Today, we had the best of intentions to do a coat or two of paint on the walls. We were pumped and excited to have this milestone accomplished.

You know, every day we are excited and ready to accomplish a large task, something happens that totally derails our plans. Yesterday, we had a long day of heavy rain. We didn’t go to the Airstream at all. With all this rain came the leaks. We have been working to silicone the leaks and seal them, confident that we are good to go after it. Disappointment is an understatement. It was really frustrating to have yet another roadblock. We were ready to PAINT. Can’t paint with leaks.

While Brandon scoured the exterior of the Airstream for sources of these leaks, I prepped the inside for painting. This meant that since we were planning on using a paint sprayer to coat the walls, we had to cover up all the windows carefully, or we would be scraping paint off of them.

This was not a quick task. I needed to cover the entirety of the frame and all of the parts around the window. All of the arms that held up the window when it was cracked open and each of the handles that keep the window closed needed to be taped and covered up. We also needed to do a thorough cleaning of the entire airstream. This meant that I needed to take ALL of the tools that the boys use daily out of the airstream and find a place for them. To the back of the Expedition they went! I also completely wiped down the walls from the dust and dirt that had accumulated. They were pretty clean when I was done!

Once I was finished and the airstream was clean, we prepped the paint sprayer and opened our KILZ gallon. We went with KILZ because it would cover the mildew and rust stains left on the walls. Problem with KILZ? It’s thicker than regular paint and did NOT like our paint sprayers. Yes, sprayers- plural. The first sprayer we had was a bright purple one from Harbor Freight. We could not get this one to work for us because each time Brandon tried to spray with it, it dropped our PSI (pressure) on the air compressor. We could not get a constant amount of pressure with it. We quickly scrapped that one.

Brandon rooted around in the barn because he remembered that he had an old paint sprayer from over 10 years ago that they used to paint a fence. So, we loaded this puppy up with KILZ and a little bit of water and went to work. Except, it didn’t work either. Brandon was not a happy camper. Dave opened up the sprayer and fiddled with something, which made it work- kind of. While Brandon was spraying, it left horrible drips down the side of the airstream while he painted. Brandon added a bit more water and shook it up. Gradually, Brandon made great progress spraying paint on our walls. He got a pretty solid coat of paint on the walls. The fiberglass cap on the front didn’t go so well, but we will see how the second coat goes!

Before we knew it, it was 6:00 at night and another day had flown by. So much for two coats of paint!

Much love,

Lauren