One woman's trash is another woman's treasure

Yon Saucy here. From the minute I called the spouse unit and said, "Camper! Omg, eee, camper, going to bank, buying now, CAMPER," I've been dying to start in on making our old lady as cute as she can be, just like the folks over at Little Vintage Trailer and 1964 Shasta Travel Trailer and all sorts of other tin can types have done.

But we're agreed that this fall, we're just going to camp with her. Get a feel for her quirks. Figure out anything majorly wrong (front end with that funky patch job, I'm looking at you) and then start in on the re-do this winter, when we're snowed in and can't go camping anyway.

We also agreed that since we got her on the cheap, we're going to do our best to fix her up on the cheap too.

But she does need curtains. As a temporary measure for our first two trips out with her, I'd taken down some curtains from our family room in the basement and put them up in the camper. That worked, but like I said, temporary measure. First, they didn't fit to the camper windows all that well. Second, the windows in that basement family room are actually window wells. Window wells are not pretty things. I'd kind of like the curtains back.

I'm not much for sewing. Actually, sewing sets my teeth on edge and I can think of a couple of million things I'd rather do than sew, like clean out a horse barn or gut fish. But I am able to sew reasonably straight seams and hems and can do simple curtains, and there is that whole "on the cheap" thing we're going to try to keep to. So 0ff I went this afternoon to one of the local thrift stores to see if I could score some fabric or maybe even sheets to run up a bunch of curtains.

Well, look what I found:




Curtains! Oodles and oodles of curtains. Oh, happy day. Clearly, I'll need to adjust these too-short ones to fit to the windows, but there's plenty of fabric there for that. And they are. so. cute. OMG, I am dying of the cute.

I also picked up a slipcover for the sofa-sleeper in the back:



(Note the excess curtain-age back there. Big, long, lovely panels to cut up and make cute wee camper curtains out of. Even someone who hates sewing could have fun with this project.)

For the record, I did not get that slipcover because I dislike the original upholstery. It's very 1969. That is not a bad thing. Some people would say that this is actually a desirable thing in a 1969 camper, and I would not argue with them.

However.



It's also got a lot of wear and tears that you can't see in that pic, but are obvious up close.



We have a little fat dog who likes to scramble up onto cushions for her naps and has snagged more cushions than I can count over the years. Until we can get that piece reupholstered, a slipcover is a very good thing to have.

So, now we have yards and yards of (cute! cute! cute!) curtains, and a slipcover, and the best part of this? The price.

(Tag missing for the big, long, lovely panels: $7.99.)

It all came to $23.51 after tax. And that itch I've been having to make the old lady as cute as she can be is feeling kind of scratched for now. Ahh.