How it Started
I have been following the tiny house movement for a couple of years now and am really motivated by the idea of having less stuff. You see, I currently live in a 2800 square foot two story home on five acres. I have little free time to do the things I want to do because I am constantly fixing, repairing, and maintaining all the stuff that goes into keeping up a 2800 square foot home on five acres.
I have been watching online as different people took flatbed trailers and constructed tiny homes on them. Most of them had a loft arrangement for the bed and my wife would remind me that as we got older we would find a loft impractical. Then I came across a person who remodeled an old Airstream travel trailer into a home and I said to myself, “That’s it!” I have always liked the style of the older Airstream trailers. It has that Art Deco look that I have always thought was the height of style.
I began searching Craigslist and Ebay and quickly discovered that there is a very wide range of sizes, condition, and prices for older Airstream trailers. I spent quite a bit of time researching vintage Airstream trailer websites and bought a couple of books about them. As I learned more and more I became convinced that this was what I wanted to do.
The first few I found on Craigslist were sold quickly and I thought that I may not be lucky enough to get one. I did discover however that I was drawn to the 1970’s style of trailer and that the 31′ Sovereign seemed to fit the bill of what I was looking for. A living area small enough that we could still be mobile but large enough that my wife and I could have some space and not feel too crowded.
After several weeks of patiently surfing listings I stumbled upon a 1974 Airstream Sovereign for sale or trade on Craigslist. It just so happened that I had an Chevrolet Astro Van that I had been unsuccessfully trying to sell so I contacted the seller and asked if he wanted to trade. After getting through a couple of hurdles that I may expound upon later, I towed the trailer home and began the process of cleaning it up.
The trailer as it turns out, was a 1975 model that was purchased from a person in LA after hurricane Katrina and was lived in by a man who was older and didn’t take very good care of himself.
I decided on the initial inspection that this was going to be a gut job. The trailer was crawling with cockroaches and needed to be bug bombed. I spent an afternoon filling the trash cans at my house with all the junk from the trailer and about gagged when I cleaned out the small refrigerator that still had food in it and was filled with maggots. I managed to get it cleaned up a bit but the trailer itself has a musty nasty kind of odor that won’t make it liveable.
I moved the trailer closer to my garage for quicker access to tools and took a power washer to the exterior to get some of the mold and dirt off of the outside. I jacked the trailer up and put it on jack stands. I took the very dry rotted tires off and put them in the garage. The next step will be to inspect the axles and brakes. Then I want to get all the interior taken out. I know I will have to replace the floor and probably rewire the whole thing, but before I get too far ahead of myself I need to address the condition of the trailer frame. The parts that are exposed are pretty rusty and the frame extending out the back to the rear bumper is partially rotted away. Once the belly pan is off I will be able to get a better look at the condition of it.
Scott's Stuff 