I started papering the inside a couple of days ago, but following the recommendations online I have had to redo it. The advice appeared to be to seal the ply with PVA glue and then to use premix paste on the boards, I just ended up with too many air bubbles and ripples in it. I'm not the best at hanging wallpaper, but I normally do a better job.

So  I stripped it off this morning and redid it this afternoon, doing it the old way, bucket of water and make your own paste in a packet. Hey presto, a lot better looking

I looked for a paper that was similar to what was already up,  but there was nothing suitable so having looked at all the options, including blinds etc, we have decided on going for the pale browns that were already there, but accenting it with purple/aubergine. While looking through B&Q I came across the above paper that covers all the colours and also goes well with the oak of the cabinets.

While waiting for the paper to dry I decided to start work on the cabinet that holds the fridge, the original one was rotten and I couldn't salvage it. Looking at its construction though I appeared to be strip wood with a think oak plywood on the front, I couldn't get a thin oak faced ply but Beers sell oak strip wood the right width to make the cabinet with. This means that I don't need to worry about facing it with anything.

The cabinet is being held together using polyurethane glue, that way I don't need to worry about nail holes or screw heads.  For something like this, you really need a lot of clamps until the glue dries.

 

Its been a week since my last update, I was away for the weekend so lost a couple of days working on her, plus had man flu for a couple of days so progress was slow, however I've managed to reline the inside of the main door, built the new walls for the bathroom and starting construction on the bed. I've also striped half the wallpaper off ready for papering next week.

   

The door was a pain to dismantle and redo, but it looks a lot better than it was

Widget was keeping an eye on my work :)

Most of the cupboard that housed the fridge was rotten, you can see the only bit that remains, next weeks job is to rebuild it out of oak stripwood

One of the other tasks I've managed to complete was fitting new reading lights and down lighters, plus wiring them all in.  The down lighters are 1.8W based LEDs that throw a huge amount of light out, I'm going to use them in the bathroom and also the front room, bedroom and also the hall. I'll take some photos next week when its dark showing how much light they give out.

After a couple of days hard graft the rear of Kitty is now complete and all glued, all the new panels are in and everything is screwed/glued together.

I had to take the rear window out to put the new panel in and I'm glad I did as it would appear that there is no sealant around the window, I suspect this is the case for all the windows, so I'll add that to my list of things to do when I seal her back up.

I won't be able to work on her for a couple of days, but the first task next week will be to prepare the walls by striping the wallpaper off, then while she is drying out as I'll use the steamer, I'll build the new walls for the bathroom and remount the door and assemble the frame for the bed.

My goal by the end of next week is to have the bathroom built and her redecorated inside. I'll be visiting the chandlers tomorrow and will hopefully pick up 7 new LED downlighters, they are only 1.8w but put out a huge amount of light, way more than the 8w fluorescent tubes that were installed on her. I'll also take a look at their reading/spot lights and see if there is anything that would be better than the 10w ones that she already has. 

I finished the front off yesterday and today, you can see the 4 new panels that I put in, I'll also insulated behind the front panel using the proper insulation and the new floor section is bonded in place.

I reglued the furniture yesterday and clamped it together allowing it to dry overnight, an hour or so this morning and hey-presto, the front is back together ready for decorating. I'll be papering the walls sometime next week and replacing the plastic edging strips with some oak ones that I picked up from Beers they were only a couple of quid for an 8ft length, bargain.

Now that the furniture is back in at the front I can finish off the rear and start building the new bathroom and bed.  As you know I've already replaced the floor in the rear so all that is left is to do is fix the last of the rotten timbers and then cover the foam with new ply, then I can build the bathroom and remake the cupboard for the fridge.

One of the side timbers at the rear was further gone than I had realised, I poked it with a screwdriver and it felt spongy all the way up. I decided to take off the edging strip and remove all the staples etc so I could replace the timber easier.  You can see day light in the seam in the following photos where the seam has been separated:

 

In the following photo the black stuff you can see is the timber or what is left of it, all I had to do was split the seam and poke a screwdriver in and it all fell out, completely rotten.

I've cut the new timber to go in and I'll fit it tomorrow as I'll need to get some more sealant/adhesive from the Caravan shop.

I decided to work on the front of the caravan now that the floor in the rear is fixed, I haven't repanelled the rear yet as I'll do that once I've finished the front as it gives me somewhere to store the furniture from the front.

The furniture came out more or less in one piece, some of the glue has perished over the years and also some of the smaller support timbers have rotted where they have been in contact with the damp so I'll replace those and also glue them when I reinstall them.

You can see from the photo that the right had side has suffered the worst, it appears that a repair has been made in the past, but as the leak wasn't fixed it just rotted the repair, also the repair that was done to the floor was done incorrectly, they had use wood between the upper and lower pieces of plywood. The foam is there for three reasons, the main reason is its lighter than wood, it also acts as insulation and finally it acts as a vapour barrier stopping water bridging the two layers of ply.

