First and foremost, I’d like to welcome all the lovely new visitors from Creative Crafting’s blog tour – I have been waiting for this day for a while now and I’m so pleased to be able to welcome you to my blog. While you’re here please have a good look around my categories – there are plenty of craft, sewing and DIY projects in my archives, plus articles on fashion, shoes (on Tuesday Shoesday!) and current trends. I’ve recently been blogging about fun summer ideas (such as Gardenbury festival) and party ideas, plus I share thrifty recipes weekly – every Pieday Friday! But without further ado, I’d like to tell you about my new project – I’ve bought myself a caravan!
It’s not the prettiest caravan at the moment and it’s certainly ‘vintage’ as you can probably tell from it’s shabby exterior and tatty interior, but I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I was looking for a ‘garden building’ to use as my workshop/office ever since I moved into my 1-bed bungalow – I needed space for my tutu business and somewhere to keep all my sewing stuff, so I saw the potential in this little caravan. It’s perfectly mobile so I snapped it up for a very low price (you know I’m loathe to spend my hard-earned money, so you can imagine what a bargain it must have been!), had it delivered (included in the price) to my home and parked it up in the back garden. Here are some photos of its current condition, inside and out:
I was in two minds about how to fix it up. When I first saw the caravan I considered carrying out a ‘renovation’, restoring it to it’s original state. I really do love this kind of retro style, especially garish patterns and orange fabrics (as you have probably seen in my living room makeover series!) so it was in my mind to restore the caravan to its former glory and keep it as it was. But when I got inside it, I realised that it had got pretty damp at some point in the past and most of internal units and cupboards were crumbling and would have to be removed and replaced, the floor lino was torn and the seat cushions were also pretty-much shredded. So I had a rethink and realised that, seeing as I would need to replace all of the internal fittings and repaint the outside of the caravan, I might as well change the design of the caravan completely and go for something that I really liked for myself – it was going to become my studio after all!
So, this is the start of my journey of converting my crusty little caravan into a beautiful sewing workshop to be proud of, and I’ll be sharing the ideas, DIY projects, sewing tutorials and progress over the coming weeks. I hope you’ll stop back to see how the caravan project develops! Please let me know if you have created your own home workshop or have converted an old caravan and I’d love to see your photos or feature you on the blog as part of this series – please email me [email protected] or tweet me @CassiefairyTutu. I’d love to hear from you!
And to all the lovely Creative Crafters; I hope you enjoy what you see here and add me to your favourites list or Bloglovin’ reader and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you feel inspired to join in with this month’s Inspiration Challenge (in honour of ‘wedding season’ this month’s theme is vintage wedding dresses!) and share your very own craft projects at the end of the month! Please click here to see what we made last month and how to join in!
Related articles
- Charity shops are going vintage crazy – good news for me! (cassiefairy.com)
- Tuesday Shoesday ~ 6 ways to create a 1950s-inspired look (cassiefairy.com)
- Traditional school summer fetes (cassiefairy.com)
- My attempt at the Mollie Makes sardines sewing project (cassiefairy.com)
- Another amazing year in the UK (cassiefairy.com)
26 responses
Hi Rhys, thanks for your message – that sounds like a great project for your graphics GCSE, what fun! Definitely consider the stability of the trailer when you do any renovation work. I took out most of the interior of my caravan and it feels less sturdy when we move it now. The built-in cupboards etc must have given it some stability and I guess that taking it out had an effect on the structure. Thankfully, we almost never move it, but if you wanted to take your trailer on the road, I’d recommend making sure that it’s really stable. Please do get in touch again if you have any other questions 🙂
hello,
i am 15 and i am renovating a old trailer back to vintage glory, for my GCSE graphics project. Do you have any tips as to what to do/not to do?
thanks
Hi Dana, the caravan did come with a kitchen built-in but all the woodwork was really damp and crumbling so we had to take this out. Hoping to find a replacement soon so that we can get the caravan back on the road and used for holidays again soon! 🙂
Where did you find the stove, hood and sink at?
Thank you very much, I’m glad you like it! 🙂
WOW! This is a wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing the information! Its so cool!
Haha hopefully it’ll be finished before the winter weather comes eek! I will add more photos as I go along! 🙂
Thanks, I will be adding more photos of the carvan transformation soon 🙂
Thanks a lot, I agree it look so much better! I’ll be adding more pics of the caravan ‘transformation’ so please come back soon! 😀
I really loved your project. You have just changed the look of this caravan and it looks amazing.
What a great idea for a sewing room. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
That’s such a big project! I hope it doesn’t take too long so that you can start using it as a workshop soon. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with it. Thanks for sharing.
Oh my I’d have dumpped that in the skip, I’ll stick to my new one if you don’t mind. Good luck with doing it up
Visiting from the Blog Tour, I am also a stop. I likes on FB, shared on Google +. Best of luck with the caravan. In the US these are called campers.
Wow that’s fantastic, thanks for sharing this link 🙂 x
I will definitely be updating my blog regularly with pics etc and I’ll need a second opinion, so please do come back soon! 😀
wow, did you?! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out how I can see it in my head! 😀
Ahh lovely, I remember these old caravans from my childhood too – I hope I can do it justice! 🙂
Thanks, I will be posting about everything I do, so fingers crossed you won’t get fed up of all my photos etc! I can’t wait to get decorating!
Thanks, it’s going well so far, I will share my recent photos this week! 🙂
Am looking forward to seeing how you progress with your caravan makeover 🙂
Wow!!! I am so jealous it will be so much fun – I love decorating 😀 Will definately follow your progress 😀
Good grief that is one heck of a project, I can’t wait to see how you get on. Best of luck. 🙂
I am very envious though, I’d love to be able to do the same myself (and the caravan is just like one my Grandparents used to have! Love it!!)
Joy xx
Oh wow what a great thing to do! I would love to do something like this ! Will have a look around your lovely blog . Also, I once lived in a house with fabric like that on the sofa 🙂
What a lovely project, I’ve always wanted to do something like this. I am looking forward to seeing your progress
OMG, I just read the cutest article (in our local online magazine) about this lady who ‘diy’ fixed up her little vintage trailer. I’m sending you the link to the article (cross my fingers, hopping it works, lol).
http://www.gogilbert.com/issues/2013aug/index.html#/46/
Can’t wait to see your re-creation! Best of luck!
XOXO Nensi