The Method Works

Ceiling torn down and new timber put in to replace what had rotted away around the rooflight. 

This is a photo with the rotten wood still in place. You could actually squeeze water out of it!

Had to scrape away all the old sealant with my head poking out through the hole which freaked out the gas man. 

Most of the ceiling has been replaced now too, but no photos until it's finished and filled ;)

The ceiling has been fun, lots of measuring and cutting and power tools.  I may need to get out more!

I've also added one of the two new timber struts to the underside of the chassis to make good where some of it had rotted away. Lots and lots of sealant too to close it up. Not a pretty job but I'm assuming most people won't be looking underneath. 

And finally...more undercoat....only the top and one side of the van are now recognisable as TDM murk colour. Even with grey and white undercoat the whole thing looks much better already. Let's hope the weather holds long enough to get the outside finished so I can spend winter doing interior decorating in the warm. 

You can never go home any more

Look who's coming to live in The Drowned Van (if it's ever finished). This is one of the scarecrows from the Desert at Temple Studios. His name is Miguel, of course.

Encino, we have a problem

Today's plan to finish lining the roof came to a grinding halt as we realised that the roof light still leaks, and that the timbers around it really are rotten. So rotten that the plywood is delaminating. 

So rotten, in fact, that in some parts you can squeeze water out of it. So my one new bit of ceiling has to come back down again, and somehow some new timbers have to go up. 

My father in law seems utterly confident that we can do it and it will be easy. I was glad he was there to stop me going into panic mode. Operation timber is scheduled for Tuesday. 

 

The roof light will be coming out....

Not to be dissuaded I've already cut the new ceiling panels to put up. I also carried on with the sander and sanded all the internal wood ready for painting one day. 

FIL also figured out how to make the double bed work (though I still don't think it will fit 2 people!!) so that's one bit of DIY I don't have to work out how to do. 

With all that dust about I also gave all the surfaces a wipe down so the whole place does look a bit better. Still no idea how to decorate the inside mind. 

Look, the Sandman

Today was a pretty busy one. First I sanded down the whole van....

...and uncovered a little bit of its history...

...then I made my husband sit inside to check for leaks while I jet washed it. Great news- no leaks! Hooray for the creeping crack cure!

Next to put primer on the bare metal I had exposed...

 ...Which hubby thought made it look 'even more like a bum's van' than it had before. 

Finally, undercoat to the bottom half which I hope will dry before the rain sets in. Looking better already and I'm excited about painting the rest!

You can call me 'Dusty'. Though I don't remember the Dust Witch being quite so industrial. 

DAMP!!

Having read up a little on what happens when you buy a terribly old caravan on eBay, my next purchase was a damp meter.

This showed that essentially the timbers around the roof light are very damp (possibly rotten but....) and also the ceiling. Having poked it around a bit more, I decided that the roof light was leaky. So here's what I did:

• Tried to take off the roof light so I could put it back in and seal it properly. Discovered I couldn't, because the screws are knackered.
• Yanked off all the old mastic on this and the toilet vent.
• Used Captain Tolleys Creeping Crack Cure around the edges instead. Then applied liberally around all of the seams, trims and openings. This stuff is good shit. I plan to use it on everything in my life which is even remotely broken.
• Mastered the mastic gun and resealed both openings.
• Whacked some mastic tape over the top as well, just to be sure.

Having also established that removing the very damp timbers would probably make the whole caravan break, and reminding myself that it's a 30 year old caravan and really not worth it, I also painted the timbers inside with a can of wet rot cure. This seems to have hardened it up well and the damp readings are now very low, so I'm hoping that is Good Enough.

I've also pulled down the wet bits of the ceiling, ready to cut and fit some new ply.

The other thing I have managed to do is some new (black) seals along all of the awning rails.

Two of the windows are okay, the others have been screwed shut and will be staying that way until I get some new "window thingies". Once said thingies are in place, I will be replacing the window seals too. Waterproofing is the main task at the moment, before the Mancunian weather turns...well...Mancunian. I have cut some timber to fix along the bottom rails, to make up for some bits which appear to have fallen off, but need to treat them before I screw them in. 

There's all winter to decorate the inside, and next spring to finally sand and repaint the outside. Those will be the fun parts. 

And so it begins.

So I bought a caravan. I didn't mean to. I was drinking, and decided to place some bids and see how high the existing bidder on eBay was prepared to go. At £450 I stopped and let the sober guy have his prize.

A few days later, I checked in to see how much it finally went for. Turned out, it went for £350 because the other guy had withdrawn his bid. Bugger.

Another £200 later it was here on the driveway. And it wasn't in the greatest shape...

Paddington

I feel quite guilty that over 700 people have already looked at this blog, and I've not posted anything. Sorry. Things are progressing fairly slowly with TDV due to the summer holidays!

Today's post is about the known history of the Van. She was used to promote Punchdrunk's amazing immersive show The Drowned Man which I was lucky enough to experience more than 20 times, and has meant a huge amount to me over the past year. You can read the basics about the show on the Wikipedia page but there are a number of brilliant Tumblr and other pages out there where you can find out a lot more.

The Van was parked on the concourse at Paddington Station for a few days last December, and there's a great video on You Tube which I have utterly failed to embed in this post but you can watch here.

Thanks to various members of the Facebook spoiler group, especially Peter Williams and Isabella Van Braeckel (who made the van's numberplate, which I also have!), here is a random record of how it looked, and what happened inside.

The van still has a phone number on the window, scrawled in lipstick. Over the duration of the show, the message on the other end of the line changed. At the time the van was in the station, however, it sounded like this (thanks again to Peter!).

It even made the news. Caravan Times, London 24...

The clipboard on the door said...

"A bustling city station.

Crowds of passengers, tourists, commuters pass through the central concourse.

(Camera pans in)

Through the chaos, something captures the stranger's eye.

A film studio trailer lies in the middle of the station.

(Cut to close up)

They glimpse a clipboard hanging from the trailer and carefully read a page of script. It dawns on them this trailer may contain a secret waiting to be discovered.

They look through the window."

Brief notes...

The Drowned Van is a 1980s Avondale Perle caravan which briefly found fame when it was abandoned on Paddington Station to publicise the immersive theatre production, Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man.

I bought it on eBay, sort of by accident - I was comfortably outbid, but then the other bidder withdrew. Voila. I have a caravan for £350. That'll teach me to drink so much gin.

Another £200 later and it's on my driveway. This blog will be an attempt to chronicle my adventures in restoring it into glory and fabulousness. For now, however, it's some brief notes about the first few days.

So far, what I have figured out is;

• the windows are all screwed shut. Whether PD did this for security or it's because they leak like a bastard is to be found.
• Damp readings are really high around the roof light, but low elsewhere. There's evidence of previous repairs at the front end. I feel optimistic that I can fix a small area of ply, and I'm currently debating whether I should strip and reseal the exterior, or just fix around the roof light and hope for the best.
• The interior has been variously bodged, and if I want to turn the front back into a double bed I'm going to have to get creative with some DIY.
• The electrics are intact but frankly look shonky so I need to get it rewired.
• Someone has stolen the toilet.

For the TDM fans who might read this; they stripped it BARE of all props, including those lovely posters. The California licence plate is still there, but Temple Studios on the side has been painted out. There was a single 8mm film of The Italian Dolomites left in the middle of the floor. 

I'm slightly paranoid. Is this a mistake, or is it a film of Stanford on holiday, left as some sort of twisted PD clue?

What the hell have I let myself in for? ;)