Travel Trailer: Rebuild and Repurpose
Back in early 2018, I had the realization that I wanted to be able to have a personal creative space, separate from my living space. I also had the realization that, as a renter, there would always be a degree of impermanence to my living situations. The long term solution to this is of course to purchase my own property, which I intend to do. But I figured there is a way that I can achieve access to a personal creative space, and even have the luxury of being able to bring it with me wherever I go. The solution: Build it, and make it mobile!
The ideal candidate for this project was obvious to me. There is an abundance of old camper trailers and RVs sitting around across the country collecting dust and rot, slipping further into obscurity because their owners are unable or unwilling to put the time into restoring them to their further glory. It seemed a simple task to me: Purchase one of these derelict structures, completely remove all of its original interior, and rebuild to suit my own purposes.
After a brief period of hunting local classifieds, I was contacted by the owner of a potential candidate for a fair price. The offer seemingly too good to pass up, I decided to go ahead with the purchase and begin the project.
My newly gutted trailer, complete with rot and broken window!
Of course as most projects go, this one did not prove to be as straightforward I anticipated. I refer to instances such as these as the snowball effect: One small job uncovers more small jobs along the way, until by the end of the day you’re rebuilding the Sistene Chapel. Though admittedly this job began as a fairly large undertaking, I clearly underestimated the extent of the work that would need to be done in order to see this project through to completion.
The deeper we dug into stripping the insides, the further the extent of the water damage was uncovered. What was originally going to be the replacement of a few bad boards quickly became a complete structural overhaul. I think many at this point would have chosen to give up on the project and send the whole thing to the dump. But this machine had come into my possession, and I had a lump in my stomach thinking about throwing away all of the hard work that my friends and I had put into it. So I chose to press on. But I was going to need to take it somewhere indoors.
Luckily, I have a colleague who is the partial owner of a large outdoor event company in town. The great thing about outdoor events is that they generally don’t happen in the winter. So they graciously agreed to let me bring my trailer into their warehouse over the winter to continue construction.
Happily moved to its winter home. You can see I’ve already replaced a good deal of the wood on the left side, but there is still a lot of rot to take care of.
Once the trailer had been brought indoors for the winter, I set to work. I don’t have many pictures of this step as I was on a bit of a time crunch. I only had about a month before the company had events happening again and would need me to get out of the warehouse. Also due to the nature of the events industry and the abundance of events happening over the summer, I knew I wouldn’t have much of a chance to work on it again until the following winter.
During this time, every piece of metal siding was removed, and every rotten bit of framing was removed and replaced. Which ended up being almost the entire structure, and at this point it occurred to me that I probably would have been better off ripping it down to the chassis and starting from scratch. But this is what I had set out to do, and I intended to see it through to the end. And with some family help, I was able to get the framing completely fixed up by the time we had to be out of the warehouse.
The trailer in its current home. Framing rebuilt and siding put back on.
Unfortunately that would prove to be the only time I would have the chance to bring it into the warehouse. But luckily most of the work I needed to do indoors was complete. Due to logistical issues that winter, I wouldn’t be able to get back to work until mid 2020.
It was also over this time that I experienced a bit of a shift in motivation. My original plan for this project still stood- It was to be a mobile creative space. My original idea was for it to be a recording studio, which meant that I would need to make the construction relatively soundproof.
Over time I was starting to lose my motivation for the project, as the fact was looming over me that acoustically isolating a tiny structure such as this, while not losing too much interior area or adding too much weight, was going to be a considerable undertaking, and the physics were not on my side. Not that I don’t often like to dive into considerable undertakings. They are somewhat my lifeblood. I truly believe that humanity benefits the most from attempting the seemingly impossible. But, I was beginning to come to the conclusion that this was not the scientific breakthrough that I was looking for.
As with most great hardship, there is almost always a silver lining to be found. With the pandemic all but dissolving the events and entertainment industry for what seems like the foreseeable future, I was left with an abundance of time on my hands. This of course finally allowed me the summer time I needed to make significant progress.
Going back to the project over the break, I was beginning to think about ways I could maybe pass it on to someone else more willing, or maybe donate it to someone who could make good use of it. But once we pulled the tarps off, and started sorting through all of the parts that had been hastily thrown in while preparing to get out of the warehouse in a rush, I started to again feel a pit in my stomach. All that work, for this? To just throw it away? That’s not what I’m made of.
It was also over the time that the project laid dormant that I have really come to realize my love and talent for making. Making electronic things, mechanical things, and physical things. Of course doing these things requires space, and space is not in abundance in my current living situation. Which has never bothered me before, but it has been seemingly getting smaller the more projects I take on.
It turned out the solution to both of my problems closer than I thought. I had that extra space right in front of me! This trailer could still be my mobile creative space. But It will be my mobile creative maker space! The construction requirements of a workshop are far less than that of a recording studio. And there is no reason that it still couldn’t be used as a place to make music. This was the perfect solution, and the motivation I needed to finally see this project through to completion.
Beginnings of floor insulation. The beat up aluminum underneath made it difficult for the foam board to lay flush, so we weighed it down with bricks. We will probably use fiberglass batt for the walls.
The end finally in sight. Holes patched. Tail lights, electrical inlet, and door installed.
…Which brings us to today. Theres still a good deal of work to do, but the project is finally nearing completion. The electrical has been installed, the outer siding has been rebuilt and sealed, and all that remains is to insulate, sheet the walls, and put my new workshop together.
This ended up being a longer tale than I had planned it to be. I guess it was more of a saga than I realized. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!