Tammy

Today's blog has fewer words to process than pictures. I've spent the last several months in a process of rewriting the direction of my life and accomplishing the internal equipping and literal training to do so effectively. I'll tell you more about that eventually, but for today I want to share the end to my homelessness, although definitely not an end to my wandering:

Because I've been aware that the upcoming season will require lots of travel and hotel stays, which can be expensive, especially with two dogs in tow, I've been looking half-heartedly for a home on wheels for the last six or seven months. I hesitated and lost out on a perfectly good option in the dead of winter last year and have regretted it since, so I commissioned my mom to help me keep an eye on the websites selling camper trailers, motorhomes and conversion vans.

My mom has never been one to turn down a mission; so a month ago, while I was out of cell range for four days, she made an executive decision to purchase my next home for me. Several days later, I met up with her to travel to California to rescue Tammy Tioga from backyard living and to give her a shot at adventure!

First though, Tammy would need a makeover. I'm fairly capable of giving the average girl a swift makeover in the salon, but Tammy needed more than a wash and blowout with a little lip gloss for her "after" photos. At first glance she looked like your average 27 foot long, 25 year old gal who had all kinds of potential. Here's photos from her original ad:

When I picked her up, it was immediately apparent that Tammy had been neglected in the area of hygiene. Her previous owner was a 50something year old European bachelor who had been tucking pills and vodka in various nooks and crannies throughout her lengths. I'm guessing vacuuming and dusting weren't high on his to-do list and soap probably didn't even make the top 10 of his shopping list. 

Anyway, before I could decide what I was going to permanently change, I needed to eradicate the odor and reduce a few pounds of dirt and grime:

 Sometime before the California border, I removed the steering wheel cover. It was greasy to the touch and continuously turned my hands a grimy brown.

The dusty windshield became a problem fairly immediately on our trip out of L.A.

I've always been a fan of lavender, the flower and the fragrance, not the carpet.

 Okay, I decided simultaneously to the decision to clean, that the upper deck curtains had to go... they disintegrated in my hands and were unusable as a pattern for making new ones. Good thing my mom rocks as a seamstress!

 Another immediate, permanent decision, simultaneous to the cleaning mission was to remove the "protective" plastic nailed to the carpet throughout the rig. Nothing was better underneath, than was left uncovered...

 I'm not sure what spilled here, I'm not sure I need to know.

 The tiles are nice, but I'm not sure they go with purple floors and pink counters.

 I eventually lost count of how many gallons of black water I washed through this rig.

 

Before long the rig started to smell amazing! Fragrances of Lime, Lemon, Peppermint and Spruce mix well with the wash leavings of Murphy's Oil Soap!!

After round one of cleaning, I couldn't stand what I was looking at anymore. I had begun to formulate a vision for Tammy's "after" shots and the tiles and miniblinds had to go, forever. The tiles were made of glass and I cut nearly every digit on both hands, but I got them out.

Each of the countertops had started to lift away from the plywood base, so Gorilla Glue and a few clamps were among the first members of the tool team in my makeover bag.

Taping off, puddy-ing, caulking, plastic sheeting, sanding, spraying, spraying again, spraying again, then five coats of polyurethane, with as many rounds of sanding, just to be sure...

I didn't look pretty for DAYS, but Tammy needed me, and I needed her...

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At this point in the project my awesome eleven year old nephew came, alone, to visit. I had expected his visit for months, but had no idea where in the country I'd even be when he returned to the U.S. and was free to come my way, so I had made no plans for my time with him. This was perfect. I needed a break and there's no one better than an eleven year old boy to bring a sense of adventure to life and to help me test the overnight-ability of my new home:

My nephew and I had a perfectly wonderful time next to the muddiest lake I've ever seen. After hiking a lava field, just to see where it went, we caught beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars before he accidentally took a plunge in the dirty lake water while rock hopping. The dogs wrestling in the clay-like mud afforded us the opportunity to test Tammy's outside shower; which works fabulously. We sat through a rainstorm and kept dry, although the windshield wipers are notably not fabulous. We ate mac and cheese and drank vats of hot cocoa while discussing life, past, present and future. All in all, it was a perfect weekend!

