As I think about the project we've undertaken, there are certainly times when it can be a bit overwhelming to think about how much we have to do...and that we signed ourselves up for this. But the real truth of the situation is that Jeremy and I are both do-it-yourselfers and take enormous pride in being able to create something. We're the guys that love it when someone says "You did all of this yourself??" Set against that backdrop and the reality that we've both tackled bigger jobs in our own house, this is less of "what have we gotten ourselves into", and more associated with the pressure of trying to get done by summer. People are watching. People want to see it done. People want to come to our tailgate. Anything short of completion, to the level that we envisioned, simply isn't an option at this point. The flop is a distant memory, we've seen the turn card, and with only the river left...we're pot committed, and even more, we're all in. Time to bring it home.
So where are we and what's new? For starters, we've made all of the final design decisions for the interior and all materials are on hand. Here's the rundown:
- The walls will be covered in two different types of laminate. One that looks like natural light wood and one that's pure black.
- The seats and cushions will all be recovered in red.
- For the floor, we're using a commercial grade roll out floor that's made for garage applications. It's dark gray.
- The ceiling and door panels which are currently white and blue vinyl will be recovered in new scarlet and gray vinyl (mostly gray).
We we able to spend a good bit of time working this weekend and made some nice progress. A few descriptions and then I'll get to the pictures.
We have been working mostly on the "infrastructure" which is utterly boring, but critical to making all the shit that everyone cares about work...power, audio/video wiring, storage for our gear, etc. So most of this has been centered on the back cabinet where all of our big stuff will be stored. This includes the EZ-up tent, tables, cornhole and chairs. We ripped it all out and put in new side walls, a new floor, and prepped by pulling all the wiring that will feed the back entertainment wall. As of now, it's the closet thing to finished we have on Carmen. See below:
Some wiring still needs to be cleaned up here
This is the left wall of the picture above. The compartment will be totally closed, so we need some light. The little receiver with the antenna is for the backup camera and will send the signal to the cab
The other big project from this weekend, was recovering the ceiling panels. To be honest, we weren't sure how these were going to turn out, but damn if we didn't nail it. They've yet to be installed, but take a look at the pics below and you'll see what I mean. We bought all new replacement lights as well so everything on the ceiling will look brand new.
This is almost the exact layout as it will look on the ceiling. The holes were all originally for lights and we bought new ones, but we'll also add two speakers in the ceiling. Take a look at some of the original posts and you'll see how huge of an improvement this is!
A couple of speakers and lights dry-fitted. Gonna be awesome...
I also spent some time today working on REALLY boring stuff like getting a couple of the storage compartment locks and latches to work where they had been previously been non-operational (due mostly to rust). During this project, I had a helper...
Bottom line, we have an ass load of stuff to do, but we're getting into that stage where every time we work we have really cool results when we're done. The budget is pretty well contained as of now and won't take anymore hits until we move to the cab and outside. But she's making progress!
Until next time (which incidentally I hope is less than 4 weeks from now)...
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