Just keep stripping. Just keep stripping, stripping, stripping...

I think I am on day four or five of just stripping paint and Bondo.  The previous owner went Bondo crazy, and all for only tiny pin dents. Grrrrrr.  My arms feel like Popeyes from all the muscle use.  So far I've stripped the "Z" stripe, a bunch of Bondo, the window frames, the front top, more Bondo and the channel rail.  I would have been waaaay done by now if it wasn't for al the $@?!$%* Bondo.  

Slow but sure.

Trying to get Penny cleaned up and organized, so we can finish up the long list of things that need to get'er done. Here is a pic of the back, where the gaucho bed will be.

Time to move...

Penny is getting transferred to a new storage home.

Labor on Labor Day

No beach. No BBQ'ing. No lounging for us today. We went up to work on the trailer instead.

More sanding of course.

And I sanded and shellac-ed the ironing board and a cupboard, and then sanded more inside the trailer.  The ironing board wood was so dry, it just soaked up the shellac.

Before & After:

I had heard that one way you can find out the year of your trailer is by looking at the back of the mirror, if you still have the original.

So since I had to remove the mirror to sand the panel door front, I wanted to check it out.  Sure enough, found another cool "time stamp"!  

It says 3 31 58 (even though is looks like a 38).

We are going thru sand paper like crazy.

My fellow trailer gal-pal Brenda stopped by, and took this pic of us.  Lookin' oh sooooo sessy!

Well, that's about all for now. Who knows when we will have a free weekend from now on to come work on Penny since all three of our kids are in fall sports now....

Hasta la Shasta!

Tile Samples

I've seen the Armstrong VCT tiles on Lowes and Home Depot for sale on their sites, but I really want to see what they look like in person.  Colors from online are never the same.

Have been to (a few of) their stores asking to look at samples or chips, but no one ever had them.  Well, I take that back.  One Home Depot had a big color sample board about 16 feet high.  Yeah, that's really helpful.

So finally today while visiting the Home Depot in Santa Ana off Edinger, THEY HAD CHIP SAMPLES.  Praise the lawd.

But I still have no flippin' idea which one to pick....

Just keep sanding. Just keep sanding, sanding....

Went up to work on the trailer over the weekend.  Just more sanding.

This is my Hubster.

Then the fellas cut out the ceiling panel around the vent to see how much wood rot there was.

They pulled out the old insulation etc.  Because the vent is so close to the right cupboard over the oven, they had to pull that out as well.  It looks like the wood rot & damage is only in the vent area. Good sign.

The vent

They also pulled out the support wood that was underneath the oven.  It had gotten charred.  So they will replace it with a piece of hardibacker.  Luckily the charred part of the laminate won't show.  I'd never find any replacement laminate!

We will have to put the sanding on hold, and focus on getting the window frames cleaned and polished the next time we are there, so Dave can get all the windows sealed before there are any bad rain showers.

Treasures from the Trailer

Worked on the trailer today.

First I sanded the inside of this cupboard.  But it had really thick gunk on the shelves and sanding alone was not working. So I put some paint/epoxy remover stuff on it and then scraped some of the gunk off.  Even got a couple of chemical burns on my forearms.  Beauty is pain.

It still looks pretty bad.  Hopefully shelf liners will cover it up...

Before

After. Not much difference, ugh.

I found on the top shelf a realllllly old piece of contact paper stuck on it.  So I think that is where the gunk came from, from the sticky part.

This is me. No makeup. Covered in wood dust. The sander is so loud I have to wear ear plugs or I'll have ringing for days. I loathe selfies. I am actually smiling under the mask too.

So while sanding out the cupboards, I came across a couple of treasures.  The first was some S&H stamps. The other was a girly coin. One side says "Heads I Win" the other side says "Tales You Lose".  What a naughty previous owner...

So I showed Dave (the dude doing the renovation work) my findings, and he says "Oh yeah that reminds me...the other day I found this inside the side wall by the door.  It was wedged between some frame joints." and he shows me a penny.  I stepped outside the trailer so I could read the date better, and it is a 1957 penny!  Omigosh how cool is that! I verbosely said "I bet a Shasta worker put it in there!"  Dave thinks it's worth about $10 bucks now (thanks to Google information).

The 1957 penny

I get back to my sanding, and as the menial work continues my imagination wanders......I could picture some fella who works in the Shasta factory in Van Nuys, CA (where she was built) who places a penny from his pocket into every trailer he works on.  He tucks it in inconspicuously with hopes that someday, a person in the future may find it somehow.  It's like his little time capsule secret he is creating for all the Shastas he is a part of working on.

Then. It hit me.

Her name will be Penny.

Yay!  I FINALLY found a name for her!!!

Since getting her, I had considered a few names:

1. "Cali" since she was made in Van Nuys and I was born in California and that is where we live.  But I saw another trailer owner over at the Glamping Forum already had that name.  I could have still done it, but then it felt like I was copying.  
2. "Truly" because when I told one of my friends that I finally got a vintage trailer they said Dreams Do Come True!  
3. "Frances" because that is both my Grandmothers' names but I knew the kids wouldn't like to have an old lady's name on her. 
4. "Ellie" was one of my favorites from the Disney movie UP and how she says Adventure is out there!  But my friend's trailer is already named Ellie Mae and again, it felt like I was copying.

So I just kinda waited, knowing that something would come to me.  But I was getting tired of referring to her as 'the trailer', or 'the Shasta' or just 'her'.  So I have to say I am beyond thrilled that she has finally been dubbed a name!!! Whew. One thing to cross of the trailer list...

I shall call her 'Penny,' and she shall be mine, and she shall be my Penny.

Cuz lawd knows, she is costing us a pretty penny.