11.09.15 - Stubbs Gets Stripes - Day 13.

Like always, the day started with shopping. We bought a dozen 2x4s to frame out the bed, a project that we may have halfway finished. The majority of the day was spent painting, which is too bad, because we did not expect to be spending another full day on the exterior.

In between waiting for coats of Rustoleum and roof paint to dry, Chels got started covering the windows in Plasti Dip, a spray-on, peel-off rubber paint. We're using it to add privacy to our windows while keeping diffused light. Because of the ability to peel it off, we can always change it later.

I started on framing out the bed, which will be challenging due to its odd shape, and the need to keep the space beneath it as free of vertical supports as possible. Hopefully tomorrow's post will have pictures that make more sense. The bed will be lofted to create a storage area underneath, where the bikes, and hopefully my boat (and wishfully, my skis and kayak) will be kept.

Meanwhile, Chels and grandpa Bert started taping off the racing stripes.

We chose to add racing stripes over all the ridged areas of the bus because rolling on the paint was tedious and time consuming in these areas. We thought it would be faster to paint them a different color, using spray cans. This plan totally backfired, because while the end result looked awesome, the taping took FOREVER.

As the sun set, we peeled off some of Stubbs' tape, and boy-oh-boy, does that paint job look good. She's looking less like a prison bus every day. (The stripes are a dark navy.)

We worked on through the sunset into the darkness adding more Plasti Dip to the interior and more 2x4s to the bed frame. As the temperature dropped, the Plasti Dip started to do some weird clumping things on the cold glass of the windows, so maybe keep that in mind if any of you go that direction with a project. The temp was well above freezing.

All in all, we didn't accomplish as much as we'd hoped, but the bus is really starting to look good, which I think is a key element in the conversion process. Most all of the interior can come together after we leave for Texas. As long as the outside is looking good and the bed is fairly well framed in and ready for sleeping, we're good to go.