Post by rachelcupids on Feb 10, 2021 16:28:35 GMT -8
Hello friends! I am the new owner of a 1957 Honorbuilt Romer that I'm planning to restore. This is all new to me and I'm so glad I found this community, because I would have made some big mistakes otherwise!
This weekend was the first weekend I had it, and I already started gutting it from the inside in places where there is obvious water damage (as it turns out, definitely everywhere). Luckily I don't think I ruined anything that was actually salvageable, but this weekend I'm going to take the skin off and start working on it the right way around!
Some good things about this trailer, from what I can tell:
- the Princess stove
- original icebox
- PO had been camping in it as-is, so it has new tires and new led lights that work!
Bad things:
- TONS of water damage. Some of the frame is so rotten, it crumbles if touched. I am so lucky I pulled this home safely.
- someone has tried to renovate it at some point, and did a terrible job
- the entire outside is painted with grey house paint, and Jasco stripper didn't do a thing to it
- the entire inside is painted, too
- the front is sagging. Don't know the best way to fix that, other than rebuild the frame and straighten out the skin somehow before putting it back on.
I'm planning to rebuild this whole thing. I don't know very much about this, so I would love to have any advice or critique of my plan! I already bought the book from this forum and have read through it. Obviously this is going to be a ton of work, but that doesn't really bother me. I bought this because I wanted a project, and before the trailer idea I was thinking of building a tiny house on wheels from the ground up anyway.
The current plan:
I'll start from the outside in (now that I know), and plan to remove the skin, the walls, and probably the floor. Clean up the rust off the frame, paint it with Rustoleum to prevent future rust, and then build a new floor by screwing joists into frame and doing plywood decking on the joists. And maybe I should also do some kind of weatherproofing and insulation on the floor?
Then I'll rebuild the walls using the old frame as my pattern, insulate with styrofoam, redo the electrical work for 12v and 110v (luckily I have a qualified family member to help with that) and then put the skin back on. I still need to figure out how to get this horrible paint off the skin (and windows, and eyebrows, and door...). The put the paneling on the inside and put the windows and door back in, after fixing them up. I picked up a vintage trailer window I found on Facebook Marketplace that will fit the front where one was replaced with an AC unit. I'm getting rid of that AC unit and I'll put in a 9000 btu mini split instead. Then I'll rebuild bed frame, kitchenette, closet, etc.
I want to honor the vintage style but I'm also not bent on making an exact recreation of the original. I bought it with the dinette ripped out and I don't plan to put one back in because I'm going to use that space for a small table, a folding chair, and a built-in bench that a composting toilet will slide out of. I plan to live in this for an extended period when it is finished so I want that space to be more flexible. I'll keep the icebox as storage but I'll also have a 12v fridge, and set up everything to run on shore power or deep cycle battery. So while I hope for this to be somewhat of a showpiece, I also need it to have that functionality!
Here's an album with more photos. I'll keep adding as I go: flic.kr/s/aHsmUdRasU