Hello my name is Jenny Sales and I live in Louth, Lincolnshire and this is our vintage 1984 compass caravan...She came to us as a complete filthy wreck and we gutted her inside and gave her a good scrub then paint job for which we turned her from a monster caravan into our summer haven.
We bought her from Gumtree for £300 with free delivery in November of last year, but once they delivered her...they drove away at great speed!...Luckily I had already intended to rip out the inside! so dog chewed cushions, smelly brown nylon curtains and broken windows, didn't worry me straight away!
The neighbours all either laughed at her or looked down their noses, like I had lowered the tone!...but I so wanted the caravan for some office space in my garden that did not need planning or red tape, but also gave some artistic freedom and since finding Happy's Blog, she gave me brilliant inspiration for creating that space...
I managed to pull and kick the Bathroom, Kitchen, Seats and old fashioned Cupboards out!...PMT helped a lot :). But I didn't start to super clean with bleach and paint until March of this year as it was just too cold...but once the weather started to improve, I think she took approximately 6 months to renovate working on her, on a part-time basis.
We use Summer as an Office, a lovely chill out space, she is very tranquil and I read the Tarot Cards so she is the perfect space to take clients...as now she smells like flowers...
Inside she has a little electric fire, a standard lamp and a little record player for the full vintage feel. We have also managed to fit a double bed settee, in fact once she was gutted she was a lovely size. She has been decorated in the style of cute, pretty, feminine, summery and Kitsch with a BIG Splash of HAPPY Style...I also think she looks very English.
We won the fab ready made wood steps on Ebay for £65.00 which means we can now sit on a balcony...drinking tea and eating cupcakes.
The standard lamp is my favourite item in the caravan, we bought it in charity shop for £4.99 and had to carry it all the way through town. It was so scratched and stained, but after I had painted the base and my clever Mum had recovered the shade with red and white polka dots and black pom poms the lamp looked totally different...we are now addicted to up-cycling!
I already had a lot of the items in the caravan around the house, the little fire and bed settee were mine, the red clock was a Dunelm's buy for our kitchen last year, the little glass cabinet I have had for years, but I had to saw one of the legs off! to fit it over the wheel arch ;)
The rest we bought online and they were mainly Ebay wins...
Four caravan windows was my best buy @ £14.99
The black and white floor £43.50 Ebay
Little painted tea trolley £25.00 Ebay.
and my favourite buy was the Cath Kidston Rosali
fabric 10 meters for £43.50 on Ebay again!
Also the interior paint we used was Milk by Crown Paint.
We didn't fancy wallpapering the roof as it had taken a bashing when I had removed the walls, so we insulated the roof with silver radiator insulating rolls and then staple gunned the Cath Kidston fabric onto the end walls and all across the roof...it gives Summer a soft feel.
I also bought some large external decal stickers from Amazon, Peonies, butterflies and roses and I stuck them all over a little 'dink' on the white roof, i then applied 3 coats of Yacht varnish...and it looks really pretty, you cannot see the 'dinks' now!...It's funny because everyone thinks that I painted the flowers!
I was inspired to paint the exterior of my caravan green because I couldn't get Happy's magical caravan out of my head...also green is the colour of prosperity. I also have a wishing well in the garden for which I had already painted green.
Thank you Happy Harris, you have the Happiest style...I am now converted to colour..
I used to be a dark red and Black girl, but now colours,
flowers and cute is my new canvas… it definitely makes life happier!
The work on the caravan was a lot harder than I thought it would be, maybe I wouldn’t have started the project had I have known… but my caravan was a real monster and I say that now, when sitting in Summer.. surrounded by the prettiness that it was really worth doing.. I just love the new space we have made…
She is the female equivalent to the Mans shed!You can visit Jenny HERE to say Hello
all written in Jenny's words...if you fancy joining in, in the vintage caravan interviews...please click HERE...where you can email me to tell me your story...
I would love to hear from you xx