Below is a diagram showing the floor construction

Looking at the water stains on the ply I suspect one of the windows is leaking. I'm going to fix all the interior problems before resealing the roof and rails, the reason I've decided to do it this way is because the support timbers have rotted and I don't want the structure to fail,

I ordered some more glue for the floor and while waiting for it to arrive I decided to strip the inside of the door, below shows the amount of rot in the bottom of each panel.

The new floor is laid in the rear and bonded in place. You can also see the new door frame is in and the aluminium frame is remounted.

I decided to replace the edging for the floor with hardwood as opposed to softwood, I know that if the caravan is sealed properly then the softwood shouldn't get damp etc, but having used hardwood on the boat I saw it as a no brainer.

I picked up the hardwood and also the plywood from Beers Timber, where I always get my timber. I couldn't have rebuilt Sabrina without them due to the cost that some timber merchants charge for hardwood.

If you are in the Northwest and are looking for timber then pop in, they have several branches:

Beers Timber & Building Supplies, 
Darlingtons Industrial Estate, 
Chester Road, 
Gayton, 
Wirral, 

You can see the first section of floor in place, the ply is glued to the support timber using Gorilla Glue, a waterproof wood glue.

You can see the first piece of foam dry fitted:

I had problems finding replacement foam locally but managed to find some on Ebay, you can't use the normal insulation from places like B&Q, you need the close tolerance stuff. I picked mine up from Coleshill from a firm that seem to do insulation for everything. I can thoroughly recommend them if you are stuck for foam for your own project:

DAWN CARROLL

Unit 2 Roman Way Coleshill West Midlands B46 1HG United Kingdom  carroll.d@btinternet.com    http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/eatingrose789rugby/ Once I'd cut the side piece out it was time to start striping the rear, I planned to remove 31cms of lower ply, 45 of foam and 60 of the upper ply so the laminate created has an over hang of at least 6"

Once I'd chopped the floor and cut the foam it was time to bond it in place, I bought my resin from The Glue People and spoke to the Managing Director Richard who suggested I use their EM400 resin, I ordered 6.5KG of it which as it turns out is about half of what I needed.  They can be located at

http://www.thegluepeople.co.uk

The EM400 mixes like most 2 pack products, but as opposed to Epoxy resin that I'm used to it is more like a cream, very easy to apply, although if you were mixing by hand it will take some time. I bought a cheap food mixer from Tescos and used that, then threw it out, the completed lower layers of the floor is looking good:

Tomorrow I'll cut the top pieces of ply and dry fit those while I wait for the next batch of glue to arrive and I'll also rebuild the door frame and seal it back in place. The rear of the caravan has its strength back so I can sort the cracked aluminium above the door out at the same time.

I'd been thinking about what what to do about the rot in the floor, I the problem was mainly with the top layer of 9mm ply, but some of the lower ply also had rot in the end grain.

After much uming and ahing I decided just to chop it out, its what I did with the boat so decided it would be the best option.  I've chopped it all back to good timber and where possible to a chassis support, I then plan to cut the foam back at least 6 inches to create and overlap for the bonding.

I had a couple of hours spare today so decided it was time to clean the roof of Kitty, the wind got up and temperature dropped so I gave up after doing half of it. You can see the difference below, I'd done 1/4 by this time, I'll finish it off early next week if the weather improves.

First afternoon of striping, the whole of the rear end appears to be suffering from damp and rot, so much so that some of the timbers are actually sodden. I'm amazed she didn't fall apart on the way home to be honest, it does explain the cracks above the door as the rear support timbers that hold the side to the chassis and the chassis end timbers have rotted to nothing.

You can see the rear of the caravan below, where the bathroom was, I'll have to replace about 1/4 of the top layer of the floor and about a 30 cm strip of the lower floor.  Looking at the cost of exterior ply compared to marine ply I may as well get a sheet of marine ply and use that.

I still haven't worked out where she is leaking from, I have a feeling its something to do with the roof and/or the side rails. I need to figure it out and seal it before I fully fix the interior for obvious reasons, however she needs to dry out before I can start work on the rebuild.

The door frame had rotted to almost nothing:

You can see through the floor here where the door frame was:

I'm hoping to have the back end sorted by the end of the week, fingers crossed!

Woohoo, I picked Kitty up today and brought her home.  What a trip. I went to Halfords first thing to get some towing mirrors and a breakaway cable for the brakes. While heading to Grindleford I realised that I had forgotten the double sided tape to hold the number plate on so stopped off at Glossop Caravans.

I hooked her up, fitted the breakaway cable and headed off, absolutely terrified to be honest, having never towed anything  before it was an adventure. I'd planned my route, avoiding the A6, basically going over Snake Pass (A57) and through Glossop, I'm glad I did, don't think I could have coped with the A6.

I got home without incident and then 30 mins or so of man handling she is now on the drive, over the weekend I'll start striping her out and getting reading to fix the damp.  From what I have seen most of the internal screws have rusted, I assume from the general damp in her so I'll WD40 them to aid their removal and then replace them with Stainless ones so it won't be a problem going forward. I'm hoping to have her finished by the end of March.