So after I spent so many horribly long hours scraping up the vinyl flooring and tile glue, I could finally get a better idea of what the floor situation was. In the front of the trailer, it looks like its in great condition. However, the back of the trailer where the water tank sat is just completely rotted out. Not only is the floor rotted, but the framing all along the bottom rear is, too. In order to replace the framing and floor, the aluminum shell needed to come off. In order to take the back piece off, we needed to take off the gold trim along the sides. Once those two things were off, it just seemed like the best thing to do was keep going and take all the shell off.
The scary thing about this trailer is that it was literally being held together with paint and caulking. The shell was hardly attached to the wood framing. Most of the nails had been completely rusted through. After taking the shell off, it felt like the trailer could fall apart at any moment so we added in a few 2x4s for bracing.
Once the shell was off, we could really get a good look at how this thing was built. It was built from the ground up meaning that the walls were sitting on top of the floor. Those walls we thought we could just replace the rotted pieces of? They’re going to be entirely re-built using the old walls as a template. Once we use those walls as a template, they’re trash. But before the new walls will go up, a new floor will go in and then the walls will be attached on top. Still with me? It’s a lot, I know.
Remember how I keep saying “there’s no way this thing could possibly get any uglier” WELL IT JUST DID.
Naked bean!
I’m so so so excited to get started on the walls, though. So far, it’s been a lot of demo and a lot of piles of trash and A LOT of insulation getting in my clothes/hair/face. I’m ready to actually start building!