All posts by Bernie Cross

Bathroom floor needs some work

17/09/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Moving forward and out of the bedroom

Now into the bathroom we go, after I’d finished the under floor heating it’s time to fix the bathroom floor. The old flooring will have to be pulled up and prepped for the new floor to go down. Until I started I thought it was going to be easy, but I found rusty screws which were holding the floor down as well as it being glued very well in place. This took me a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated, unfortunately. I also had to grind the old seat rail off the wall to get the new flooring into place.

Will have to cut off the old seat rails too.

Bugger that was a lot harder than I thought.

One bit at a time or bits…. oh and found a washing machine.

New floor time

I had already cut the flooring to size using 16mm ply, the old stuff was only 12mm thick. We will also be screwing the same 16mm ply between the supports so the floor will end up being 32mm thick in most places. After letting then undercoat dry it was time to start laying the sheets into place, once again screwing and gluing as we go.

Looks good now after two coats of water proofing paint.

After sealing in between the sheet as well as down each side we put down one coat of water proof undercoat then finished it off with two topcoat’s to seal it off, no water getting through here now.

Motorhome fit out

We are going to have under floor heating

12/09/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

The old walkway needs filling in

As this will be our home we had the a thought of under floor heating, not a bad thing when living in the colder area’s of Australia. We will be putting in a KIMBERLY™ Wood Stove with a heat exchange unit in to heat a 50-80lt hot water tank, then the hot water will be pumped through pipe work under the floor, so keeping warm shouldn’t be a problem. The thermal mass heating idea looks the best for us, as once it’s warmed up you can leave it off over night. I’ll all so run a thermostat to turn the water pump on or off while it’s running so we don’t cook our feet.

Plastic pipe supports in place and water proofing painted on.

Inlet and outlet holes drilled into the floor.

Concrete time fun fun fun……. not !!!

It’s not that bad as it’s only 4400mm x 300mm x 110mm so only 0.13m3. This is going to be a strong mix one bag each sand, gravel and cement with a water proofing agent mixed in. I’m going to make the mix as dry as possible, this will make it as strong as I can. I’ll also be using a concrete vibrator as this will get all the air bubbles out of the mix. Now it’s time to start mixing in the wheelbarrow then bring it in one bucket at a time into the coach.

Just need to go over it one or two more times with trowel.

We will be leaving the formwork in place to insulate the concrete and have a 100mm gap down one side, that will be used for air flow later on to circulate air up the back of the motorhome. As you can see we are making things up as we go along, but it’s the first time we have made anything like this and it will be a one of a kind coach design.

Motorhome fit out

Bed frame this time

08/09/2017 Bernie Cross

The bedroom needs a bed

We had already got the bed when we were in Yulara N.T. so now it was time to put it all together. Being that nothing is fitting out of the box things will have to be cut to shape to fit in place. The bed head will be to high to start with so that was cut down to size and fitted between the bedside draws.

The bed head cut down to size and only just fitted between the draws.

Because we had to lift the bed up 150mm to fit into place over the motor area, the bed sides will still need around 100mm cut out of them near the bed head.

Something to hold the bed up with

Now that the beds in place we still have to build something to hold the bed off the floor. We will be back setting this so you can put your feet under the bed by around 90mm as we don’t have much room down either side of the bed.

The start of the bed support, screw and glue as we go.

From the front side with a kick board look.

Finishing off with some left over material.

I’ll be putting on the slats in later as they will only be in the way now.

Well that turned out better than I thought, now it’s done. The gas struts work well so we have more storage under the bed, you can never have too much storage space in a motorhome so the more the better. There is also a place were you can open up to work on the top of the gearbox under here too, lets hope not. I’ve also made a draw that slides down the old walkway that goes under the floor for more storage, which makes Charmaine very happy, she loves it.

Motorhome fit out

Bedroom back walls and the fiddly bits

04/09/2017 Bernie Cross 1 Comment

The fun of filling in the gaps

As nothing is square in the bus, there is always going to be gaps somewhere and they can be put to good use. It’s more ass than class but to my surprise things are fitting into place, if only….. just. On either side of the top cabinets we are putting in some speakers for the surround sound.

This is the odd shapes you have to work with.

Looks like a good place to fit some speakers, don’t you think?

Now we have somewhere for the back speakers.

Now for the bottom half

This is a bit more tricky as there is not much room to work with and the shape has to be exact. I will be trying to put a USB charger, AUX and a USB to the stereo on either side of the bed next to the middle cabinets and the wall.

Lets hope we soldered the wires in the right place.

Phone charging points that can be switched off, AUX and USB back to the sound system.

There was no room to spare at all, but that was a painful job and one that I’m glad is now over. I sometimes have some great ideas that I end up wishing I hadn’t had, but the job is done now.

Motorhome fit out

More ceiling panels to go up

23/08/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

The ceilings almost done

One of the things most people don’t like doing is working over head, but the ceiling has to be done. As we had already cut all the sheets it was just a matter of pop riveting them up in place. This time the ceiling is not flat so it was just a matter of hold it up as best we could and start gluing and riveting as we go.

There is so much crap still in the coach to work around.

The pneumatic riveter makes the job so much more enjoyable.

We will be finishing off the ceiling later on as I’ll be covering up the front hatch and don’t have the time right now. It was tricky getting it just right with the sheeting needed little adjustments just before gluing. The main work is now needed down the back of the coach as getting the bedroom finished to a stage that we can move back in after we leave this house sitting job at the end of October is our priority.

