We have floors, we have storage!

Back to the project!  We finished laying the flooring.  When I ordered the rubber floor from Home Depot I wasn't paying attention and purchased one roll short.  Before ordering another roll to cover the rear ramp, which is also the back wall of the trailer, we decided to go to our local Home Depot and see if there was any other material we might prefer to use.

The rubber coin flooring and a sneak peak of my shelf project.

We found a TrafficMaster vinyl residential flooring that had a really great look as an "accent wall" behind the bed when the ramp is up.  They had it in stock in a large roll that they cut for you.

It has a thick foam cushioned backing and a tough urethane wear layer but is still lightweight and you can cut it with a pair of shears.  The wood pattern has a good amount of texture which helps keep the floor from being slippery.  We used a generous amount of the double sided flooring tape and installed an aluminum stair edging to keep it in place and protect the edges from wear.

Next up is my project for some storage in the front "V".  We were thinking of building a cabinet across the entire front section.  Here are some examples sourced from the internet of what others have built:

I love this one!  Photo from Google Image search

Photo from Google Image Search

Photo from Google Image Search.  The off center placement of this one helped me come up with ours.

These are all really great uses of the front part of the trailer but they are also in trailers that are quite a bit larger in width, height and length than ours.  When our bed is deployed we only have a few feet from the foot to the front of trailer.  We need to keep the side door entry clear and have some room for a dog bed for Phoebe (the other furfaces have invaded our bed) and a place to keep the pups food and water bowls.  That last photo with the offset counter top gave me the idea that if we had a unit that was fitted to the right side of the V, it would give us some area behind the left side for storage, food bowls as well as some hooks to hang jackets and stash a broom.

We happed to find a vintage built-in corner shelf that someone was selling at the flea market for $20.  It was all pine, so it was sturdy but light.  The dimensions seemed pretty close if we cut off the top portion so we decided to try it out.

I completely forgot to photograph the shelf before we started our modifications.  So here it is with the top section removed, painted and some wood trim installed which I stained the same color as our ammo boxes.

I added the wider trim to help keep things from sliding off and the thinner braid for visual interest.

The top section we had to cut off.

Extra floor space behind the left side.

I used antiquing glaze on the wood trim.

Wall hooks and a faux cow skull from Hobby Lobby that had perfect colors.

 I used some of the fabric I had left over from making the window shades and made curtains for the lower two shelves.  This gave me a chance to use more of my awesome deer skull fabric and also allows us to cram a bunch of gear in the lower two shelves while keeping it out of sight.  I also added a little Talavera tile to the front center of the shelf because why not?

Shelf curtains are hung, and we have a great spot to keep the dog bowls.

Installed! Rob screwed it to the wall along the back and right side. 

Rubber Floor and Disco Lights!

Our flooring arrived, we went with a "Coin-Grip Metallic PVC Floor" from Home Depot.  This floor is often used in gyms, garages, boat decks and other commercial applications.   It's lightweight, flexible, durable, non slip and waterproof.  

Photo from Home Depot website

The ramp into the trailer is also the back wall when it's up so I wanted a tough, non slip easy to clean floor that would look ok as one of the walls.  We unrolled the floor then moved the sheets into the trailer to let them flatten out for a couple of days.

In the meantime we installed our disco party lights.  Rob found these fun 12 volt LED lights that are on a flexible strip.  They have multiple color settings and programs, you can even have them change colors in tune to music.

We attached the strip along the top of the walls, it has an adhesive backing and then we added some clear plastic mounting clips to make sure it stays up.

The high gloss paint ended up really reflecting the lights, it looks like a double strip.  

Sookie and Mollie decided to check on our progress:

Sookie is wowed and Mollie is watching the light show.

After the fun of installing the lights we started on the floor.  You can install it with double sided flooring tape or with a permanent floor adhesive.  We decided to use the tape, it's easy to work with, no toxic glue fumes and if we have to remove the flooring we won't destroy the plywood subfloor.

We cut one of the sheets to size and got it placed:

 Then we laid the floor tape along the edges, it was a pretty straight forward installation.  We decided that was a good stopping point for the day.