This week I finally took the plunge and bought a very old, very needy 1966 Glendale travel trailer.
I have named her Penelope after a 1950's house wife character that I created for a series of skits in my ministry videos. I paid $775.00 for Penelope which is actually quite cheap for a vintage trailer in any state, because they sell for unreasonable amounts of money in any condition. So I am happy with my purchase. The inside is a disaster, but thats ok, I am only keeping the roof, and the appliances. The rest of it will be repanelled in birch, and upholstered, refloored, reglazed, and refinished.
If you would like to see my progress on Penelope, then feel free to follow along. My plan is to re-do her over about a year and a half period of time. The exterior repair and paint this summer, and then the interior rebuild over the winter, with plans to head to a vintage trailer rally for my 50th birthday year. Does that make me vintage too? lol..
Here is Penelope in all her nasty glory…
Here is a view from the left
side. The skin is in reasonable shape. Hopefully with automotive filler and elbow grease I will be
able to save most of it.
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| Rear view and left side |
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| Right side view |
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| Add caption |
The interior has terrible old panelling painted dark blue. It doesn't matter though because all the panelling needs to be replaced with birch anyway, because of the water damage.
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| Rear bed |
Here is the kitchen. I will be refacing the upper cabinets, and rebuilding the lower one completely in new birch. The appliances will be sprayed with epoxy to change them to a deep red and I am hoping to find a little enamel sink, and stove hood that I can have done to match. I can always get a stove hood built by a metal factory. There will be a "quilted" stainless backsplash when I am done. And three cupboards instead of one.
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| Kitchen |
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| Upper kitchen cabinets. |
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| front window |
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| Rear bed and furnace where closet goes |
On the original trailer, there was a light in the centre where there is a cabinet door. I am going to find a replacement one that looks cool.
There should be a little closet where the furnace is. Not sure why it was ripped out, but the old outline is still on the ceiling so I will build a new one the original size.
Penelope is still sitting in the old owners yard. We went to pick her up today and the lights wouldn't work. I had to laugh, it's a typical start to a project like this.
Hopefully we will pick her up in a few days, and tarp her over until the weather breaks. Then she will go in my front yard and the teardown will begin.
