Tin Can Homestead

Brett and I already knew that we did well living together in a small space; the Volkswagen was tiny, so the comparative size of an Airstream seemed huge. As we traveled from place to place, I began my research. I read Airstream forums about renovations and common problems; I discovered Airstream classifieds and perused them daily. We figured since we were heading back to Seattle in a couple of months, we could buy an Airstream wherever we found one and bring it back with us.

We spent a lot of time in coffee shops—and still do—as we’re both coffee addicts, and Brett was enrolled in full-time university online. He would study, and I would endlessly scour the classifieds, drawing and redrawing Airstream layout plans. The first one I sketched out was in a coffee shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee, pictured above.

Besides deciding what the interior was going to look like and where we were going to buy an Airstream, we also had to figure out the more important question of where we were going to put a trailer when we did find one. Obviously, buying a chunk of land was ideal, but we were going back to Seattle, and with the tech boom and the skyrocketing cost of land it seemed pretty unlikely that we could afford anything. Besides, while researching tiny living I discovered that you can’t necessarily plop an Airstream or tiny home wherever you want and expect no one to bother you, even if it is your own land. I read about laws that prohibited living in tiny dwellings unless there was already a bigger house on a lot (and then what’s the savings?) and learned that living in driveways full-time wasn’t exactly legal either. I eventually arrived at the conclusion that an RV park was probably our best bet. I began to research parks within commuting distance of Seattle. You don’t have to drive too far outside of Seattle to be in the middle of the woods, and we needed a place we could live stationary and long term—a homestead.

In the meantime, I was researching what to look for when buying a vintage Airstream. I learned about the trailer frames (chassis) and common rust problems, about the fact that all Airstreams leak and what leaking is easily fixed and what isn’t. I read about how many abandoned Airstreams become homes to mice, insects, and other vermin, which can mean that you will need to rip out all of the trailer’s walls and insulation to remedy the problem. I compiled a little list of things to check out when we were viewing prospective new homes—I had read horror stories about people stepping right through rotted floors, or trailers coming away from rusted frames halfway down the highway behind their towing vehicle. I also contacted our pals Kate and Ellen from The Modern Caravan and used them as a sounding board for shopping. They proved to be an invaluable resource throughout our process. Here’s the checklist we came up with:

Once I had this list to run over in my mind, I felt a little better wading through the piles of classifieds. The first Airstream we looked at was in rough shape, and the floor was so water damaged that Brett’s foot went right through it.

One of the things that was important for us to determine early on was how much we wanted to renovate our Airstream. There are some people who buy trailers, leave the existing layout and furniture, and give them a cosmetic makeover: a new paint job, fabric change, appliance swap, etc. This requires a different set of guidelines when viewing the trailers. Some people tear everything out, including the walls, and take it right down to the studs and frames, removing the subfloor and even grinding down the frame. I knew I wanted to gut our Airstream entirely. I wanted to do all our own flooring, cabinetry, and appliances, and I wanted to customize the layout. But I also decided early on that I wanted to avoid taking the walls out if I could manage it, and I wanted a subfloor that was mostly in good shape (instead of having to replace huge chunks of soggy subfloor). With those parameters in mind, I looked for an Airstream that was already gutted to save on demolition time and the expense and trouble of getting rid of all the interior materials that weren’t needed.

PLANNING

One of the first things I discovered about RV parks is that they’re really hard to get into. Many of them don’t allow long-term occupants, and if they do, there are restrictions on how old your trailer is allowed to be. Many have waiting lists and some do credit checks. I’ve seen a lot of school bus conversions lately that are beautiful, but most RV parks do not allow school buses, and they definitely don’t allow tiny houses. These are all things to keep in mind when pursuing tiny living, and another reason why a travel trailer is a good choice. We got our spot in our RV park by the skin of our teeth due to a combination of my perseverance in cold-calling every RV park within a fifty-mile radius of Seattle and Brett sweet-talking the manager the day of when she initially complained about the state of the Airstream on moving day. The other thing to keep in mind is that most RV parks don’t want you renovating your trailer at the RV park. We parked our trailer in a friend’s driveway for a month or so and worked on it a bit before towing it into the RV park. When we moved it in, it was an empty, scrubbed, painted, and primed shell with roller blinds (so the management of the park couldn’t see that it was entirely empty). We didn’t exactly have permission to be doing any renovations, but we kept our renovating to reasonable hours, were very friendly with our neighbors, and always made sure to clean up outside right when we finished our work for the day. Most people in the park were more curious than annoyed, and we invited quite a few neighbors inside to see what we were up to. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

After making sure we had a plan for a legal place to put our Airstream, we were able to firm up how we wanted to live in it. We planned to live stationary in our Airstream; we were going to live in an RV park so we didn’t need to worry about getting power off batteries or making sure our tanks were plumbed in for off-grid use. After six months of tooling around the country in our Volkswagen, we wanted to stay put for work—and sanity. Our future travel plans wouldn’t include bringing our home. We basically wanted our Airstream to serve as a tiny house, and so we planned, wired, and plumbed it that way. And since I had decided that I didn’t want to rip out all the walls, I worked on designing the interior in such a way that we could run all the electrical and plumbing through the walls and cabinetry we were installing. How you live in a space determines so much about its design. If you love cooking, you prioritize kitchen space; if you love guests staying with you, you make your layout guest-friendly. If you have kids, they need places to sleep and play. How much storage do you need? Are you renovating it to live in or just for travel? Will you be using it as a mobile office; what kind of a workspace do you need? These were all things we considered when planning our space.