I have one of those compulsive personalities that requires many (many) lists, properly labeled plastic bins and planning. I like things a certain way and in a certain place. Owning Myrtle has taught me that despite all the lists I make of what order the remodel will go in and what I want to accomplish, she has much different plans. I suppose remodeling her is much like motherhood in that respect.
When she was all shut up for winter, I made all these detailed plans. This year I was going to tackle the windows, roof and paint her one of those Pinterest worthy paint jobs. I spent all my snow days reading about how to properly seal windows, how to DIY paint on a vintage camper and how to coat a roof. I was anxious to get started the minute the tulips started peeking up.
On the first stretch of nice weather, I pulled out the first window. I was going to clean it up, seal it up with butyl tape and put it back in. Easy peasy. I wanted to complete all the windows so I could move on to painting. The framing was still solid around the window, and with a lot of elbow grease, the old caulk was gone and the window was ready to go back in. Except it wouldn't. At least not to the point where it was sealed properly. I realized after much cursing and wiggling, that these replacement windows weren't going to cut it. So, despite all my plans, I learned the lesson Myrtle keeps telling me...I have to be willing to be flexible. So, I started hunting for original windows to put back into the camper (still searching by the way). I decided to leave the old windows, buy some new metal door awnings to go over them to keep the rain out (thanks Amazon!) and move on to resealing the sheet metal pieces and j-rails.
I pulled the first piece of sheet metal that was covering a hole that used to be a vent. I didn't need the vent, but to make it look nicer and ready it for painting, I did paint the sheet metal white. I was pleasantly surprised the caulk came off really easy and there was minimal wood to replace. I got that project done in just a few hours. Fresh off this good news, I removed a piece of j-rail. It also came off easy and didn't seem to have any damage to repair. Heck, why not keep going? So, I removed the next piece of j-rail by the cab over bunk area.
So, that brings me back to that paint job. The cool eye catching paint job that I've been planning since before I got her. It would seem that isn't going to happen this summer. In fact, with the search for windows and the slow moving resealing, there's a chance it will be a couple of summers away. I was bummed. I know it's superficial and the paint has little to do with her ability to take our family camping, but dang...I wanted that eye catching vintage look now.
Late one night as I cut vinyl for a father's day gift (blog post coming soon), I pulled out some vinyl from an outside project a few years ago. Then I think an actual light bulb came on as I had my epiphany. If I couldn't paint Myrtle yet, that didn't mean I had to forgo decorating her. I ordered some vinyl, and now I have the pleasure of introducing Myrtle's mini-face lift.
The supplies you need for this project are quite simple. Two 5 yard rolls of Oracal 651 outdoor vinyl did the trick for me (I buy all my vinyl from Expressions Vinyl and have been very happy with their pricing and quick shipping). I put the rolls through my Silhouette paper cutting machine. I made a very simple cut file with 2 inch wide circles with a couple of rows of half circles for the top.
While my machine was cutting all that vinyl, I prepped the surface for the vinyl. I gave Myrtle a bath and then wiped all the blue areas (where my dots were going) with rubbing alcohol.
Once all the vinyl was cut, I used a old school ruler to measure out the top row. I did half circles every 6 inches. Once the top roll was done, I just eye balled the rest of the rows. The aluminum skin is a great way to keep the circles level. I just used the horizontal lines in the skin as my guide. I didn't use transfer paper. I just peeled the circles off and placed on the skin slowly to avoid bubbles. I would use a spare credit card to get any extra bubbles out of the vinyl and to stick it to the skin. When I got to an obstacle, I would place a circle over the skin and obstacle and use a dull Exact-o knife to cut around the obstacle.
I am extremely impressed with how this turned out considering the amount of time it took (just a couple of hours over several days) and the amount of money (around $30.00). The Oracal 651 is rated for around 6+ years of durability outdoors. I really hope it doesn't take that long to get to painting or I might go completely crazy. The vinyl should come off with some heat and scraping. Since it will only be removed when it's time to paint, I won't worry about any scrapes it may leave in the surface of Myrtle.
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