The Work Begins

After a bit of haggling I bought a caravan. As with anything, it is worth checking and double checking what you are actually buying. I have bought a caravan in the past but back then I had the help of a man who knew all there was to know about caravans. We settled on a Royal Tour Ranger, which lasted us a while and is now pitched on a friend's small holding looking as good as ever. After buying our latest model an old aluminium number, we brought it back home and began to give it a real god look over. It didn't take long to notice that one side of it was absolutely soaking wet. The timber was like a sponge. I hadn't really looked that hard when buying it. Usually you can smell the damp. The only thing to do was look on the bright side and begin the deconstruction process. With the help of my two young lads, we began stripping out the fixings. They were nice but not brilliant. A sad wood laminate, which was peeling off and they were also quite cumbersome. I bit the bullet and decided to do a total rebuild inside. After much unscrewing of panels I finally exposed one wall, which on inspection was black, mouldy and wet. It looked like the damage had been done via leaking window seals. The water had made its way along the walls side to side an downwards. After cutting out most of the rot, I gave it a spray with mould and mildew killer. I have removed the old seals and opened the windows to allow as much of it to dry out as possible. After searching online for similar projects I was energised by what I saw. The plan now is to strip the rest of the interior out, expose the floor and try to repair most of the water damage. My basic idea is to fit it all out in new ply panels and then to overlay those either with wallpaper or with tongue and groove. From experience, wood seems to attract mould so wallpaper might just be the final decision. I have to check the electrics and water system next. There are quite a few wires hanging about where I stripped out the furniture. I am in two minds as to whether or not I paint the outside. At the moment it doesn't look too bad. I am not sure whether to strip out the windows either and reseal them all. The mastic around them at the moment is messy.

I will be uploading some photos as I go along. Meanwhile here are a couple of caravans, which caught my eye.