remember my Vintage Winnebago?

Yup that one. We've been living in it for about a year and half and we feel fine.  Tiny house living isn't for everyone, but if you are ready to ditch a lot of possessions and spend a lot less time cleaning house, a tiny house might be for you.

Most people who get a trailer or an RV decide to paint it inside and spruce it up with all new fabrics, and the results are just fantastic!
I like leaving my Winnie pretty much like how it was built in 1973. But.... that dinette just had. To. Go.
Finally did it. We unscrewed it and stored the 2 benches and the table in case the new owner (someday in the future) wants it back.
We put in 2 of our vintage bamboo chairs and I love all the extra room.  Also, since we don't really use the oven except for storage, we turned it into a laptop holder to watch movies and stuff.  Next indoor project --- all new flooring to replace the mish mosh of vinyl tiles and bits of original awesome green carpet.
Here are the AFTER pics...

Here is the laptop on the stove door. Silly.

A few BEFORE pics from the deconstruction which was just unscrewing it from the frame.

 We unscrewed and dismantled the propane heater tube and vent and are storing that too for future use.

Also, a BEFORE pic or 2 from years past when we ate at the dinette.

Next up... different curtains and a slightly different arrangement of all the stuff that must be stored away.
I'm years late describing what we did in the last year! Changed out the black water tank open/close handle (fun, not fun), replaced the heating coil in the refrigerator.
I bet you can't wait for the Youtube videos!

My Trailer Park Xmas

Trailer park, mobile homes, RV's and 5th wheels are my neighbors here and their human inhabitants love to put up the Xmas lites! or Christmas lights!

 Mee toooo. In the  vintage Winnebago, on the front dash, we put a vintage light up Snowman and a vintage light up Santa. They are both blow molds, made in the USA, by Union Products, Leominster, Mass.
What's a blow mold? It's an awesome piece of Americana. We Americans saw the need to make figurines of plastic, brightly colored, and we needed them to light up and we needed them to decorate our yards and our American homes.  clicky that link up there and learn more!

In 1960 John Steinbeck, the Californian, got in a pickup truck with a custom-made camper and a poodle and went on a trip to find America. Yes Steinbeck had his own RV, his own mobile tiny house. The book is "Travels With Charley".
One of the things he found was a mobile. home. community.
And he stopped to visit and chat with people who had bought one and lived in a neighborhood of other like-minded folks. What Steinbeck found was that people loved their mobile homes, their trailers.  Some of them knew this was the only house they would ever afford, and became "house-proud" and were content.
And some used their years in a mobile home park as a jumping off place, and a chance to save a lot of money to one day, be able to afford a "real house".
And now today, we have another resurgence of people who, though they may be middle class, they may have just left the middle class, they wish they could get in to the middle class, are, once again, loving the small home movement.
No need to build a tiny house on a trailer frame, but you can if you want. If you want your own home, buy an RV, buy a trailer, buy a camper on a truck, buy a 5th wheel set-up.

yeah! Blow molds of the Nativity.

I've always chosen "marginal housing" because you get a lot of house for a little bit of money, and you live in very interesting neighborhoods.
My trailer park is no exception to that astute finding! I have the most interesting neighbors, so many of them choose to live in a manufactured home, rather than a Stick Built, or brick and mortar home, or a home built of 2x4's and permanent foundations.

Here is a little video I made with retro tiki lounge music by John Deney, to show a few of the trailers and mobile homes. Merry Christmas trailer park people!!

another winnie post

jewelry hang ups. blah blah. the succulent-growing and multitudes of flowers,  and the vegetable harvest of 2014 was fantabulous! Lots of tomatoes, peppers, bell and mild munching kind, tomatillos, string beans, eggplants, oh my.

Eggplants galore! these did better than I thought they would. This variety is dairyu ichiban, Japanese eggplant. They are still producing now in late October after being planted in my big big pots in May. I water everyday and feed a diluted hippie dippie fertilizer.

