Day 1: RV Evisceration

   If there is one thing I excel at, it's destroying things.
  
   From a decorative egg that taught me my first lesson about why you don't lie when you break Mom's stuff, to my angst-y teenage years where a flood of confused hormones had me convinced that most objects were better off smashed, set on fire, or a combination of the two, all the way up to more recent years when I became a homeowner and started gutting rooms out to the studs to recreate them in my own vision, I've always been rather good at smashing shit.

    ....there...I just took the blogs' curse word v-card like it...never mind....INAPPROPRIATE...

   In any event, if you want something tore up, I'm your guy. Despite the horrible weather conditions today (90 degrees, and easily 90%+ humidity), Dad and I decided to start assessing the status of the interior and see what we could get done. This is how things looked at first:

Starting at the front, this is the cab. Pure 1970's quality right here. Note the CB radio and cassette deck above the drivers' seat, and the quality craftsmanship of the sparse dashboard. Actually, the dashboard is in fantastic shape, free of cracks and will be easy to disassemble. The front seats were scalped from a Toyota van, and while they are faded and need some upholstery cleaner, they're pretty damn comfortable, and really just need some decent seat covers. The tape deck is coming out and getting swapped with (gasp!) a CD player, and the speakers are getting updated as well....CB radio is staying, as you never know when you'll need to call the Bandit.

This is the sleeping area above the cab. Once it is liberated from the eight-armed grips of the spiders living there and the bedding is updated, it will be a comfortable bunk for whomever gets to crash there. Note the freakin' SWEET carpeted walls. I think they should stay that way out of principle.

Here be the kitchen area. The faux-brick finish walls were probably a nice touch in '78, but are in pretty rough shape now. To the left of the picture is where the stove/oven combo originally was, but my Dad had removed it prior to my arrival. The restoration of that will be an all-day project, but we're fairly confident that it will look good as new when we're done.

This is the....I dunno....we'll refer to it from this point forward as the "Common Area". The previous owner decided that they needed more seating, so they bolted a seat from (I think) a Dodge Caravan into the corner behind the passenger seat. They also constructed a bench seat for the passenger side out of 1x4 pine and plywood, and there is the original fold-down sofabed on the left behind the drivers' seat.

Homemade bench seat with pimp-tastic cushion covers. The cushions came with free dead bugs. It didn't take long to determine the previous owners weren't big on cleaning.

The fold-down sofa bed. This came with dead bugs as well, and some awesome stains on the cover that had been fashioned to hide the hideous original upholstery.

The throne room. It's a bathroom in a camper. This is actually the least of our concerns with regard to renovation/updating. It has some classy faded NASCAR stickers in the window which are coming out ASAP. I actually just took a picture of this because I'm a mature, grown-up man of thirty who still thinks toilets are funny.

   So needless to say, the "common area" and kitchen are the first priority. The furniture all needs to be replaced, and the carpeting put down by the previous owner was FILTHY and covering a sub-floor of questionable stability (read: lots of soft spots). We tossed about the idea of recovering the sofa bed, but when I mentioned the thirty-plus years of ass-sweat and the possibility of any number of children having been sick on it, we decided it was better off being removed. Addressing the sub-floor issues would require the removal of most, if not all furniture and cabinets, so that meant the homemade bench seat and sofa bed would have to come out.
   ...and that extra chair behind the passenger seat. Yeah, that was first to go.

   Here's the "common area" after the bench and 3rd seat were removed.

  
   At this point, we were able to remove the carpet from behind the front seats all the way back to the vinyl tile in the kitchen area. Underneath the edge of the sofa bed were traces of the original red shag carpet (which, surprisingly, was in better shape than the replacement carpet) as well as some linoleum that was probably put down as a rudimentary water barrier in the event of the hot or cold water tank leaking.

The linoleum allows for easy clean up...of an otherwise inaccessible area.

The 1978 Chevrolet Mobile Traveler came with a free dirty fish tank held in place by a crudely cut piece of aluminum flashing. Actually, this is the water reservoir, probably much cleaner inside than out. It was still removed, drained, and will be sterilized with some chlorine before it is replaced. We were careful to not disturb/damage any of the plumbing or electrical system that was hidden underneath the sofa bed, and took numerous pictures so we are able to reassemble things correctly in the future. The wiring for the water pump and circuit breaker needs to be updated and done correctly, as there are a couple of wires that go nowhere, and the ones that are connected are attached to each other with wire nuts, rather than being soldered. Luckily, Dad is pretty handy when it comes to electrical work.

    Carpet is up, and (surprise, surprise) the sub floor has some serious water damage. There were numerous holes that went straight outside where I'm sure water was leaking/splashing up between the steel floor pan and the plywood. Most were actually supposed to be there, but there were several that had been drilled for some unknown reason and then left unplugged. We still had to get the linoleum up to find the remaining bolts holding down the plywood, but knew that once removed the plywood would come up without difficulty.

The entire corner behind the passenger seat was shot, and the water damage extended up the wall. From feel alone, I was able to determine that the wall behind the sofa bed hadn't sustained any damage, which is great. Having to replace the bottoms of both walls would have significantly increased the amount of work to be done.

 

We decided that getting the first half of the sub floor removed down to the floor pan would be a good stopping point for the day. As you can see, the corners behind both front seats were the most obviously affected by water seepage. Luckily, the rust you see is only on the surface and there is still plenty of good metal. A simply sanding and prime/paint should get it back in decent enough shape to put a new sub floor down.

       After we get the entire floor out, we'll have to patch all non-essential holes to prevent further water damage. Dad is leaning toward putting linoleum down in the entire living area (common area, kitchen, bathroom) as it will be easy to keep clean, water resistant, and lighter than a laminate or possibly even carpeting. The decision was made to name the RV "Turtle Island". More to come after the next demolition session.