There was a hiatus between dry fitting, hole cutting and the actual installation of the water heater. There was some cabinet work that needed doing before we could complete the heater installation. Our Master Plan involved ripping out all the old base and tall cabinets and replacing them with Ikea cabinets. The benefits included zippy interior fittings along with instant doors with the proper design aesthetic. Besides, they look amazing in our Ikea kitchen. What’s not to love? Wee problem though, Ikea kitchens are square and Airstreams are roundy. Our good friend John introduced us to the perfect tool to fit a square cabinet into a round Airstream.
The Compass
You remember, your old friend from third grade. Well, it turns out that you can trace a wonderful curve on a slab of Ikea press board, trot that press board over to your handy Jig saw (our Brand of Choice is Bosch) and et voila an Airstream-fitted cabinet side. Now, the tedious part is to do this properly, you must have your tired and irritated helper hold the cabinet side perfectly in place, while you traipse back and forth, cut a curve, fit that cut against the trailer side and cabinet base (held perfectly in place- helper irritated, tired and now hungry), draw a new line for a better fit….repeat. You repeat this until the fit is perfect or your helper smacks you on the head and demands a beer.
In reality each tall cabinet took roughly a day to fit. This is also where you discover the concept of Good Enough. What is Good Enough for me might be clearly a Crappy Job for your helper, or vice versa. Ahhh, the opportunities for neighborhood entertainment are endless. Especially when you do this work in the front yard and your helper is your spouse.
Below is a picture of the cabient slot in the trailer. We have dry fitted the other cabinets and the new bathroom. We had not cut any holes yet, but you can see where the hole will be cut. Dry fitting the base cabinets is extremely easy with the compass. It is also a one woman job. This alone ensures that the next trailer I do will not have any tall cabinets.
Above you can see the cabinet, now dryfitted and attached to the adjacent short base cabinet with a clamp. You can see the curves that we cut in the Ikea tall cabinet.
Pretty nifty for a tool you used last in third grade!
I love Ikea.
I love Ikea kitchens most of all. What is brilliant about Ikea kitchen Cabinets (other than the unpronounceable names) is the completely interchangeable nature of the Ikea widgets (aka cabinet bits). All the sides match all the bottoms, shelves, doors drawers as long as you stay in the dimensions of the Ikeaverse.
What do I mean?
Ikea makes 15″, 30″ & 24″ tall cabinets. But I need an 18″ tall cabinet to fill the space between the ‘new’ bathroom and the side gaucho of my Airstream trailer. Voila! Take a 15″ tall and an 18″ base cabinet and I have an 18″ tall cabinet. Tinker Toys, Legos, Lincoln Logs, but for people with a cordless drill and a good imagination.
The origin of the current Airstream remodel lies in the Mojave desert. It was there that Chris drove the Globetrotter into a sandy wash. It was very sandy. The wash ripped the belly pan off the trailer, disturbed some 40+ year old waste plumbing (yuck) and began the spiral down to the complete black water (yes, that is what you think it is) failure that we are now dealing with. So gutting the trailer and starting from scratch is his fault idea, not mine.
It has nothing to do with the cool NOS (new old stock in ebay-onics) Airstream bathroom that I found on Ebay. It has nothing to do with the Princess Marine Range that I have been lusting for. Nor, how I will just feel better in my freshly restored aluminum vacation dream house on wheels. OK, get my drift? As is the case with most remodels, there are many forces driving the insanity.
A trailer remodel is a valid opportunity for marital strife. Just as rich in potential arguments as a full blown kitchen-bath and an addition remodel. To yelling about color and trim now add dissension around power utilization and tongue weight. Chris and I have been having the same argument for three weekends now (like all insane remodelers we are do-it-yourselfers and weekend warriors). It goes something like this:
Leslie: This kitchen counter top will be beautiful on 4″ risers! The counter will float and be architecturally perfect. I can store a cutting board between the cabinet top and the counter top. Lets do it!
Chris: A floating counter will never hold the oven to the trailer. The oven will be flung out of the counter top and destroy the trailer. Oh Woe is me, all is lost!
Leslie: No it wont
Chris: Yes, it will
(repeat until someone is yelling and all productive work ceases)
At some point, I will report a happy ending to this, but Chris is off for Taiwan tomorrow and so the argument will have to wait for a week or so. However, I can pretty certain that counter top will float.
