our little Fireball Travel Trailer, born in California in 1961, has seen better days but
she treats us just right. i found
her in Washington in 2000 and we have taken her all over the state except
during the couple years while she lived in Jackson, Wyoming with my brother. when
we got her back in 2009 she was due for an overhaul of the home made diy
kind. namely her interior needed
painting stat. so I went to the
hardware store to see what they had cheap on the mismatched paint shelf and
found, to my surprise, the perfect
robin’s egg blue. i bought black
paint for some of the trim and black chalkboard paint for the long closet
door. once I had all the
paint home i put on my overalls
and got to work. i find it the
perfect retro contrast to the yellow and peach colored tiles and yellow oven,
table and countertops. it all
pops.
as you may know by now, i am a bona fide fabric hoarder, so i had the perfect fabric to redo all the cushions and to make curtains with. i had yards and yards of floral barkcloth with hints of metallic gold that I had bought at a local estate sale. for the curtains i backed the bark cloth with a dark green on all windows except one that got a retro wood grain fabric backing.
now that we have a VW camper van we haven’t needed to pull the trailer anywhere. it makes the perfect guest room at our place so we run power out to it from our garage and keep it warm and cozy for visitors with a space heater during the winter and a fan during the summer. one of the things I love most about having the Fireball is that it allows me to have some mid-century kitsch out there and it satisfies me enough that i don’t need more of it in the house! it’s a win win. the other thing I love about the Fireball is her yellow oven. when you are out camping in the woods nothing goes better with your strong French pressed coffee than a warm fresh baked scone with homemade raspberry jam! that’s what I miss when we take the VW…no baking. oh well, now that I’m eating grain-free it’s better to not be tempted to make scones anyhow! Hmmmmmm I need a good grain-free scone recipe…
Old blog post with pre make over shoots here:http://smashingrubbish.blogspot.com/2010/08/1961-fireball.html
More diy process shots here: http://smashingrubbish.blogspot.com/2011/08/fireball.html