Pip Goes to visit his Grandparents

We have officially spent our first night with Pip! Ok, so we were just camped out in my parents driveway, but that still counts as camping right?

It started off well, comfy and warm despite the raging gales and rain outside. But early in the morning things took a turn for the worst. What is that incessant 'drip drip dripping'? Well it turned out that the skylight's sealant was coming to the end of its days and Pip had sprung a leak!  But no matter, we were going to rip the ceiling out anyway, so we will just have to make sure we re-seal it before we put it all back together.

Saturday was spent coming up with ideas for the interior and doing the most basic 'tidy up' jobs in the van. One of the previous owners liked stickers a lot! Time to whip them all off...

I was really impressed with how nicely the dash came up. You can see all the stickers on the 'before' picture below. The stickers came off easy enough with white spirit, but it was all really discoloured. Turns out that can all be fixed with a bit of 'Back to Black' and some elbow grease! Hurrah! 

We also managed to get that pesky cooker unit out so now we have a bit more space. Thats my Dad below. He's pretty essential to the whole makeover process because we don't know what the heck we're doing!

We have since sorted out the skylight problem and are now getting on to the good bits!  Hopefully off to my parents again this weekend to start making some big changes :)

Laura xXx

Read More

Treasure hunting

On Sunday we decided to brave the weather and pop to or local car boot to see if we could find any van accessories.  We were after a mirror, hooks, a washing up bowl and anything else that looked useful.

I didn't do very well. I came back with a hoard completely unrelated to campervans, but delightful all the same! 

I've been looking for some cheap classic movies for a while now. I managed to bag myself 3 musicals off of a lady who appeared to own every musical ever made! They are ; An American in Paris, South Pacific and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.   I also bought The Sting for 50p

The two bowls you see in the photo above actually came from the dump, I got them both for £1!

And finally these awesome lead Indian models. These were a pricey £1.50. I was a bit upset because I had seen a whole pot of plastic Cowboys and Indians which I decided to go back for, but they were gone when I got there. Disaster! 

Oh well, these are probably cooler anyway, I'm just sad they have no Cowboys to play with. I love the colours of their trousers, they are seriously trendy dudes! I have a plan for these, but shhh, it's a secret! Maybe one I will let you into eventually.

Have you guys found any bargains recently?

Laura xXx

Read More

My dream came true! I got a VW Campervan!

If you read my earlier post about campervan's, you will know how desperately I wanted one. If you haven't read it yet you might want to check it out here.  

Well, guess what?

On Wednesday Chris and I became the proud owners of a VW T25 Campervan. Hurrah! I am so excited to make him beautiful inside (yes, it is a he) but I thought I would share some photos of what he looks like now so you can all see the 'Before and After'.

But first things first, I had better tell you what his name is! We debated for some while on this. Chris wanted to call him Leonardo after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with the blue headband. This didn't sound like a van name to me and reminded me of Leonardo DiCaprio, and that's just weird.  My Dad wanted me to call it Joey after a VW Beetle my Grandad once owned, and my Mum thought it should be called Bluebird because of the number plate (BRD). My work colleagues started calling it Smurfet after I had mentioned it looked rather like a Smuf. Other names were thrown in the mix: Myrtle, Jack Baur, Grace, but none really clicked... until ...

I had a brain wave in my car on the way home from work.  One of my favourite books is Great Expectations, and we sure have great expectations for this van. So what better name than that of the main character of said book 'Pip'! 

I think he looks like a Pip don't you?

Pip's interior is ok, but if you look closely he is getting shabby. I think we can do better! He's going to get a total make over.  We're going to have the units and cooker along the side where the window is to give us a bit more space. We'll probably put cupboard doors in that top cubby hole too. It's quite spacious! Not to mention nice new floor tiles, probably black and white checkered ones.

Here's the lounge/bedroom.  We're going to take that bed out and put in a 3/4 rock and roll bed instead. That way we can fit the cupboards up the side.

We'll have nice new curtains and seating too. I'll probably pick a dark beige/light brown fabric for this. Then we can accessorise with pretty coloured things (can you accessorise a van?)

Unfortunately the VW signs are missing from the front and the back! Poor Pip, he is VWless!  I am guessing a naughty youth stole them a while back. I will have to hunt down some replacements to cover his dignity. Ebay here I come!

