Li'l Vintage Trailer-Diamond in the Rough

     I wanted a little vintage trailer but I wasn't ACTUALLY  looking. I'd shop the odd time on Kijiji and Craigslist but I never looked that closely. My covert fantasy was that my husband and I continued to enjoy our 25 ft Airstream (I aDORE it, love it, even think of it as a big silver living whale we keep in the driveway) but I wanted to get my own girlie trailer to pimp out, or as we Glamper Girls call it, Glamp Up by restoring it to as close to it's original state only more stylish, with lotsa vintage decor which we shop, swap and endlessly long for on Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy. (Like these three that I found on the LittleVintageTrailer.com website)

     

So, I was visualizing myself having one, I guess and then oops, there it manifested onto one of the Facebook Vintage Trailer Groups I belong to: someone posted my Lil as something she was considering, a discussion began around the Kijiji ad that had been posted, the price and condition were critiqued....it was double the price it should be...and I relaxed. I had been looking much closer than before, it seemed.
 Aaaaaaaargh! Then, Kijiji sent me a notification it had been reduced in price....almost by half? Why did Kijiji want me to buy this trailer?!?!
I looked verrrrrrry close! In truth, I could not look away. 
* It appeared to be the level of project I wanted,
* it was towable immediately and structurally sound, 
*had coloured original appliances and 
*the people who owned it were salt of the earth and as trustworthy as could be.

We set out on the 2 and a half hour drive with cash in hand and hitch and hitch balls in the Jeep. Rush hour traffic stretched our projected eta by half an hour more; I texted her; a torrential downpour had us with visibility enough to only crawl down the highway; I texted again that we'd be an additional 40 minutes  late, I knew someone was coming from the other direction too and began to worry I'd lose the right to buy it,  then traffic stalled the
driving completely...the highway was rerouted (closed!) I texted, mapped and gps'ed us throug the back roads worried too that she had little ones and we'd disrupt their bedtime....finally, five hours later we arrived at an idyllic farm with two tow headed girls and their mom and dad, handsome tween brother in a scrumptious old farmhouse in various stages of being restored to it's former glory. There were beautiful vintage pieces and upcycling all about, a luscious vegetable garden and a herd of stunning, healthy work horses.  I hugged her upon arrival I already felt as if I'd known her for years! The trailer's owner shared her hopes of glamping the trailer herself. She showed me her upcycling projects and plugged a couple of friends' thrift stores in the area. We had so much in common. Her wonderful farmer husband helped mine load in the yellow fridge and stove with oven and all the other parts she had collected to improve my little Glendale.

 Her little goat jumped into it and we lovingly removed her. We left promising to post photos of the restorations as we do them and to come back for a visit and maybe a sleigh ride in winter. As we drove out and back through the picturesque countryside, we crested a hill to a sunset so beautiful we both gasped. I captured this with my iphone, but the moment before was literally breathtaking!

And so this could be the only time in my life I actually have the poetic license to say: "And then we drove off into the sunset. " :-))))))

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A Cubic Zirconia in the Rough

     This year while planning to turn our basement into a rental unit, so that we could travel in the Airstream full time, we discovered that first, we had to replace our FOUNDATION!!!!
It took us months of collecting the advice of engineers, contractors and building inspectors, to get clear exactly what had to be done and who would be paying for it. The bad news was overwhelming, and because it's US, we have been pretty much grounded.
    At the same time, I've been working hard on settling my father's estate and it appears, that at least for this summer, we will have a local waterfront place to park the trailer while we live in it and wait for our pockets to be picked by the contractor who we trust now, are sure we'll hate in no time and who we pray we will end up loving in the end!
     So.....let's focus on the good! Check out our breezy little getaway lot on the Bay of Quinte:

This brush is being cleaned up starting today and those trunks will become stools, that pallet something else. I'm pretty excited to make a natural place to get away from the construction and the heat of the city!

This is just half of the water front and table land!

Husband and dogs!

     So now we just have to gently get the neighbours used to the idea so we don't get any guff from the City. We are good neighbours everywhere we go and our boys can charm the treats off man and beast alike. On one side the neighbours have a ceramic black labrador on their front steps! That's a slam dunk. And on the other, we met their one year old giggly, submissive, quiet little Beagle girl....like SHE's not going to fall madly in love with the big, black boys next door! We'll keep you posted.