Retro-vation 2011

Having lived in our Airstream full time for a year (2010 to 2011), we were ready for a change.  I should mention that we have lived in 7 different houses in the last 10 years, many of which we renovated or finished ourselves. (This does not include a lake cottage which we also fixed up, or a rental property which we renovated, the year in the Airstream, or some miscellaneous other building projects.) Thus, the only thing consistent about us is our inconsistency.  Change is good!  As such, the Airstream actually had a pretty good run in going ten years without a “renovation”.  But, there were a couple minor projects.   This photo shows the results of both (did I mentioned we also had a real estate business while we were living full time in the Airstream?).  We call it Home Sweet Office.

Carpet

     

The first (which probably should have been done a lot sooner than we did it) was to eliminate the baby blue carpeting that it came with.  (Yes, you read that right – pale blue.)  I know the Airstream brand has a certain sophistication to it, but someone apparently forgot that it is for camping. 

The first solution was, of course, put throw rugs everywhere.  But, we finally broke down a few years ago and installed laminate flooring – a nice Pergo medium brown.  It was great, but not indestructible.  There was the time the lock on the closet door failed and the TV tumbled out and made a serious dent in the floor (the TV was fine!).  And there were a couple dog water dish accidents that raised the edges on some of the boards.  Thus, stay tuned for the new look.

The Couch

Airstream comes with a wonderful couch (see above picture) that pulls out into a bed, has storage underneath, and has storage bins under the arms.  Too good to be true?  Yes.  It was, sad to say, uncomfortable to sit on.  We inevitably ended up sitting on the dinette cushions and letting the dogs sleep on the couch (on horse blankets – which I highly recommend).  So, when we were moving full time into our Airstream after selling our house, we took out the couch, traded it to a local dealer for some maintenance work, and replaced it with a couple leather wingback chairs.  They were wonderful as long as we weren’t traveling.  We did put non-slide pads under the feet, which really helped on the road, but they were heavy and awkward.  Now that we have a house again, they are in our living room, so we are again challenged with seating.