We've had this Scamp for around 9 months and just haven't gotten out in it like we had hoped. It had no AC so we weren't going anywhere this summer! We're getting ready to head to South Dakota next week for the rally so I had to get it ready to go! All of the doors and table have had laminate applied with a funky 50's pattern and color. We love it. A neighbor made new cushions for us and I just got done sewing curtains yesterday. I actually have one more to do over the stove but that won't take too long. Thought I'd throw up some pictures for those that are interested. Can't wait to take it out now.

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That's cool! It reminds me of my mother-in-law's old kitchen, although her's was done in pink and gray.

CindyL

Awesome work Bryan... Love the color.

I want that look for my Fiber Stream!

oooh that looks GREAT! However, can I caution you against putting a curtain over the stove? The way the walls curve the curtain hangs straight down... pretty dang close to the stove burners. Maybe frosted contact paper would be a better idea? You can even get it with a "stained glass" look something to compliment your color choices.

Thanks for sharing

Have to agree with everything Donna has said....Love the colors,Great work .......But PLEASE RETHINK the curtain over the stove.

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't see a curtain over a stove, just one over a sink that appears to be across from the stove. In any case, a curtain over a stove is a bad idea, but I just don't see that in these pictures.

Great job on the updates! I know how satisfying it can be when the work is done and you can appreciate your efforts! Thanks for sharing.

I agree that you should be careful about a curtain over the stove. In fact the Trilliums have frosted glass in their above-stove windows (which it took some time to dawn on me why that was - who needs privacy when cooking, I was thinking to myself )

Frosted contact paper is a great idea

Looking good, Bryan!

Thanks everyone. Don't worry, I am not going to start my little egg on fire! The "curtain" over the stove will actually be similar to what I did over the door window since there is no rod there. I made a piece that was the same shape as the window and then sewed some of those Neodynium magnets in to it and epoxied some of those same magnets on the frame of the window to hold it in place. I plan on leaving them off during the day and only using them at night.

Frederick, the laminate was from Lowes. It was fairly time consuming but we are really happy with it. The sewing was actually a lot of fun. My wife told me, "I don't know if you knew this when you married me, but I don't sew." I couldn't bear to do another night with towels hanging over the curtain rods so it was time to learn!

Bryan,

Was the laminate special order? My Lowes doesn't have anything of the sort. It looks wonderful.

Bonnie,

It was a special order but they did have a little sample piece of it there along with a few other funky colors. It took less than two weeks for it to show up at the store. This is the one I have.

http://www.formica.com/publish/site/na/us/...LargeImage.html

Ok Bryan,
I'm gonna have to teach you how guys sew when confronted with these situations.
I actually learned this trick from an ol veteran seamstress who said the pros use this quite a bit especially for curtains. The Glue Gun. We did all the curtains in our house five years ago after she gave us the tip and you can't tell from adam they're not sewn.
My wife and I did all the curtains for the Scamp in about 10 minutes with a glue gun almost three years ago and they're still going strong.
If you can move your arm in a reasonably straight line, you can learn how to make glue gun curtains. You'll never look sideways at a needle and thread again.

Greg,

Just curious, but do the glued "seams" bend the same as sewn cloth? Like say if you are pushing a curtain aside to open it, and you want it to gather up at the side of the window?

Also, do you glue through both layers of a hem at once? I'm thinking of how you turn the fabric under twice (say, on the bottom hem) so that there is not a raw edge. Does it glue right through, or....?

oops, my bad, I guess I did miss something

Your projects look great Bryan! And just think we get to see them in person next week! Keep up the great work! Robin

Nice job, Bryan! It looks so clean and updated although retro. Way to go.

Raya,
There is no difference between a sewed seam or a glue gun seam either in appearance or operation, except of course the time difference between the two.

You do it exactly as you would if you were sewing it. If you want a bottom hem you glue the foldover first just as you would if you sewed it, then glue your final fold. There are different techniques for different type of fabrics, but there are for sewing as well.

In our trailer we bought blackout panels from LnT which had the same top and bottom seamed channel so we could cut in the middle and the curtain rod channel was already done for both. Then all we had to do was glue up the bottom seams. The glue tacks quickly so the curtains go right up.

Try it, you'll never go back....

Greg,

Thanks for the additional info.

Raya

PS: For anyone else who's wondering, I Googled "LnT" and it's Linens N Things.

Ok Greg, you have peaked my interest......................... ( I can be such a lazy Daisy!) What kinda glue gun glue are you using? Cause the stuff I have used for craft projects gets really hard, I can't imagine it would hold together threw washings. Please tell, is there a special hot glue gun for fabric? Thanks Robin






After thinking about Greg's easy sewing solution, I had a light bulb moment! (their few and far between) but anyway, I wonder if you couldn't use hem tape (iron on kind)? hmmmmm, see I can so be a lazy daisy! . I have used it on a bed skirt I made, and it's held up really well. Plus on a pair of jeans I bought that the minute I washed them they shrunk to high-water so I cut them off for shorts and hemmed them with hem tape and I figured I would get a couple of washings out of them then have to break down and pull out the sewing machine, but they have held up all summer long! Thanks Greg for kicking in my light bulb ideas. But I would still love to know about the type of glue you used.