So yeah, UP with Japanese eggplant.

and when I wasn't being outside in the sunshine, I do live a perfect life, I was inside in the air conditioning making my home look better and work better for me.
 We are finding that we are happier living in the Winnebago than we thought we would be. We thought it would be cramped and crazy. But once you get rid of a lot of things.... and reduce down to what you like right now, it is really quite calming.
We don't want to go back to living in a house unless it is very small.

The steps made from pallets and the pots and pots of flowers and vegetables and Homegrown Tomatoes, and the patio with comfy furniture has made it like a little paradise.

Or like we are on vacation everyday.

I made a jewelry corner, and re did the closet. Hung up hooks and hung things on the hooks.
The Winnie has the tiniest closets.
Up there I do keep clothes, both summer and winter storage and under here, Shoes and Boots!

My favoritest trick was to hang my bracelets on the curtain rod, and to hang a lace doily on the wall, and hang my earrings on it. I also pin some brooches there on the curtain, but most of my jewelry is in a box on the shelf. This adventure has made me really really cull out my 43 boxes of clothes.

Traveling without leaving home....

the 1973 Winnebago was purchased to be our home.....but we need to search for great vintage goodies farther afield now...it's been that way for at least 5 years. Good stuff is not so much around Tacoma, and well, the good stuff is a diminishing supply. So travel we must.

....and I tell ya, it does feel weird to drive your home down the highway. I'm driving my bathroom, my kitchen, my dinette, my bedroom....down the highways and byways.
As we drive, we always get a lot of looks from other people driving....every time we stop for gas someone wants to chat, and when we pull up to the rv park, folks wanna talk about the Winnie.
It's fun!
I'm happy to talk about my mobile home. She's a sweetie.
Our last foray towards Portland allowed us to stay 2 days at the Sou'Wester lodge and vintage trailer park. It has been a "secret" place to stay for people who value experience over fancy and luxury...so it's perfect for people like Mark and me.

Now, under new ownership as they say, I was worried that it was gonna go the way of the Ace Hotel hipster hell bent for boring ass hipster cliche. But no!
I'm happy to report, the Sou'wester is still artfully down home, and it is slowly being cleaned up and all the deferred maintenance of the trailers and the grounds are being worked on and freshened up. And, uh, the Pacific Ocean !! is 3 blocks away....

While at first glance, the 'wester might seem like High Concept, and in other hands all would be lost....but it is still retaining its sweet lo-fi charm.
What should take center stage are the sturdy old simple buildings and the mid-century trailers....and they are the Center Stage...That big lodge building is so sweet and the decor is simple. They're sticking with the rustic and unassuming, and no taint of self-conscious hipster pre-packaged Anthropologie/Pottery Barn can be found anywhere.

Oh sure ...there's old typewriters, there's funky 70s Salvation Army decor, but on the whole, it feels real and it feels comfy. We were there in the middle of the week so we didn't attend the music or the other activities that are scheduled .....in...
AUGUST
Sat-August 4th – Flash Flood and The Dikes
Sat-August 11th -The Golden Bears. AND… Our First Vintage Travel Trailer and RV Classic.
Sat-August 18th – Joseph Appel (from Swing Papillon, AnnaPaul and the Bearded Lady, and the Clambake Combo).
Sat-August 25 – Old Light

I wish we could go back for this....  the Sou'wester is having their....
 FIRST VINTAGE TRAVEL TRAILER RALLY!..

• August 10th, 11th and 12th. We are very excited to see some beautiful trailers and to meet the people who have taken so much care with them!
• It should be a fun weekend. And we plan to have live music in Saturday night in the pavilion. There will be an Oyster Bar, a local vendor whose Willipa Bay oyster concoctions are amazing!

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Here's the perfect example of that hipster goofiness that the Sou'wester Has None Of....the way the Ace is over-the-top...and not in a good way....

so pretentious...





I should have taken more pics, but here's a few of the old girl herself....if the shots of the trailer interiors don't get your heart pumping....you must not like vintage !