Make mend and reuse

On our last trip out in the caravan, we spent more time in the evenings sitting in the van on the seats because it was dark and cold earlier.

I found the seats got very hard very quickly and suggested that we buy some new foam for the seats. The van being a 1974 or 76 model and I am sure the seats have not been upgraded in all that time.

We took one cushion down to Clark Rubber to compare and also to see if they could supply it Yep they could and would cut it to size if we gave them the measurements.

The foam on the left is the old one and does look worse for wear As I have recovered the seats only last year, I wanted to be able to use the same materials and I didn't want to have to buy more so had to take the covers off carefully so that they could be reused. Luckily I had made them like a slip cover and had laced the back with strong cotton so that it would "give" when people sat on it, making it easy to remove.

The green foam on the right is the new stuff and I wanted to completely cover that before putting on the outer cover.

The one on the left has been covered, I used fabric that has been in my stash for several years. I actually bought this to make a skirt and jacket. It is a pale pink and I never wear that colour, probably one of the reasons it was still in my stash. It is gabardine so easy to work with but quite sturdy, very suitable for seats covers. To make it fit snugly, I sewed up three sides and with Warren we "dressed" the foam and then I hand sewed the ends closed. My fingers were quite sore for a couple of days after from pushing and pulling the needle through the material.

The one of the right is the final result. We now have four seats,three making up the lounge/dining area and one (the one above) will fill on top of a table if we ever want to make it into a double/single bed.

Before we did have three smaller pieces but they moved a fair bit but this one is made to fit. I did had to put a seam down the middle to get enough from the three to make one big cover.

Warren will use the old foam for practice at archery.  

Shake,rattle and roll

On our caravan trip, we used some secondary roads, all bitumen but there were a couple that were narrow and a few holes on the edges. Warren always makes a point of pulling off the road where possible when a couple or more vehicles are behind us. Our first stop on the first day for lunch was about an hour, ten minutes up the road. We have topped there several times before and it is a free camp with a power box and a toilet block.

Everything was fine in the van and we enjoyed sitting inside eating lunch. Next stop was our stop for the next two nights. Parked the van and opened the door to be greeted with the TV upside down on the floor and a few tins rolling around the floor as well. Apparently one of us had not secured the bottom latch of the pantry. Not damage there though.

TV was a different story. We take it off the arm and place it upside on the bed to travel, never a problem before. However we realized that each time we have done it before the bed had been made up with a doona. This time the bed had only been made up to a sheet and the doona had travelled inside the car due to having been washed and put inside the house instead of the van. The sheet had acted as a slide and I guess with some movement and braking etc, The TV had slid down the bed and straight on to the floor.

My thought was "How much is a new TV and DVD player?"We gingerly picked it and turned it over, the screen was intact so we slotted it into the arm on the wall and turned it on. It fired up but no picture so we attached the aerial, but still no picture. Warren tested lots of things and found it wasn't the TV it was the connection for the aerial!

This is after its slide to the ground, a couple of rub marks and that's all.

We had some reinforcements done on the outside of the van and it seems the guys when fixing some chequerplate, drilled through the wires for the aerial.

This is how we solved that problem in the short term. Warren has since threaded the wires through the pantry and back outside to the pole that is our aerial pole.

One other stop we had and a light shade had fallen from the ceiling, again no damage was done, didn't even break! Our mattress moves forward on the base each time so a small shelf it going to put at the end to stop it going forward. We come home after each shake down trip with either some repairs or improvements to be made.

We are considering replacing the seats as they are okay in the short term but after a couple of hours of sitting they become quite flat (I guess as the caravan is over thirty years old, they have had a lot of bums sitting on them). A trip to Clark Rubber is in order to see if we can get thicker/denser foam rubber.