have found white, but are not in love with it. I think we are going with a shower curtain for now, and possibly forever unless we find the other kind. We have a curtain in our current trailer and like it, we just really like the look of the clear accordion doors we have seen in some other vintage Airstreams. We are going to fabricate a new partial wall between the vanity and the sink using 3-form, which is a post-consumer recycled material we fell in love with when we discovered it. Check out the 3-form website if you want to see some really cool stuff!

We finished painting the walls and ceiling in the main cabin before the bathroom walls. We still need to do the door and finish the window frames, which are still out. We are sanding and painting them silver before rescreening. We also primed and painted the endcap tambour doors silver with black handles. I think we have used ten jumbo rolls of masking tape so far.

With the painting and sealing done, We finished sanding and painting the vanity and the new faucet and new stainless sink are ready for us to make a new countertop. The vanity is pulled out completely still and is in pieces for reassembly after we finish the flooring. While it is out, we installed a new exterior shower. We love outside showers for their handiness-- warm water always available outside without tracking stuff in. With seven kids (and a dog when Grandma come with us since she always brings her best friend Cookie) we really like the convenience.

Rob finished the bulk of the electrical and we now have a 50amp trailer with built-in surge protection and monitoring with a remote screen as well. He replaced the panel (the new one just barely fit in the endcap cabinet) and fished what seemed like miles of new wires for the new rear AC and to add additional circuits.

Rob finished re-plumbing the trailer this past week with pex and made only sixty-seven trips for additional pipe and fittings! I may be exaggerating, but he even got it all up to speed including a new freshwater fill, a bypass so we can fill the fresh tank from inside, stubbed out the plumbing for the dishwasher (my favorite part), an inline drinking water purification system, and new supply lines and fittings for the sinks and shower, a winterizing bypass on the water heater, all new faucets (some not installed yet), and new chrome city water supply outside.

While Rob was up to his elbows (or sometimes armpits when making plumbing connections to the tanks under the floor!!!) in plumbing, I was doing the oh-so-glamorous job of removing the 16,000 staples the previous owners used to attach various floor coverings over the past 25 years. I may be exaggerating slightly-- but there were enough that I was tempted to sell them for scrap metal.

We are almost finished slogging through all of the non-pretty part (which has taken months) and then we will be at the pretty and fun part! This is the stage that most new Airstreamers like to do first, only to find that they have to undo their decorating to go back and fix stuff! We know better, but we are still really excited to get to this point!

Next we stripped the vinyl from the backsplash using a heat gun and great patience to pull and not scrape the old vinyl off. Then we installed a new laminated aluminum panel on the wall next to the sink and measured (twice) and cut (once) the new counter for the galley. Okay, it was more like "measured (ten times) and cut (once) but either way it turned out great. Then we installed the sink, faucet and soap dispenser. Just as in our current trailer we used a round Ikea sink we love and put it on the far side of the countertop to leave working room between it and the stove, and put the faucet in the corner. We really love the usability of that setup. The dishwasher will go to the right of the sink where the microwave used to be, just like the setup in our current trailer. We installed the counter (the bowed walls make that more interesting!) and then I put up the aluminum backsplash accent tile, which turned out so well I think I'll put the same one in our current Airstream, which we had already put the same counters and sink and backsplash in.

Then we carefully smoothed all of the seams in the subfloor where we had to replace sections (Rob sealed all the cut edges and used construction adhesive as well as screws and bolts in the installation process) and made sure the transitions were planed smooth. Then we started finish flooring! Hooray! We are using TrafficMaster Allure solid vinyl planks just as we did in our current trailer. The pattern we chose this time is called "Edge Maple" and looks very nautical to us-- it reminds us both of yacht decking. We used their teak in our current trailer and love that too. The planks stick to each other and have been perfect in our current trailer.

We are going to get back to work! We hope to finish the floors, door, and window frames/screening today sine I have the day off for MLK from my job as a special education teacher.

