Solo women's studio and home on wheels

[Caroline57]

Its about time I update this, its been a little over a month and a half. I had a huge delay in profess after going over my bike handles during a triathlon. I fractured my elbow and was in a cast for a little bit and had to be really easy on it for a while, but now I'm fully recovered with just a few small scars! I have been working like crazy for the last few weeks. I removed everything from the rear, except the rear air conditioner which I'm borrowing a pipe cutter to remove this coming weekend. I have sanded down a lot of the rust and repainted, not all of it but its progress. I removed the step thing from the entrance to the side doors and repainted so it looks new. The mossstttttt exciting thing I've been working on is my mural on the side doors    Im painting it with rustoleum paint to get a long lasting and super shiny look. After painting with good quality oil paints for my whole life, its defiantly not the easiest to work with, but I'm happy with the way that its turning out. I hope to finish at least the right side door this week. Im hoping to update this more regularly in the future, getting injured just threw me off my schedule.

 

[Queen]

Well now, that is just about nine different kinds of cool!!!

 

[Caroline57]

Well now, that is just about nine different kinds of cool!!!

Thank you! You can tell stealth isn't really my first priority... Haha

 

[janncoo]

Beautiful.  Jan

 

[ilovemyvan]

This is so cool. It's beautiful.

Nicole

 

[Caroline57]

Thank you! Here's a picture after today's work. I just had a neighbor come up and talk to me about painting a mural in her granddaughters room. It's might not be stealthy but it's really good advertisement!

 

[Almost There]

Wow, just wow!!

Nice work!

 

[Patrick46]

Very Cool Work!!

Moar...MOAR!!!

 

[Caroline57]

Thanks everyone. Its suppose to stop raining so I can finish tomorrow, the weathers been annoying this last week, but the right side door is almost done.

 

[Gary68]

nice work,i second if your going plywood go marine,i built concrete foundations and thats what we used and it held up much better than normal plywood but light it is not
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/marine-plywood-vs-regular-plywood#b

we used the stuff with a protective veneer

 

[NomadMike]

WOW! That is some very nice artistic work Caroline. You are a very talented person!

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

I love it, it's fun watching progress. I don't do stealth very well either.

 

[Caroline57]

I love it, it's fun watching progress. I don't do stealth very well either.

Thank you! Yeah stealth just seems boring right? I love your etsy shop, I guess we both have a thing for butterflies!

 

[Caroline57]

WOW! That is some very nice artistic work Caroline. You are a very talented person!

Thank you!

 

[Caroline57]

the right door is done, I took all the tape off, but I can't decide what I want to do with the door handle section. Its just the original silver of my van. Now I just have to do the left door. Which will be quicker because its smaller.



We also drilled holes in my van roof tonight, to mark where it needs to be cut tomorrow



And then tarped it for the night

 

[Almost There]

the right door is done, I took all the tape off, but I can't decide what I want to do with the door handle section. Its just the original silver of my van. Now I just have to do the left door. Which will be quicker because its smaller.

Looking wonderful!!

If it were me, I'd fill in the door handle with the butterfly pattern since it's paint, not chrome!

 

[highdesertranger]

I would also paint it. looking good. highdesertranger

 

[Caroline57]

Okay so update- I cut my roof off, for the most part. I took a video of the whole process and eventually I will edit it and make into a sped up version of the whole roof process just for something cool to look back on, and maybe share it. unfortunately because I did video tape the whole process I didn't really take any pictures. But I have a few. First we drilled the holes in the corners just so we could tell where the corners of the frame were. Then I marked a giant square on top of the van using the holes as a guide. I did this with that chalk line stuff. This was wiped away almost entirely within 20 minutes of working and was of no use anyways. I used an air chisel to cut the roof. Which was really easy after I got the hang of it, unfortunately it took about a third of the roof to get the hang of it. So the last 2/3 of it were great. I cut almost the whole roof off. I left the whole section Above the drives and passenger section but other than that around the edges I left about 2 inches of actual top, which leaves the whole outer frame exposed. My brother really sucked at using the air chisel so it being Friday night, he left and went to go to a party, so I cut most the roof off by myself. I now spend my Friday nights alone, using power tools, what has my life come too? After cutting the rectangle around the roof the next day we went from underneath and cut the frame supports. These were very rough cuts, because it was a small space and awkward angle. To clean up all the edges tomorrow I will be using an angle grinder with a metal cutting blade. I cut it so close to the frame for two reasons. I wanted the frame exposed because its flat and I plan on bolting down boards to it in a rectangle around the whole open space, and also the metal roof strip that is still left around the outside is not big enough to cover the frame but big enough to be flattened and pounded down to meet the edge of the frame, sealing it off. I hope this all makes sense, I’m not a words person and I’m not good at explaining things.  I had thought about leaving the back support beam across the back but my brother said I should just cut it out and build a flat wooden bean across and make a shelf and it would do the same thing. Here is a mediocre picture of the roof off so far. 



Also, on the right side door with the butterfly painting I lined the rim around the window white. I painted (mostly) the back doors of the van light blue, the same color as the background of my mural. But the back doors are plain light blue and around the windows and such white trimmed. But this isn't completely done yet. For the butterflies on the right side door I just free hand drew on the van with pencil and painted over it, but as i wanted the left door to be a perfect mirror, I placed newsprint paper over it and tranced the butterfly Then i cut out a stencil of it, flipped it over and traced it back onto the left door. Then painted the black parts of the butterfly and filled in the color. Im pretty happy with how similar the shape is. 

 

[highdesertranger]

I have got my popcorn and I am watching this one. highdesertranger

 

[Queen]

You are fearless, Caroline! This is just wonderful, I'm with hdr, watching with interest.