This is the last area to be completed in our Viking Fibreline caravan project. Work has been carried out on and off over the years, but I have rarely mentioned it in this blog, so it will be covered in full here. The closet is a tiny space at the rear of the caravan, and whilst we still wanted it to have an Art Deco flavour, it is too small to be in the same style as the rest of the interior as it would be too dark. Lou wanted this room to be more of a 'Streamline Moderne' style, using light coloured, glossy finishes emulating the lacquered furniture of the era.
I'll start by recapping the preparatory work. After removing the inside walls, we were pleased to find no rot, so new insulation was installed and new wall boards cut and fitted. I laid a sheet of ply on the floor so that the planned flooring would be level with the laminate floor in the living area.
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| This is what we started with |
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| Insulation installed |
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| New wall board |
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| White wash |
Lou painted the lower half of the walls white in order to seal the wall to allow glue to adhere. The top half was sized with wallpaper paste. To the bottom half, Lou stuck sheets of self adhesive vinyl miniature metro tiles, and she wallpapered the top half. The line where they meet was trimmed with a plastic chrome trim strip.
An original feature of the Viking that Lou loved is the orange plastic 'borrowed light' panel between the kitchen and closet. Having removed it safely, unfortunately when cleaning the panel, it snapped because it was so fragile. Lou successfully glued it together with Araldite and we were able to re-install it.
On the wall beside the borrowed light panel, a mirror has been fitted, with an Art Deco style light above it. Above the door, and at the top of the wall, I boxed in the wiring using plywood, painted white. The edges were sealed with bathroom sealant to tidy the joins. I purposely left a thin strip of the boxing-in unsealed and removable, so that any remedial wiring that may be required in the future will be easily accessible.
Lou's research led her to find a company (https://forthefloorandmore.com/) who will print any design onto vinyl flooring. In keeping with our love of music and dancing, we found an image from Shutterstock that we liked. Having purchased a license to use it, Lou e-mailed the image to the printers and they sent us a square metre of printed lino. We used tracing paper, cut to the size and shape of the closet floor, along with the toilet, and a card template to represent cupboard positions to optimise the position of the musical stave pattern, before cutting the vinyl.
The lino was stuck down with double sided flooring tape in the closet.
On the inside of the closet door, we thought a full length mirror would be useful, help to make the closet brighter by reflecting light and give the illusion of more space. Obviously, a glass mirror would be too heavy, so we got an acrylic mirror cut to the size of the door and fitted it with a combination of construction adhesive and brackets at the bottom to support its weight. Lou painted the door frame inside the closet white and was then back on the polishing duties with the door hinge, and a vacant/engaged lock she bought at a vintage event.
We bought a plastic corner sink and designed the cupboards around it. As usual, I drew up a plan, and then mocked up their locations to ensure there was sufficient space for us to manoeuvre between sink and toilet.
I cut and fitted the frames for the cupboards, using original Viking framing left over from the ever-useful spare doors. The window sill and lower shelf were extended with ply.
The two flat cupboard doors were constructed with a wood frame covered in mint Formica. On the front, clear perspex was glued on to create a gloss finish, and then framed with white upvc trim. Lou found a set of four, appropriately styled handles on e-bay.
A variety of white upvc profiles were used to trim around the cupboards. I created the curves by warming the plastic with a hairdryer and bending the trim to the required curve. The plastic holds its shape after cooling. It was glued in place with CT1.
For the curved doors, I drew round the curve of the sink on some ply wood and cut it out with a jigsaw, giving me a curved strip. I cut it in half and used the two parts as templates to make more of the same. The sink is not a true quarter circle as the curve flattens towards the corners, so the 'ribs' I created were left and right handed. I clamped the ribs together and sanded them inside and out to make them uniform. They were then glued and screwed between straight wood sides to make the basis of the doors.
I covered the curved frame with mint Formica but this time, I couldn't use perspex for the gloss effect as the perspex was too thick and would not bend to shape. I couldn't find thinner perspex and, as with the corner windows, couldn't warm it evenly to create the required curve. My research for an alternative led me to discover PETG, the plastic they make 2 litre coke (other brands are available) bottles from. It comes in sheets and is thinner than perspex so is easier to form, and still gives the glossy finish we wanted. This was glued on, and screwed as well to ensure it stayed in place, and then trimmed round the edges with white upvc trim.
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| Clamped while glue setting |
The window sill shelf has been covered in mint Formica, and we are still searching for a big enough sheet of clear plastic, with sufficient flex, to fit over it to match the gloss effect of the cupboard doors. When the four cupboard doors were fitted, we were gifted with a 'happy accident' in that the musical stave floor pattern was reflected in the high gloss of the cupboard doors.
I cut a hole in the corner of the sink and fitted a Comet Florenze tap, plumbed into the water supply and wired to the Whale water inlet. The tap swivels and tilts, but we feel it is too big, so are looking for a smaller alternative. The sink outlet used more convoluted pipe and a 'Y' piece connector to link it with the outlet pipe from the kitchen.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us almost to the end of our project. It has been a long and tiring journey, with both of us learning new skills along the way. There are still a few small 'tidying up' jobs to do and I will include them in this blog as they are completed. A project like this is never really finished, as there will always be something to tweak, or improve, and of course, we need to use it! In the meantime, it just remains for us to get our life back, and to say thank you for reading our blog.
