i've made a bit of progress on this that i wanted to document, and i am also seeking a few suggestions for practical design ideas.
first off, i finished mostly gutting the trailer several months ago. it all went pretty smoothly. the only things i have left in place are the interior wall just aft of the door (immediately on your left when you walk in), and the storage cabinet/upper bunk just aft of said interior wall. as of right now, i don't see a reason to remove either of those in order to complete the renos i'm working on but we'll see as this progresses.
i ran into a problem when i got down to the floor though. my dad was over and suggested that, based on the year the trailer was made, the linoleum might be made of asbestos. my heart sank because i thought that would basically make it a major health hazard to pull the stuff up. just to be sure though, i sent a small sample to a local company and had them test it, and yup -- 40% asbestos. i was bummed.
but the more i thought about it, the less concerned i became. the primary danger of asbestos is inhaling it, and unless you are grinding or sanding the linoleum, you are not going to be turning it into any measurable amount of airborne particles. i decided that wearing an N95 particulate mask while pulling the linoleum up was sufficiently safe.
also of note is that several hours of non-airborne asbestos exposure won't kill anyone. it takes many cumulative hours of high grade exposure (like asbestos mine workers had, way back when) to have any effect. this also helped me to feel comfortable removing the linoleum myself.
anyway, once i was comfortable with the idea, the next step was to figure how to remove the stubborn stuff. i looked on youtube and saw lots of people using way too much effort and questionable techniques. eventually though, i came across a few vids of people using wallpaper steamers to remove linoleum, and it looked like it worked well.
so today, i FINALLY got around to renting a steamer and giving it a shot. it went well. because someone had put 'peel n' stick' linoleum tiles on top of the old linoleum, this wound up being a 3 step job: 1 - remove the tiles, 2 - remove the linoleum, 3 - remove the paper under the linoleum. the tiles came up super easy. the linoleum and the paper are a bit harder but the trick is to let the steamer sit for longer on stubborn spots -- work smarter, not harder, haha.
another trick was using an exacto knife to cut the linoleum and paper into strips only as wide as the steamer's face. this made it easier to pull up the entire strip without moving the steamer up and down, with one spot cooling while the other one warmed up.
i spent between 3-4 hours on it today and had to take a few breaks because my back was getting sore but i got the first and second steps done, and am halfway through removing the paper. i'll finish the paper tomorrow. i've attached a few pics. you can see the tiles in one corner, the linoleum in a bag, and the paper in another pile. the paper and linoleum will have to be disposed of at a special dump that deals with asbestos. do NOT take it to your regular dump or you'll be fined, big time. that's how it is around here, anyway.
now on with my questions.
1) what should i do with the floor? i don't want to put down any kind of flooring that is going to a) hide rot issues on the plywood floor, and b) be a pain to pull up in the future if it does end up rotting out. i am thinking about simply
painting it, possibly with a rubberized undercoating type
paint, but am definitely looking for suggestions.
2) what should i do with the walls? most of the door skin under the
windows was water damaged all to hell, i don't want to replace it because the stuff seems to get wrecked the second it gets wet. i want something more forgiving, and hopefully something that won't hide
leaks. i have no idea what i could use though.