Did an hour or two of stripping tonight ;)

Sorry for my inanely boring voice, and the vast amounts of "err"s and "umm"s, but thought I'd do a video update for a change :S. Sadly my phone ran out of memory for the second one, and I couldnt be bothered to do it all again :P - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Gloucester

Time to start planning .....

Well 2012 is here, and I want to use Nina as a camper at least once this year, so at least the interior needs to be done, not too bothered about the outside yet, but eventually want that to look as stunning as I hope the inside will be. How did your Christmas go ? Anybody get any awesome camper related presents ? As you know, last year for my 40th, Jen bought me a Caravanstore Bag Awning with Safari Room, and that was before we even knew Nina was coming our way ! Well, true to form, for Christmas, she bought me just as amazing a present for Nina. Any of my previous camper readers remember the gorgeous Smev 9222 Sink & Hob with dark glass lids I bought ? For those that dont or didnt read it this is it fitted ...l


Imagine my surprise when Christmas Morning, while I was still in bed coming round from my yuletide slumber, when a great big box wrapped in colourful puppy christmas paper was dumped on top of me ! Yep, Jen had found another exactly the same all sparkly and new and ready to be fitted ! :). Thank you Jen ! Xx Well, this has made my brain work overtime, planning and designing. I found an app for my ipad that allows you to do such a thing and will export in vector files or jpgs, its called iDesign, go search the name on YouTube and see how it works, its great and really quite powerful for an ipad app. This is something like I want it to look like fitted. Its a partition that divides the front 3/4 of the camper interior from the back quarter which will be used for storage and a secure dog transport cage.


The vent that is already fitted, will be directly above the hob below, so the heat and steam has somewhere to go. Tall cupboards either side, will house the gas and water tanks in the bottom and general storage in the top. Just above the glass lids that are in the up position here, you can see another addition to Ninas ever growing arsenal of items to be fitted, its a microwave ! My friend Sam kindly let me have it when she replaced it for a different coloured one, its only a year old and in excellent condition. I intend to flush fit it in the wall where you see it in the pic. The bars below are the built in dog cage to safely carry rescue dogs when transporting, and of course our own well behaved dogs when camping. It will also be a dog bed overnight, if we can convince them not to sleep on the pull out bed across my legs ! :). Well thats that, what else has happened ? Oh before Christmas I bought two brand new 70ah leisure batteries really cheaply from a guy on ebay, he had a pallet full of them ! My intention is to link them up and have a 140ah cell. My thinking on that is if one fails, the other can act as a backup. I think they will both fit under the drivers seat ok, so will just need to run a supply lead to the rear. What I paid for the two, I saved myself about £80 on a 110ah leisure battery, so a very good result indeed ! Recently, since Christmas, I ordered an electric hook up external socket, meaning i've got to cut a big hole in the body somewhere :S. Also, a split charge relay system to charge the leisure batteries, but ensure that the vehicle battery doesnt get inadvertantly flattened by them. Very simple system, cost me £17 delivered from ebay. Could probably have put the kit together cheaper, but wouldnt have know what to look for with the relay. Far simpler to get the kit already made up for the purpose with a detailed installation sheet to work from. Well thats about it for now, next job is more stripping of the interior, and getting the rear side windows sorted so that I can begin work on the interior :). Thanks for reading, come back soon, promise lots of updates this year ! Especially as the Blogpress app for my ipad is now working again on iOS 5 ;). - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Gloucester

One more Pic taken with a better camera ie NOT my iPhone :P

Nina lit up like a Christmas Tree for the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party in St Albans last Sunday :).

The lights are from Maplins, 17 meters for £19.99. The two small trees I bought from Asda last year after Christmas for £1 each ! The red battery powered heart lights on them were from Tesco at £5 a set, and the white ones were £3 a set. The 17 meter lights are being powered by a 300w Inverter on a 70 Amp leisure battery, they run at 24 volts, and are rated for indoor or outdoor. On a fully charged 70 amp battery, they will run for 143 hours :), thats one LOOOOOOONG party ;)

Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party

Today was the Christmas Party for Home Counties Boxer Welfare, which is a Boxer DOG charity, and not a load of men and women wearing shorts and boxing gloves :S.

At the last meeting, I agreed to take Nina to the party, and use the back of her as a mobile photography studio to photograph the boxers in fancy dress for a donation of £5 to the charity.

Well, as ever, after weeks of not being started, Nina started on the button, and got us there and back faultlessly :).

Here are some photos and video of the day !

Merry Christmas ! :)

Festive Nina !

Not had very much to report recently with Nina, Christmas has overtaken finances etc.

Talking of Christmas though, today is the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party in St Albans, and I promised i'd take Nina and use her as a mobile studio, taking photos of the dogs in their fancy dress costumes ! I had to make her look a little festive, so got a 17 meter string of LED Christmas Outdoor Lights, a leisure battery, an invertor, and a heap of sticky back cable tie pads and picked out the outline of Nina with them. Also dressed up a couple of 3ft trees to sit on each leg of the awning. I was kindly lent a couple of 10kg weights for the awning legs just in case there is a bit of wind around. The plan is to set up in the carpark of the hall that the party is being held at, and take photos of the dogs at £5 each, all of which goes to the charity. The photos to be emailed. Prints can be arranged for a further £2.50. Lets hope its a success, and if not, at least Nina will be adding to the festivities and hopefully making a couple of people smile :).

