What's Inside

If you've been wondering what it looks like inside of our Luxe Land Yacht here are some pictures!

Kitchen

Looking down the hall to the bedroom

The closets

Looking to the front and the couch area

View of the stove and stove top in the kitchen

Microwave next to the fridge

This is the night after we camped in it for the first time!

There is the Airstream in the rear view mirror!

It didn't take us long to start disassembling our Airstream once we got it home.

The couch is almost gone

Closet doors are gone

Bathroom vanity is gone

One of our many loads to the dumpster

Bedroom minus the mattress

And here is the most current state, almost empty!

Look at all that space!

Airstream Materials

Today we hit the jackpot in shopping for materials for our Airstream. We went to a store called Cargo Largo (which is a big discount store with all kinds of things) not knowing what we would find but ended up coming out of the store with some beautiful laminate flooring, an Elkay sink and faucet, screen, and a few other things to help us out during construction such as safety goggles, knee pads, drop cloths, and ear plugs!

TrafficMaster Allure 6 in. x 36 in. Barnwood Resilient Vinyl Plank Flooring- 
Costs- $1.99/sq. ft. at Home Depot
We Paid- $1/sq. ft.

TrafficMaster Allure 6 in. x 36 in. White Vinyl Plank Flooring- 
Costs- $1.99/sq. ft. at Home Depot
We Paid- $0.65/sq. ft.

Elkay LKD232SBH5 8 Centerset Concealed Deck Mount Faucet-
Costs- anywhere between $433-$887 online
We Paid-$75

Elkay LR17163 Kitchen Sinks - Single Bowl Kitchen Sinks Self Rimming-
Costs- anywhere between $307-$524 online
We Paid- $67.50

Screen Material-
Costs- about $5 at Lowes
We Paid- $2

We are really excited about all of the great deals we found today at Cargo Largo to put into our Airstream!

We knew we wanted to install vinyl plank flooring and have been looking at our options. We wanted something with texture, a little rustic looking, and on the darker side. When we found the flooring today we knew it was exactly what we wanted and couldn't believe what a deal we found.

There was also a box of the white plank flooring that looks kind of like stone and we decided we would install that in the bathroom. The great thing is, both the barnwood and white flooring are the same size so it will be easy to transition from one color to the other while installing.

The sink and faucet were such good quality and we couldn't pass them up for the price.

The screen was a lucky find and something we would have bought later that day anyway!

Deal hunting is an added element of fun to our Airstream renovation!

Our shopping cart weighed about 250 pounds!

Michelle

The Pickup, Hitch Setup, & 1st Camping

We picked up our '76 Sovereign from Carlock, IL on July 30th, 2011 and towed it to Sangchris Lake State Park just East of Springfield, IL for our first night of camping.

Before we could camp we inspected our new rig and hooked up the all in important weight distribution hitch.

Hitch Setup

I chose the Reese SC Weight Distribution Hitch - 800lb to tow this 31' land yacht. My tow vehicle is a 2001 Chevy Tahoe Z-71 with a 5.3L V8. It has a short wheelbase and with such a long trailer I was concerned about potential sway.

I went with the the Reese SC over the Dual Cam setup because I did not have to drill holes in the tongue frame. The setup should have been easy.. but it was very difficult! First off, the propane tank mount was right in the way of where I needed to mount the tongue brackets. I ended up having to remove the tanks and the rack. Next you have to thread nylon lock nuts over the 2 bolts on each bracket.. and they do not thread easily!! It requires a long crescent wrench to hold the nut and a 1/2" allen wrench to twist the bolt. A 1/2" Allen Wrench.. Who has one of those laying around?! A quick trip to Sears solved our problem - I never saw in the instructions where this tool was needed.

First Tow - Off to the State Park!

After testing out the brakes and checking our lights we were off! We drove 1.5 hours south to Springfield, IL and then about 30 minutes East to Sangchris State Park. We arrived around 5:30pm and had the daunting task of backing in our new trailer for the 1st time with plenty of people watching. I got lucky on our first try and soon soon we had 30 amp power and were grilling outside our Airstream!

The tow home took another 6.5 hours which we took at a leisurely 57mph averaging 12.5 mpg in 'tow-haul mode' which kept the RPM's quite high, but hopefully relieved some pressure on the transmission.

Time to demo... more to come!

Matt

P.S. our blog can also be found on Air Forums.