Today: Camp-site landing edge boards painted, Galley sink replaced with one in tomato-soup red, Winterizing checks on butyl tape edge seals.
We have a small deck-like landing out of our dining room door onto the south side of the house, with two steps. In the bright sun of summer, the step edges visually merge with the non-step parts and becomes a fall hazard. DW bought some deck paint in a contrasting color from the clearance rack. $9 for a gallon of this stuff, Rustoleum sanded deck and concrete paint, normally at least in the $30s.
With lots left over, I added some water to thin it enough for brush work, and slopped it on the previously mentioned 30-odd year-old red-wood deck boards we salvaged from their date with the landfill.
Just yesterday, we picked up three 5 gallon buckets of quality brand interior paint in three different tones of neutral colors for $15 a bucket! That's less than $4 a gallon, even if one has only 3 gallons, and another has only 4 gallons, which while lifting them, felt as if some was missing from two of them. Those went right to DD's house, which is getting some realtor friendly paint changes. You really need to check out those "oops shelves" at the home center!
After drying, I took the boards down to "The Pines" and set them nearby for install later, after DSIL picks up Tow-Mater this evening.
But before he picked up the trailer I wanted to change out the sink. I got the Tomato-soup-red sink basin out of Ta-Ton-Ka, cleaned things up and checked sizing.
The phone camera lens throws off the visual, but the two sinks are exactly the same size.
Yeah, that will work. So now we have that extra flesh color, or maybe pastel-peach color sink basin for Fairweather June's bathroom!
The job was easy and quick, just had to pull the icebox and the basin retainer fasteners, a bit-o-plumbing.
With winter coming, I had been looking (from the ground) at the edge molding and had noticed what looked like some gaps opening up on some of the areas of butyl. So I got the ladder and checked screws, which I see as a routine maintenance item, at least every Spring and Fall.
I discovered most of the gaps were simply irregularities in the exact overlap of two or more layers of the thin butyl tape during installation. So sealing was still looking excellent!
But I hadn't ever really come back and set all the screws by hand, necessarily, so I did that, all over the trailer. And believe me, that was MUCH faster and easier than doing the same on a large RV!
So some screws came in a little, some were fine, some butyl was still awesome, and some squeezed just a bit more. All in all, it ended up looking wonderful, especially considering some of those areas we got fixed up right?
Like this kind of spot? The epoxy patches are looking pretty good too!
Note in this photo - this is the bottom edge of the bunk-over floor. Originally the manufacturer had installed the molding up-side down from how I did, so there was a sort of dam on the top part of it, rather than the rain-gutter type profile seen here.
My install method improves things by not only providing a sort of water run off channel, so it isn't dripping as much on your head right there, but allows water, after hitting the wall, to fall off faster and easier, instead of pooling like it used to do. In turn, that saves this more critical intrusion area from that evil water monster!
Additionally, there were still about seven open screw holes on the back wall. I guess when I had been working that area, I took them out to manipulate the rear wall sheet metal, and the backer board, which was ONLY held by them, fell inside, and now doesn't line up with the holes. So I filled the holes with a big enough screw to pull two pieces of sheet metal tight to each other, which is the same way most tail and clearance lights attach too. If those don't hold well in future, I might design an interior "something or other" to act as the backer-board for the spots.
With the trailer tilted slightly back from level, the roof runoff should be adequate, and the wind is all briefed and awaiting its task of keeping snowfall blown off too.
Tow-Mater is ready for winter! Well except for that one trip coming up. :)