While we were camping, my mom was busy making new curtains for the upper bunk as well as a privacy curtain. She also set to work recovering the window valances. I love the fabric we chose and she did a great job!

After taking my nephew to the airport, I refocused my energy and attention on Tammy. Her carpet needed to go, permanently. No amount of shampoo would rescue them. As I made the first cuts, I was only a little nervous, but when I moved with my "shears" to the cab I was a lot nervous. I had removed the captain seats, the dog house and every bolt I could find and had ordered "custom fitting" vinyl flooring for the rig. It wasn't... "fitting", that is. My main concern was messing something up to the point that Tammy would not recover enough to ever be road-safe again. Seatbelt bolts, seats, engine wires, gas and brake pedals- all are super important factors for future usability and safety on the road. Despite my lacking physical strength and leverage, the flooring went in and the cab reassembled easily. The end result, well, it is what it is, wrinkles and all. The dog house is decidedly smaller than the "custom" makers of the vinyl had planned for, oh well, it sure smells better than the carpet did!

Trips to town for tools and supplies are a minimum of 80 miles, round trip- 140 if you want to go to Target. (I do, I want that, always.) I really do love Home Depot, but I have to admit I got a little tired of being there over the course of the month-long makeover. I did acquire some pretty great new additions to my tool collection, a few unnecessarily. However, the vast majority of Tammy's makeover was funded and acquired through Amazon. There were entire weeks where the only other human face-to-face interactions I had were with the UPS guy and the lady at the tiny post office that serves my mom's community; Mom had left for a work assignment just hours after completing the fabric projects. Moses, Miriam and I spent countless nights, well past dark, sanding, scraping, mudding, gluing, wiping, painting, drilling, taping... There were days I thought Tammy would never see the road again, much less house the pups and I comfortably. I was sore, dirty, bloody, swollen and exhausted every night, peeling myself out of bed again every morning, thirsty for progress:

Miriam, my ever-present baby dog companion. I just adore this one!

The freshly painting dining area quickly revealed that it was planning to again get scarred and marred as soon as I set up the bed or opened the underneath storage, so I took another trip to town to problem solve in the aisles of Home Depot...

I ordered and installed new custom mini blinds, being skeptical of the ease of which they were advertised to install. I had run into so many issues so far in the makeover process, I imagined more blood and injury along with ill-fitting, cheap looking material. I was pleasantly surprised! Sure, I broke two drill bits before the first blinds were fixed in place, but I figured out my issue and resolved the rest of the project without a hitch!

My new miter saw and I had an entire day of learning together before I came to the conclusion that I absolutely hated the trim I had chosen for the flooring project. I scrapped $60 worth of trim and kept my, now unnecessary, saw for another project a very looooong time from now in my future...

 While I was waiting for stair nose and a variety of other remodel materials, I took to Amazon again to find smart storage solutions that would utilize vertical space, while keeping things from shifting while we are moving. I then began alternating between loading the rig and finishing up a punch list of paint, caulk, trim and flooring issues. Tammy rapidly began showing off her beauty! Moses and Miriam began to love napping in our new home and were quick to "load up" every day. 

There are two glitches that I still need to address. First, Tammy's cupboard pulls are sadly still dated. Although I ordered new ones in my very first Amazon order a month ago, apparently they are coming from China and will be held up in customs for another month-ish. Second, the uninstall of the toilet, purchase of a new one, re-install of the old one/return of the new one (long story), resulted in some sort of water leak situation. For now, we are a dry home on wheels, while we wait for a new toilet to meet us where we're headed. Remember the "guy or two" I know that will help in case things get a little "western" on me? Yeah, they're standing by with tools and energy and muscle. I couldn't be more grateful! Also, there's new ceiling fan and thermostat to be installed someday, sitting by waiting...

For now, we must hit the road! We have logged a few minutes shy of 19 hours together in our new life, Tammy, Moses, Miriam and I. They have not been without incident, but I'll save that story for another time... Be blessed friends! Love, joy and the peace that passes understanding, to each of you through Abba Father!