Chapter 15 In which Kat does something useful

  Things have been quite busy around here lately, so it has been difficult to find the time to work on the trailer much less to write about it.  We have been making plans and arrangements for the trip, and we have moved ahead on  some projects.  If you have been following the camper build and have read along as we anticipate our upcoming cross country trek, you may have found yourself looking a bit sideways at the whole thing and thought  something like, "....and where exactly is everyone going to sleep?".  Well, the camper will serve as the master bedroom and the back of the truck as the kid's room.  Commence snarky comments about how the kids are getting the short end of the stick.  As the beds were mainly Kat's project,  I will leave the "show and tell" to her.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I like to make things. These things may not always be the most useful things. 

Exhibit A

Don't act like you've never wanted a little pink sheep with a mustache. It's about time I put my eclectic skills to work for our trailer project. No, there wasn't felting involved, but quite a bit of sewing and even some sanding and painting. We started with a bed for the trailer. I ordered a custom foam mattress. Actually, I had to down size to a custom cushion because our bed is that small. It arrives in the mail looking like this.

This cute little package

slowly becomes

an odd brain like thing.

And once allowed to breathe

a mattress.

I had Zo video the process but I decided to spare you the experience of me telling Kinsey "to get off" every thirty seconds. It comes wrapped in Dacron batting that makes it nice and fluffy. It also is very easily destroyed so I needed to make a cover. Now, I have in my possession several hundred yards of bright red stretch twill. Why, you ask, would anyone own that much stretch twill. That I'm afraid is a story for another time, involving my overly optimistic views and a misguided business attempt. But, I have found that there's a lot you can do with red stretch twill.

Exhibit B

I digress. Away I headed to my sewing room with an extremely long zipper and a fraction of my stretch red twill. 

I began by cutting some very long thin pieces that would become the sides of the cover,
and finished of the edges with my serger. 

I sewed the pieces together to create even longer pieces making sure the stretch would pull
against the zipper rather that along it.

I then sewed the thinner of my long pieces along the zipper folding the serged edge under as I went.

For the wider piece I ironed the edge over so I would have a flap that covered the zipper.

Here both the thin and wide pieces have been attached.

The aforementioned flap

I pinned the zipper piece to the large top and bottom pieces.
I had already sewed the top and bottom together along one side.

Final step sew pieces together with the serger.

I do not have any pictures of the cover, it's not all that exciting just a big pile of red. But we were very excited to get the mattress into the trailer.

We attempted to get a picture of Ry and I in the trailer, as it is our bed,
but Zo's focus skills weren't quite up to the challenge and lets be honest the girls are way cuter.

With this step complete we decided it was time to figure out the girls' diggs. We had attempted to order a fancy air mattress that fit in the bed of the truck but that didn't go so well. I thought that we could optimize space better if Ry built a platform in the truck to put a foam mattress on. You can imagine he was not exactly enthused about having more added to his to do list, but he agreed. 

Not the most homey looking bedroom. 

Ry took advantage of a nice day to build the frame in the driveway.

I am not a woodworker. That is Ry's department. I have neither the patience nor skill to build even the most basic object. You should see the wedging table I built for my ceramics studio, ugh. I can, however, do menial tasks such as sanding and painting. 

There was priming 

sanding 

blowing
(the big hole you see is an additional storage space that will double as a prop for the mattress to convert it into a couch.)

and painting.

I ordered the mattress for the girls. For the record their's is actually a mattress as it was over 70" long, though it is a smidge more narrow then ours. Repeat the same process I did for our mattress. If you feel the need, go ahead and scroll through those pictures again. In the end we had a slightly more inviting bedroom for the girls. It still needs some work, things like new sealants around the windows, lighting, and a fan. At least now they have a bed and some storage space.

Tada!