Airstream Remodel Episode 6: And after all, you’re my wonder…
WALLS.
Putting up walls is the turning point I have been looking forward to most since we began the renovation. When we picked up Pauline, she had already been stripped, so I’ve never seen her with walls up.
A reminder of how she looked when we got Pauline
Every step up until this point was laying the foundation, improving the structure, so that once we put up the walls, Lord willing, we will never have to take them down again. This is also the point where most of the renovation work still to be done becomes more familiar. We’ve painted, installed light fixtures, done minor plumbing, etc. before, so while I am sure that those tasks will be more challenging in an Airstream, at least it’s not entirely uncharted territory. But before we get to any of that, we have to get the walls up, which turns out to be a lot like trying to reassemble an airplane after it crash-landed in a pile of mud.
The interior walls of an Airstream are just vinyl-covered aluminum sheets called “skins”. For installation, you rivet the skins into the aluminum ribs along the walls/ceiling. Each piece has to go in exactly the right place in order for everything to fit together. This was challenging for a host of reasons.
They were all covered in a thick layer of dirt from what I will assume is years of sitting outside.
In some places, the panels overlap by a foot or more. In others, there’s barely a 2” overlap, so it’s hard to match up the dimensions.
It appears that the bathroom had a second layer of wall panels with a truly psychedelic pattern on the vinyl, which threw us for a minute since it clearly had a cut-out for a window, but all the windows had already been accounted for in other panels.
When we were laying out the panels, we were trying to imagine that the Airstream had been cut down the center of the roof and laid out flat, which works great for the sides, but becomes more difficult in the curved areas at the front and back.
It may sound like I’m complaining, but I promise I’m not. Fortunately, I LOVE puzzles.
Just like with a jigsaw puzzle, work from the straight edges, aka - the door and windows. These were the most easily identifiable landmarks and helped us get the largest pieces in place. From there, the rest were a lot easier to identify. Once we had the panels roughly in order, we power-washed them and coated them in mold/mildew killer. For a deeply satisfying timelapse of the power-washing, check out this vlog!
Post power-washing - still gross, but much improved
If you’re giving my power-washed panels the side-eye and thinking, wow, those still look terrible…you would be correct. They are still very stained from years of neglect. However, structurally, they’re still in great shape, and once they’ve been thoroughly cleaned, sanded, primed, and painted, I think they’re going to look pretty good!
Starting with the longest, lowest panel on the curbside, we began placing the panels inside Pauline. In a stroke of incredible good fortune, the old rivet holes lined up between the shell and the skins. Again, we used our clecos (re-setable rivets) to line everything up before Jared went back and riveted the skins in place. I honestly don’t know how you would do this process without clecos. The panels overlap, so it was essential that we be able to secure one panel, but be able to remove and reinsert the clecos when we placed the overlapping panel. For anyone renovating an Airstream, I cannot recommend these enough.
The most tedious part of this process is making holes and pulling the wires through for the electrical system. While we had several friends to help us on Saturday, Jared spent the rest of the week working on this alone, and it is definitely a task that goes faster with an extra set of hands. Even so, he soldiered through and we finally have walls!
Now we just have to make them look good, which means MORE CLEANING!
Thanks to my former roommate’s obsession with Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, I knew that they could handle the impressive layers of grime caked onto Pauline’s walls. This one’s for you, Christian!
We still have a lot of work to do to get these walls looking sharp, but at least they are up and clean!!!
Materials
*Affiliate links - if you click on our link and purchase something, we could earn some money, but we only recommend products that we actually use and love!
*Recommended with reservations - we’ve had issues with this tool jamming, but we’ve also been able to disassemble and remove the jam each time. Obviously, this isn’t ideal, but for the price, it gets the job done. We’ve set over 1000 rivets with this gun. As long as you’re willing to do a little maintenance, it’s worth the money.