Motorhome fit out

Putting some paint on to hide the ply wood

23/08/2017 Bernie Cross

Something to hide the ply with.

We are in two minds as to what finish we will be putting on the bedroom walls, so for now we will be painting them to hide the ply wood. If nothing else it will make us feel more at home instead of inside a wooden box.

Charmaine putting on the first undercoat of two.

Charmaine was happy to get stuck into the painting as she has been out working making the money to keep the project going. Now she can help out working on the motorhome on some of her days off.

We are putting on two coats of undercoat and sanding between them to smooth it off then another two topcoats should see the job done. It already made the bedroom look a lot brighter just with the first base coat on.

First coat on need to give it a light sand down then for the second coat.

Well that makes a difference to the bedroom, it may only be temporary but that will do till we know what we will be finishing off the walls with. The next job will be finishing off around the cabinets and some sparky stuff.

Motorhome fit out

Why Stop at The Bedroom Ceiling

17/08/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Lets just finish the ceiling prep

We started in the bedroom and that’s all we were going to do, but why stop there as it was a dirty job. So it was out with the scrapers again to remove the form underlay, only another 8 meters to go. I so much love working over my head.

This is after sanding all the contact glue off the ceiling

Now to start on the new ceiling.

Well it’s now time to start on the new bedroom ceiling as It had to be finished so I could fix the roof above. Des had the sheetmetal already, so it was time to cut it up and start fitting it up in place.

The sheet metal that will be going up for the ceiling.

This lot should do the bedroom through to the bathroom.

Now the fun beginnings of positioning them in place with Charmaine’s help and some timber I think we can do it. This will be done one sheet at a time as gluing them in place takes 24hrs, then the pop riveting and then we do it all over again with the next one.

Most of the bedroom ceiling done as well as the bit from the flat to the curve ceiling.

Now that we have done the ceiling in the bedroom, the rest will have to wait for another day and another blog.

Motorhome fit out

Hatch Problems

09/08/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Just a patch up job

This hatch will be used to get up on to the roof top deck later on, but till then I’ve had to fix the struts as the old ones were falling apart. We have been using the hatch for fresh air and light and the plastic struts just were not meant to be used on a daily basis. I have had some gas struts for another job, so time for some modifications.

New fittings to the hatch for the gas struts.

That will do me till this hatch turns into the way up to the roof top deck.

How to get up there

We will be looking at setting up a ladder later on after the bathroom is finish. There has to be some more work on the hatch as it will have to open up, so I’ll have to make some hinges to fit the roof profile as well as a latch system to keep it closed, fit some bigger gas struts to hold it up in place when it’s open.

Motorhome fit out

From Old Air-Conditioning To Roof Top Deck

31/07/2017 Bernie Cross 2 Comments

Everyone loves a nice deck

Why waste the space from the old air conditioning? We have decided to turn it into our roof top deck. There was some eco decking on special at Bunnings so we couldn’t pass it up. We had to come up with some idea because when it rains it was filling up with water, not that it was leaking but the sound of it dripping when in bed made it sound like it was, so you would keep waking up looking for leaks. We only found this out when we were camping on the floor of the bus on our trip down the East coast to Brisbane.

The first job was to fill in under the fiberglass area where we cut out for the walk way and then seal it up.

Time for some sheetmetal work to start with.

The areas I have to fill in on either side of the walkway.

Cut to size just need to bend it to shape.

Now for the decking

Apart from climbing up and down the ladder what felt like hundreds of times, this job was pretty straight forward. My legs and lower back are feeling it now. I had to first set out for the deck supports then pop revetting them in place, it was just a matter of cutting the decking to size, screwing and lastly gluing them into place. It was important to prevent any water getting under the decking so I sealed every joint with sikaflex. I also decided to use expanding foam under the deck for insulation.

Aluminium glue and pop riveted into place for the walk way to the deck.

The walkway from the hatch to the decking almost there.

Starting from the back screwing and gluing as we go.

The white silicon is where the pop rivets from the ceiling come through.

Got to love the expanding foam, great insulation.

Now the fiddly bits….. the air is sucked out from inside through this boxed off area.

Job Done

The slates down the back are for the air flow and to let the water out when it rains. We will be putting the sola panels back up over the deck temporarily till the budget allows us to cover from the front of the coach to the back hatch. Now it’s time to get back inside and do some more work on the bedroom.

Old Air-Conditioning, Part 1, Part 2

Motorhome fit out

The last bit to go on the coach old air conditioning

22/07/2017 Bernie Cross

Will this ever end?

Well, it will I guess as we are almost there, it wont be long. All that is left is to clean up before water proofing the roof. I must say it has taken longer than I thought, but that seems to be what happens fitting out a coach into a motorhome. We had intermitted rain for some of this part of the water proofing section. Not only did I have to pump the excess water out of the roof area every time it rained, but then had to wait till it was fully dry before starting on it again.

I had run out of supplies a few times this week so it was handy that the hardware is nice a close. If we were still at Leigh Creek it would have been a 5 hour round trip to go pick up more things.

These are the only times I like being in the city.

Just the last bits of cutting things away before we finish doing the water proofing.

This is after the 3rd coat and I think this will be all.

Now that the water proofing has been done, we have decided a roof top deck would be a nice touch to the roof finish off. This will give us some more room, this one with a great views. We are not sure what type of chairs or table we want up on the deck. It will have to be fixed to the side some how, so we are leaving that for later on to do. I also am going to fix a wind turbine onto this area as well but again not sure how just yet. I guess all this will come to us over time. So this thankfully will the last blog on the old air-conitioning.