Today we finished the leather bench/food prep area...but before I show that, I should show the before and progress of what used to be the dinette area.
Being crafters in a small space is not always the easiest. We need work tables and work benches far more than dinettes and fold out couches. I also need our space set up for food prep, real food prep, down to milling our own flour and preserving our own food for the winters.
It takes a good sized area for canning, and drying foods...but the table needs to go away while I am not using it so we have floor space. Like everything in a small space, I think on it for a while, then plan, measure, plan, measure...then sit on the idea for a while to be sure a better plan doesn't come up.
So the dinette area in the main slide had to go. I will start with before/progress photos and then get down to the process.
Before, while we still had the dryer there. The table had already gone.
It was cute, in a subtle kind of way...but we are not subtle people ;) It all came out, and we transformed it a bit. Note the new tea shelves!
In the midst of painting the main fridge died, so we got a dorm fridge until we save the money to replace the gas/electric one
So down to the gritty part...prep and prime...
I decided to paint over the fabric borders they had like I did in the back room. Open fabric attached to walls holds moisture, then grows mold...which I am allergic to. It takes about 4 coats of BIN to seal fabric.
We found a really great deep teal paint, which is a bit more green in person.
and went with black trim...we like black :)
Then we debated for a while, whether to paint some black designs around the border over the fabric, or if there was a better way to use the space. We are tea people, and I found these cool black iron basket shelves, so our tea space was born, and Nyai had a place for his vitamins and things...
This brings us to the leather/food prep bench. The Kokopelli shelf there was just a temporary place to store some food prep things, so now it is gone. The dorm fridge it still there, but I am hoping soon we will replace the main fridge and clear that space. Once we do, we will make some shelves that run along the wall under the window. They will serve as the place for my canning, candle making, and soap making tools, as well as coffee, whey milk and containers (but that can all change as we move along)
I do think I will make a hanging herb garden under the cabinets, in front of the window though...
Today though, the bench...this is almost finished.
I found a nice 36" x 36" table top, which we cut in half, then added the hinges and fold up legs for the leaf. Now it opens into a 36 x 18" leaf that is like having an island in the RV :) I cannot really get a photo of it open because it is too small in here, but you get the idea.
All food prep surfaces in wood need to be finished with 50/50 tung oil/citrus. The oil sinks deep into the wood, then hardens to seal it. This keeps down bacteria growth in the wood, and the oil itself is food safe. It makes most light colour wood into a rich light honey which is really beautiful too.
The shelves will perfectly hold all of our leather dyes, tools, finished journals and other items...which I am excited to have up off the floor and not in piles anymore :)
Eventually we will pull up all the many layers of flooring out here and revamp it with a click & stick linoleum, but that will be next year maybe. For now, we ned to focus on making things functional and replacing the really old appliances that keep dying.
If you would like to see more, you can find our other turtle home revamp posts here;
https://steemit.com/rvlife/@elew/our-turtle-home-rv-revamping-1
https://steemit.com/rv-life/@elew/our-turtle-home-rv-revamping-2
