Ron had to take all that old wood out of there completely, before putting the new stuff on..

Working on the lower floor

After finishing the upper floor, Ron started on the lower floor. He started with a mess as you will see. Lots of old wiring to do away with and old wood flooring. Funny thing, is as I was looking at these pictures, I didn't get a finished view of what it looked like after he got it all done. Will do that on a later posting.

Putting the sub floor in

After Ron got done doing the walls and ceiling, he started on the upper floor first. One of the first things he had to do, before he covered the floor was to make the engine compartment bigger, so if he needed to do any work from the top, he could get to it easier. Even then, as you will see, it's going to be a bit tight to do any work at all...

When Ron started putting the plywood on the ceiling, he started out with 1/4 inch plywood, after soaking it with water. The first two pieces Ron put up was easy, so Ron figured he would put up all the side wood first, then come back to the ceiling...well, the next piece he tried to put up, just would not bend, no matter what he did. So, we ended up buying something called "bender board" and that stuff is just amazing to work with. Ron put the 1/4 inch plywood up to where the wall starts cuving towards the ceiling, so when the cabinets go up, he'll have something to anchor them to. Then, he put up 3/8 inch bender board the rest of the way. I didn't take any pictures of us actually putting up the bender board, because it took two of us to do it and no third person to take a picture.

Now, Ron is ready to put the sub walls in...notice the insulation we put on the walls. We couldn't take the metal off because they were structural walls, so this is how we had to do it. Some people take the stainless steel off of the outside and put the insulation in that way, but, we weren't ready to do that.

Our work begins in earnest

After the foaming was finally done, Ron had his work cut out for him. First off, we needed to install a vent fan on the lower level, which is going to be in the kitchen...

Summer of 2006

We came back to the campground in late March of 2006. This was going to be our final summer working there, because we really thought we'd have the bus done by the time we set out for the desert for the winter. In June, we got the bus ready to have the guy come and spray foam insulation inside. Ron was busy putting up firring strips on every beam on the walls and ceiling as you will see in the next few pictures.

The winter of 2005/2006

After we got the bus back from the paint shop, it was time to hit the road and meet the Boomers in the desert. Ron didn't get much accomplished while we were out there, but, did show lots of friends the inside and how he wanted everything to look when we are finally done. We did manage to have one happy hour inside the bus when the wind wouldn't let us have it outside. We managed to get quite a few people in there. We stayed out in the desert from the beginning of November to late March, then it was back for a final summer at the county campground in the mountains of San Diego.

Getting a paint job!

Lowering the floor took place in the spring of 2005, after that was done, it was time to get a paint job. We had decided that we would feel a lot better about working on the bus with a better color to look at. We took the bus down to Algodones, MX for the paint job. Our friends, Dan & Marge, also Flxible bus club members, had just had their bus painted down there and they were very happy with it. When we talking to the owner, he told us since it was in the summer, it should only take about three weeks to do it. We were thinking, that's great! Well, the three weeks turned into almost three months, but, the results were fantastic from what it had been. The paint job was about $45oo, plus we had the stainless steel polished out for $500. See what you think as you look at the following pictures.