Post by mobiltec on Jul 4, 2021 13:57:27 GMT -8
We have a long time member here who goes by the screen name of "Hamlet". The person behind the name is Kari Albrecht, and he is somewhat limited with internet stuff. So he asked me to post these photos and this background on Hamlet..... the trailer.... Yes Hamlet is actually the name of the little Shasta Compact that Kari spent so much time in. Here's the story and the photos.
We didn’t do it right.
We “won” Hamlet in an EBay auction in September 2010. Sight unseen, $350. No title. We knew nothing about vintage trailers (it wasn’t a craze yet), we just wanted something small and cheap. No stove or kitchen uppers, cracked/missing windows and the roof was caved in. We towed it from Spokane down to Vancouver and given the rot we found, we were lucky that it didn’t implode along the way.
It wasn’t long before we realized that we had a piece of American history. We realized that it was built from the inside out, so we didn’t gut it. Luckily we stumbled onto the old VTSF a couple months later and those early posts helped us navigate a complete rebuild.
We spent a year and made a couple substantial changes, but when you see it, they look to be original. First, since we had to take it all apart, we added 3” to the ceiling height starting at the wheel well so my hubby could stand up in the kitchen, then we took the two long benches that made into cot beds and turned them around so the now full size bed goes side to side. This gave us 22” on each side over the wheel wells to add a two drawer chest by the door and a 3/4 height closet on the street side, leaving the bench structure intact. Then we turned the large closet next to the sink into a wet room with porta potty and shower.
We had applied for a title when we first brought it home, and got a temp until the required three year wait for a new one was over. Washington isn’t so hard, just slow.
And the name Hamlet? Well, at a box length of 10’, he’s too small to be a full ham!
We didn’t do it right.
We “won” Hamlet in an EBay auction in September 2010. Sight unseen, $350. No title. We knew nothing about vintage trailers (it wasn’t a craze yet), we just wanted something small and cheap. No stove or kitchen uppers, cracked/missing windows and the roof was caved in. We towed it from Spokane down to Vancouver and given the rot we found, we were lucky that it didn’t implode along the way.
It wasn’t long before we realized that we had a piece of American history. We realized that it was built from the inside out, so we didn’t gut it. Luckily we stumbled onto the old VTSF a couple months later and those early posts helped us navigate a complete rebuild.
We spent a year and made a couple substantial changes, but when you see it, they look to be original. First, since we had to take it all apart, we added 3” to the ceiling height starting at the wheel well so my hubby could stand up in the kitchen, then we took the two long benches that made into cot beds and turned them around so the now full size bed goes side to side. This gave us 22” on each side over the wheel wells to add a two drawer chest by the door and a 3/4 height closet on the street side, leaving the bench structure intact. Then we turned the large closet next to the sink into a wet room with porta potty and shower.
We had applied for a title when we first brought it home, and got a temp until the required three year wait for a new one was over. Washington isn’t so hard, just slow.
And the name Hamlet? Well, at a box length of 10’, he’s too small to be a full ham!