[Skatiero]

Here are some progress pics of the exterior shower we added:

[Skatiero]

I have more photos but can't add them until my airforums renewal is processed. Can't wait to share the floor and kitchen!

[polarlyse]

After seeing post #21 it became obvious WHY you NEED to have seven kids.
Nice job,

[Skatiero]

"Aluminum" would've been our first choice if we had only six kids!

[Skatiero]

Here is the galley redo-- started w new plumbing, the dishwasher will go to the right of the sink in the former microwave cabinet (just like our current 29' Airstream) and we still need to buy a stove. Anyone have one to sell?

[Skatiero]

The floor in progress. We will finish it today.

[Becky B.]

Great work! I'm enjoying your thread. Nice to see a happy family that travels together & works together!

[rippie]

Ok. I am sold on the krylon. Sounds perfect-- kinda like the por 15 of plastic paint. I am about to go to look for colors. I am leaning toward more white vs that light brownish tint. I also like you included the detail of gloss on the pan and satin on the wall. Sounds very smart to me. Did you have enough good choices on color? Looks like you went more on the white side. I would prefer a tad off white so everything else won't look dirty. Any advice?

I must say I am really psyched to have this part of resto out of my subconscious and into the wheels turning phase. There is always the main focus item for me and then a few other smaller future items that I am processing. This was one of those side items that was. Sometimes worrying about these things can really bog me down (another example was finding abs fittings to replace cracked fittings). So your post and info has been a ray of sunshine to me. Thank you much for sharing.

[Skatiero]

We are really glad to share our experiences! Our non-airstream friends are not that interested, so it's fun to show projects to people who care! Plus, we love to share ideas and have benefitted from these forums so much ourselves. We did our current airstream in off-white Krylon Fusion, which we also like--- we might have five the same again, we just decided to make it different. We love the way it has held up perfectly in our first airstream, and we also used it on the ABS end caps in both airstreams, and on ALL of the walls and ceilings in this one.

On another note:
I forgot to mention that we had to move the vent stack. It went up inside a corner of the wardrobe closet before. That wouldn't work for us since that would be in the middle if a set of bunks! So we relocated it to between the galley and the hallway, where there was already a 3" gap behind the accordion hallway door. That meant inside and outside patches as well as a new cap etc on the new vent.

[m.hony]

That galley and floor look awesome!
Not the same trailer as was at Canopener?
Or y'all just real busy?
I like the silver tambour doors up front, too.
I see you painted all the airplane interior looking paneling white.
Out with the tan- in with the white- and aluminum!

[Skatiero]

You're right-- this is a different airstream. Our beloved 29 footer had no note big projects, and we stumbled upon this 32 footer which had the perfect layout for us to have a permanent bed and still have room for the bunks. So we have been working in this one for months. We will put the 29 footer on the market as soon as we are ready to camp in this one, much to the dismay of our kids, who think we should keep both! We are finally at the fun part! The floor us finished and now we can paint and re-screen the window frames and put them back in! Yay for a sunny day and a day off from school too!

[m.hony]

So-
This trailer will have bunks, a bed for mom and dad, AND a dinette?
Maybe keep them both- and have more kids-

[Skatiero]

Great idea!!! Mate we can spell out "airstream Excella"on our t-shirts if we add a few more.....

No dinette. it is being replaced by a long long sofa and a pair of foldout tables. I wish we still had the one from the 29-footer, but we gave that one away. Now we need a second so I can mount that at both ends of the 9' sofa! But yes, seven bunks and a long long sofa and a permanent front double for Mon and Dad!

[m.hony]

PizzaChop's renovation was awesome, as well- with the big ole u-shaped dinette-
As were his passel of young'n's/roadies/band/lighting and guitar techs!
Weren't they a puckish band of rapscallions?

[Skatiero]

Lol yes indeed!

[Becky B.]

Is your flooring Allure vinyl? I'm going to put that type in my Avion, but I really like the style of yours. Inquiring minds want to know.... :-)