Robin,

We just use the glue gun from the Depot. The Glue sticks are Arrow Superpower for fabrics/leather/woodworking etc. Mi Esposa, says that unless they've changed the hem tape in the last few years it did not work anywhere near as well as the glue gun.

As for Washings, we can't attest one way or another since, we've never washed the drapes in our house or trailer. However, if it did cause any issue it would only take seconds to tack it back.

I know you can use hem tape for curtains as half of the web sites I visited used it. I really don't think the sewing is that much harder or longer than the tape or the glue. You still have to measure, cut iron the hem twice and the sewing was easy after all of that. Backwards, forward all the way, back, forward, snip, and done.

Greg, c'mon. You think I'm gonna use some type of glue when I can use a machine that plugs in with a motor, a foot pedal, has lots of switches and dials, and a sharp needle that goes up and down really fast and could poke right through my finger? I'm going for the machine!

Speaking of guys sewing, my wife found it amusing that I used a tape measure for measuring as opposed to a yardstick or flexible tape measure. She said, "I guess it's what you're used to."

LOL. Well from the way ur wife responded to you about sewing I had no idea you owned any kind of an expensive sewing machine. As long as the sewing machine is a Binford with 3000+ rpms and you can growl while using it I'm all for it.

Great retro color you chose... Back in the day, my mom used to call it robin's egg blue. Cheerful and peaceful at the same time. Excellent idea with the magnets for the curtain over the stove. Should be much less conspicuous during the day than velcro patches, and easy to use. Congrats, and enjoy.
Sherry

I have had bad luck with velcro, so I too am going to start gluing magnets to the things. They work great!

True! did think about that!. I will have to check for fabric hot glue gun, glue. I am sure it's more pliable than the craft hot glue stick. Thanks, I just may have to give it a try.



Hem tape, oh yea they changed it, since the last time I used it in High School, that stuff wouldn't have sealed a paper bag. But this new stuff............... It's tough! And as I said the jeans I cut off have held up threw a bunch of washings and the hem hasn't even started to come loooooooose.

Hey Bryan

Very sharp! I really like the roof vent (skylight) and the wood trimming. Are they all that big in the scamps or is this a mod?

Cheers: Jeff

Brian, what type of material did you use for your curtains? We are missing 2 for our Trillium & I want to get a new set made up for all of our windows.

Thanks,
Paul

I'm not Bryan, but I can answer your question, Scamp puts larger roof vents in the rear dinette area of all of their trailers. If you want a vent with a fantastic fan, then you get 2 roof vents.

Hi Bryan

Your Trailer looks great !
I was wanting to do the same to my cupboard doors and especially my table.
But I am concerned because I have never put a laminate/arborite top on anything !
What do you cut it with, what kind of saw?
What did you use for edging around the table? Where do they sell it?
Is there a trick to applying the pc of laminate with the contact cement?
The guy at the home depot said I would have to use dowels and he really was not making sense.
Please help, my table is very ugly (brown and scratched )

thanks

-Darren

Love the colors-great job-you`ll enjoy it.
We went to S. Dakota in June-10 day trip-beautiful country-spent many nights in WalMart lots-but did stay in campgrounds every so often we could shower and wash clothes. Had a great time and are wanting to go somewhere-anywhere-again soon.
Love our little Compact Jr.-cozy and easy to tow-fixing it up with new curtains, putting in new carpet, new refrigerator-just dressing it up-hope to post pictures if I can figure it out.
Mrs. C

Half of the neighborhood that was built in the mid 50's where I grew up in Southern California had that Formica pattern called "Boomerang." I believe that it was resurrected years back because I remember seeing it as a newly added pattern some time ago.

Very nice work, Bryan, and thanks for sharing.

Dang, where have I been on this post? So many unanswered questions. How rude!

The fabric is just from Joann Fabric. They are really stiff so I need to wash them once and see if they loosen up a bit.

The laminate was pretty easy to put on. Remove all of the doors and hardware. Label where they go both on the door and the trailer. Measure and cut (I used a circular saw with a fine blade) the pieces about two inches bigger in all directions so you have some wiggle room. Apply contact cement to both surfaces and let it dry for 15 minutes. You can pick them up and handle them and they will not be sticky but once they touch, they're stuck together. The guy talking about the dowels was saying that you lay dowels across the cabinet face and then lay the laminate on top of the dowels. Then you remove one dowel at a time and work your way down the board. I just laid the laminate on top with careful planning. Actually, dropping the cabinet door on top of the laminate would be easier than dropping the laminate on the door. Easier to see what you are doing that way.

I then ran them all through my router with a straight-edge bit with a bushing that ran along the outside edge of the cabinet. Since the edge of the cabinet is curved, there will still be about 1/4 inch of laminate sticking "over" the cabinet. To get rid of this I put a straight-edge router bit in to my router table with it sticking up above the surface the same thickness as the laminate. I adjusted the fence so that it would cut off only the scrap and not the wood edge. This was probably the trickiest part. I just stained the cabinet edges with black stain when I was done. It went right over the brown.

Maybe I need to draw some pictures!

Honestly, without a router, I have no idea how you would do this.


Richard, I would love to see some pictures of your trailer. We went to South Dakota several weeks ago for our first big trip. We are planning on going to Independence, KS this next week as we have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series to our two boys so we're going to go there and look at the recreated cabin from when they were there. It's a good excuse to use the camper. We also might go look at Big Brutus, the largest all-electric shovel while we're down there.