When I got Chipmunk she was kind of battered! Poor old girl. She just needed some TLC and a little make up! LOL! The first was building the bed. Figuring out how to take the the table down and what boards go where to make up the base of the bed. I have had experience in building beds in my custom vans but they were for weekends and sometimes a week or two not every night. Off to Cosco to get a memory foam mattress and cover. Have you ever spread out a memory foam mattress?? How about in the winter time? That was no easy job. I was at my girlfriends (Kim) and her and her husband (Tom) were helping. We thought we would be smart and took it out of the package in the van. My thought was we were going to lay it on the base and it would spring open! LOL! Not exactly!!! There was not enough room in the back for the 3 of us to get on the corners and the cold was not helping. Remember…it was February in Canada! LOL! The hard way. With it half spread out we decided that in the house on the living room floor in the warmth would be a better option. So now we have to get it out of the van. Unfortunately the spare tire holder does not fold down so opening both back doors is not an option. We laughed so hard pushing and pulling and manahandling this frozen king sized piece of hard foam mattress. Finally we got it into the house and still we could not get it to unfold. Turns out we just had to wait! Then back into the van!!! Those things are HEAVY!! LOL! The bed turned out pretty well and is very Comfy!! Job well done!!
I had to decide on color. My favorite color is purple. First thing first. Bath mats for the floor to keep my feet warm. Bath mats are perfect as they have a rubberback to prevent slipping as well as 2 of them being a perfect fit down my hallway. After that first winter I had to do something with the curtains. I had taken them down and washed them but they were so worn and old and looked awful. I also discovered the wind that whistles through the windows on those cold winter nights is chilling. What I needed was insulated curtains. Now when you say domesticated I am sure you are not talking about me. I made 12 ballet costumes for my daughters dance troupe once about 25 years ago! LOL! Very simple design, had to make them twice because I cut the wrong side the first time. LOL! So you see how this is going to go. I can not buy them. They need to be custom made. This is a call my daughter situation!!! She can make and design anything! Nope I do not know how that happened but I am glad!!! Using black out material for the inside and insulated fabric material for the outside, they turned out wonderfully. We kept them tight on the back two side windows and it worked great for keeping that cool wind on the outside. Replaced the wrap arounds in the front and at the side! WOW!!! What a difference!!!
The rear windows were a different story. I needed some design help and for that we call our friend Diane. But she is not a contractor!! HAHAHA! Sorry inside joke! Together we came up with 2 pieces of styrofoam for insulation. With the doors having to open separately we needed to only insulated the windows. We wrapped them in the purple black out material and velcroed them into place. Note: NEVER use spray glue on the kitchen table!!! HAHAHA! Oh that was a clean up chore. To give it some effect I chose a picture I really like from the internet and emailed it to Walmart to put onto a canvas. We cut the canvas in half. Glued it to the panels for a most EXCELLENT effect!
She was becoming mine!