Here's the front. I like how there are panels behind the seats. It makes me feel like an American trucker!    Those stickers were stuck on by one of the vans previous owners, apparently he was a surfer dude! I think we will try to take those off and maybe paint the panels a pretty colour if we can.

Today we have been cleaning the van out. Here we can see all of the treasures/rubbish Chris found hiding in the van (sorry he is half naked - it was hot work apparently).

Some of the treasures included; a pack of fairtrade sugar, a peg, a hook, two speaker covers, a mint, a paintbrush, a cable tie and a cuddly toy. Oh wait... no cuddly toy :(

One actual treasure I found was in the boot in this mysterious box. "What could it be?" I hear you ask.

Only a whole flippin' box of screwy wrench things (I have no idea what these are called - you know, you tighten stuff with them!) Anyway, Chris was happy!

I love our Pip! We have already had 3 fun evenings with him, and we haven't even been away yet. 

On Wednesday I was raring to go out and drive him (That says a lot because I am not the most confident of drivers and over the past 5 years I have only driven my little KA.) Chris took us to a car park so I could have a go without putting any road-goers in danger.  It's certainly tricky to find the gears, you basically have to hit the radio if you want to get into second, and even Chris is having a bit of trouble, but once we get used to it it will be fine! At least no one will be able to steal him!

On Thursday we drove him to the beach and had dinner in him,  it was lovely!

On Friday we sat and had a drink in him and discussed our makeover plans. Then this morning we had our breakfast and tea in him. The postman looked a bit confused when he spotted us!

I think this is going to make a huge difference to our lives and make us do things we would have never dreamt of doing before. Here's to adventure!

Pip, Jus' chillin'

Laura xXx

Read More

Sea Glass Treasure Hunting

I did another quick whiz around the beach the other day to hunt down some pretty sea glass. Here is what I collected:

I really like the piece that looks like a bottle stopper. I wonder what it was used for. Also check out that blue rock! It isn't glass, it is literally a rock, but it's totally blue throughout! Weird.

I'm hoping to use all of my pretty sea-glass findings to make a mosaic of some kind. Maybe on a table, or maybe just something simple like a tray. Any suggestions? 

Laura xXx

Read More

Beach Treasures

I have been kind of nervous to write my first official blog post, and I wasn't really sure what to write about. So... I've chosen the fist thing I have gotten excited about this weekend, and the idea just happens to be something I have stolen from another blogger. Sorry if that is cheating but I hope you enjoy anyway!

I have been reading 'The Dainty Squid' blog for a while now and I love it! One of the things Kaylah likes to do is go hunting for beach trash. Well, I live right next to a beach (technically it's a beach although you don't get many sunbathers there!) and on saturday I went for a walk with the intention of taking some photos of wildlife with my new camera. But, I got a little distracted. My eye kept being drawn to pieces of sea-worn glass. Some of which were clearly old and had writing on them, oh the mystery! I thought how pretty they would all look in a glass jar, so, being the hoarder that I am, and having brought no bag, I proceeded to fill my pockets! (I really really should have taken a bag!)Below are the treasures that I found.

I love the ones with writing on, I just wish I knew where they came from.

I also found these crab shells which I thought were really interesting. They reminded me of the cute little robots from "Batteries not included".

I had enjoyed myself so much that I decided go again the next day, and, remembering Kayla's trash hunting I thought I may as well help out the environment by also collecting rubbish as I went. I didn't realise there would be so much! It's amazing (and horrifying) just how many bottle tops, lighters, light bulbs and random pieces of plastic there are all over the place. I guess you would normally try to ignore these things but when you are looking for them there sure are a lot! Here is some of the stuff I found!

I like the little bird, I wonder what he was, and also the cuban cigar case. I imagine some millionaire sitting on his yacht with a glass of whisky having a puff on his cigar.

I also picked up some more fascinating pieces of worn glass. One looks like it must say USA, and another  just says 'BE' (although you can't really see it in the photo), how poetic!

So I am sorry Kaylah for stealing your idea, and also thank you for inspiring me, I had such a fantastic time and I will definitely be doing this again. It's good to be able to do something for the environment on such a basic level, but also I got some excersise and got to find treasures. Perfect day really!

Laura xXx

Read More