Heres a quick video clip from last night just after id finished putting them on :)

Oo errr!

BREAKING NEWS !

Today I agreed to take Nina to the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party as a kind of Mobile Photo Studio ! Not only that, but as well as thinking of a theme for inside, she is going to have to look festive outside too ! Let's say she is going to need to light up the car park ! :P.

She is going to be used as a studio to photograph all the fancy dress dogs that attend the party in all their finery, and owners will get the chance to have the photo emailed to them for £5, or sent a 6x4 print for £7.50. 100% of the profits, ie £5 per photo sent will go to HCBW.

I've got three weeks to make it happen so watch this space :).




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blinded by .... er....blinds....

Last time, for Scooby, I bought material that had lots of the colours in them to match the interior of my camper, which was blue, yellow, and kind of denim, with light coloured wood.

This time, I still have no idea what colour the inside is going to be, I did want the nice bright Yellow that I had last time, but all over, no blue on the bottom half, but the Yellow is no longer being sold in the amounts I need to do the whole inside out. There is someone selling 10 meters by 2 meters of Sand coloured ribbed carpet, which in all the places Ive looked, seems the most likely colour i'll be getting.

I didnt want curtains this time, I wanted nice neat looking blinds, motorhome blinds, I didnt want to go down the normal venetian blind or roller blind route, as they are too much like a normal house, and Nina aint normal :P. Motorhome blinds are pleated, and come in a frame which also acts as a catch to stop it from retracting etc. One small problem with this, is that they cost from £80 PER WINDOW, and thats if you can find them big enough for Ninas windows, which is unlikely, Caravan windows just arent that big, or plentiful. Sooooo I started Googling for pleated blinds, during my searches, I found out that you could get CORDLESS pleated blinds. I looked into this some more, and basically, like motorhome blinds, you just pull them down or push them up, they are on some kind of pulley system, so that there is no need for cords or bars at the sides. Making it all very simple and easy to use, and less to lose or break. So I started searching for Cordless Pleated Blinds. In my searches, I found some on the B&Q website, that looked like they would do the job. They came in about 3 colours, all pastel shades. All the blinds are smaller in width than Ninas windows, but I have a work around for that, all are more than long enough, which is fantastic. Now these blinds are normally expensive, but not as expensive as real Motorhome / Caravan ones, so I started putting them into my basket. I soon found that these blinds were discontinued, and that actually finding some in stock was going to be a challenge. My preferred colour was a white, I figured this would go with whatever I put in there after, the three colours were White, Linen (browny colour) and Aqua (greeny blue). They didnt do the white small enough for Ninas middle windows though, and they cant be cut down to size because of the pulley system in the head gear. The only colour that I could get enough blinds in the right sizes to cover 7 windows, the three side windows on each side, and the long window in the bulkhead behind the front seats, was Aqua, which was my least favourite, but beggars cant be choosers and I decided that maybe they could be sprayed with vinyl craft spray to whatever colour I wanted. Gloucester B&Q had the 4 longer side window blinds and the long bulkhead blind, but didnt have the smaller middle side window blinds, dont forget these are discontinued and they are running the stock down. I searched stores out of the area, and found that Birmingham had the 2 smaller ones in Aqua, so my friend Rich who lives up that way, was kind enough to go and pick them up for me and deliver the next time he was passing.

All in all, ALL SEVEN BLINDS, cost me £50 :) The five longer ones were £8 each in the end of line sale prices, and the two smaller ones were £5 each ! BARGAIN ! I cant believe I got them so cheap ! They work great too, in the up position, they are fairly solid and dont look like they'll fall down as Nina is driving along, and they feel positive when you pull them down too, and stay wherever you put them.

The sizes I got, if you are reading this and converting a long wheel base Renault Master Ambulance or Minibus, 4x 90cm wide, 1x 120cm wide, and 2x 60cm wide.

As I said, they are too small in width for the windows, leaving up to 3cm or so either side of the blind in the middle windows where the 60cm ones will go. I did say I had a work around. Well, what I intend to do, is fix a large board across the windows, so that they are completely covered, cover the board in the same wall lining carpet that Nina will eventually be done out in, and cut aperatures in the board where the windows are, but slightly smaller in width than the blinds, so that when the blinds are fixed into the normal window aperature of Ninas, then the board over the top of that, you wont be able to see where the edges of the blinds are as they will be sandwiched between the window and the board. From the outside, the windows which are dark tinted, will be normal huge size, from the inside once done, the windows will be a bit smaller. But from either inside or out, you wont really notice.

Sorry if that sounds complicated, but in my head I know what Im going to do, Im just not very good at explaining :P.

When you see the finished result, you will know why I did it !

So, thats the blinds bought and ready to be fitted. Lots of stuff to do first, but at that price, I couldnt turn it down, even the curtains I had in Scooby came to lots more than that, 3x more I think by the time we'd bought the material and got Robs mum to make them. And they look nice and neat when up or down.

Here I am just holding one of the middle 60cm ones in place to see how it looks :)

That will do nicely thank you ;)