After Emma's breif stay in the bus at Donington it was clear the bus needed some more creature comforts. The next job on the list was a set of overhead cupboards for the plates, mugs, pots and pans. We had already got 2 draw fronts left over from the initial kitchen build, these made perfect doors for the overhead. Rather than using heavy chipboard to create the frame, we decided to use plywood with a framework, then cover the ply in the same vinyl as already used to covered the fridge door. This is the stuff B&Q sell to cover your old melamine kitchen cupboards in an attempt to make them look better, but from our expirience of trying to lay the stuff without bubbles or crinckles i doubt any kitchens look better once this stuff is applied. We sprayed contact adhesive to the ply first to aid stickiness, so once the fake wood finish touches the surface it makes cleaning soiled blankets seem like a walk in the park!!!
There are a couple of wrinkles in this photo, which seemed to get worse as the eveing went on, no matter how often they were rollered down. But after a hot day everything shrunk a tad and the finish became perfect. We are not sure if its the glue causing this, or just what this material does, but the final finish is pretty damn good. The edges around the radius arent great though as they have started to lift, so we may add some U shape channel around these edges to hide it.
I had a couple of hours spare on saturday morning so decided to and crack on with the flooring. The plan was to have a wipeable area around the entrance of the bus and the kitchen, and some sort of carpet in the seating area. Rather than normal lino that likes to stretch and rip, i thought it would be better to use some of the wood effect self adhesive vinyl tiles. These are only £5 a square meter and look pretty hard wearing. The floor of the bus is a softish, smooth type of rubber, so the self adhesive tiles should stick well to it, but to aid adhesion i decided to coat the floor in more contact adhesive before laying them. I have added an edging strip to the rear edge and will purchase some more for the other raw edges in an attempt to stop any of the edges lifting over time. I am pretty impressed with the result, and the shag pile rug i have bought for the seating area floor will finish it off a treat!!
