MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *C* Chaises and Chairs, Clock and Bucket

I am going to start off the new year with posting three of our motorhome modifications at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing.  I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.

Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter C now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER C

Chaises and Chairs for Camping:

Camping means relaxing.. and that is just what we do!  These zero gravity recliners are soooo comfortable, and we really like them enough to make space in our basement compartments to take them along.  They take up a LOT of room because they do not fold up very flat. But they are worth it for sure.

We bought them about 8 or 9 years ago when these style chairs were first coming out on the market. We got mine first and it was made with softly padded washable fabric.  There was only one left in the store, so we got a rain check for one for Steve. It took months before the store got them in again, and this time the material was a woven mesh kinda rubber coated and holds up well too.

We do not allow them near the campfire to avoid any flinging sparks or burn holes. We put them away every night, we never leave them out in the rain, and they are lasting a long time and wearing well.

We found these wonderful clamp on tables that swivel and move around for best positioning. The recessed cup holder can also fit the stem end of a wine glass!  The flat surface can hold a dinner plate, or scissors and thread and needles when working on my stuff.  The small clamping piece around the metal frame stays on the chair all the time, and the arm and tray both lift off and can be washed. The arm and tray can lay flat on the seat of the chair when folding it up and are ready for the next time it is set up. 

We do not let the grandkids sit in our chairs, or company if we can help it.  By just keeping them for us, they are kept in good shape and stored away when we leave so nobody ever walks off with them.

But we did find some nice sitting chairs for company and grandkids. They fold up really flat and we bought four of them at Walmart for about $8 each on clearance.  Works well and we have had them for about 4 years now and the grandkids all enjoy having chairs close to the campfire.

We watch out for sparks, but do have a few tiny holes in them from campfires.  At that price, we can replace them if need be down the road. But for the small space they take up in the compartment, we would replace them with exactly the same kind or find a way to sew new fabric onto the frames.

Speaking of frames... THESE are the favorite chairs for us to take along to other peoples campsites for a visit, or take to a parade or picnic or family gathering. They are more comfortable than the bag type chairs.  We bought the heavy duty, taller backed lawn chairs about 20 years ago. They had the wide flat plastic webbing on them.  I cut the webbing from the frames and wove on this pattern with macrame cord.

The pine tree pattern motif was inspired by the shutters we made for our last home, a log home on the banks of the Oconto River.

I stole that pine tree cut out pattern from a logging company in the UP of Michigan. It was cut into the boards on the front porch of their office. On a Sunday, I made my teenage daughter Heather hold up a large piece of cardboard while I traced the cutout design. She was mortified and embarrassed, but I was happy and got my pattern!  LOL

Yes, we take along 8 chairs in our motorhome when camping.  When camphosting or camping with family, we are usually full of company and visitors to our campsite. Having enough chairs along is a must for us.

Our frames have broken a few times over the years, but I have convinced Steve each time to let me unwind parts of the woven sections and let him repair the frames by sliding on new pipes over the old ones, or using new stronger bolts and nuts instead of the cheaper ones they came with. They are so comfortable and warmer than plastic webbing. The backs are taller than most lawn chairs and a bit wider for the butt too. LOL

Here is a link to my blog post about the fixing of the frame and re-weaving them to become useful again:

reweaving-woven-macrame-lawn-chair

These chairs are hard to do, and are a strain on my hands to keep doing them now as I age.  My sister and I have done a lot of them over the years....

Here are some links if you would like to make one yourself :

diynetwork Macrame Lawn Chair

deucecitieshenhouse.com Macrame Lawn Chair

and a You Tube for step by step instructions:

Clock for Retirement:

Our friend Seann has this clock for camping now that he got retired. I think we need one of these. Steve has started asking me what day is it.... he has lost track now of such things since being retired. 

Coffee table:
Steve made this sturdy little coffee table for our motorhome.  Having items to meet more than one need in an RV is a plus. Not only is it a great coffee table, but it is a multi use item because it is strong enough to be a bench to sit on if we need an extra spot at the table. 

Since this above photo was taken, we added rolling casters so I can set my table loom on it, clamp it tight and weave while sitting inside. Then if I want to get up, I can just roll it away from me to move around and pull it back up tight to the right position to weave again. 

Now that we put in the reclining loveseat, the casters let us push the table out of the way before putting up the footrests.

Easy Peasy! 

Collapsible bucket:
This is a handy item that we found in a camping store. It is wide enough to dip in our squeegee. It stores flat of course, but works well for quick wash that we try to do on the motorhome. Good for doing the front end windshield or back side from dirt and road grime.  I have seen some folks set them up as outdoor trash bins, and line it with a plastic bag.

Most campgrounds frown on washing your rig on your campsite, so we usually do it from our own water tank when in a parkinglot or wayside.

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It's frosty cold outside in Wisconsin today, but the sun is shining! It's only 6 degrees, but the wind chill is at 9 below. brrrr we might warm up by the weekend and get some SNOW!  YAYYYY

We are looking ahead to camping this upcoming summer and making some plans.

Mid summer we have toyed with the idea of going out west through to the Pacific ocean in Washington... and taking a big block of time off from Steve's part time county driving job.  I would also like to do Alaska, but for that we would want a whole summer and pick up an extra RV that is smaller to take up there. Maybe a small B or C or a pickup truck and camper on back. We could then resell it when we come back. We don't want to beat up our big diesel motorhome going that far on rugged road construction and gravel.  Maybe in 2019 or 2020.

Our friends Roz and Gary went to the local RV show in Green Bay last week.  They learned about a nice private campground up near Munising MI and we are making some reservations for this summer, perhaps even with a Pictured Rocks Boat Tour! We usually boondock or rustic camp, but they don't, so we will do the fancy route and have hookups!  LOL.  Plus we could leave the dogs inside of the rig safely while we do the boat trip, knowing they have AC and fans blowing while we are gone. The campground looks nice and has some great reviews.   http://jackpinelodgeup.com/

In October, we usually take two sites for our family at High Cliff State Park for the big Halloween celebration there. Sadly, this year, all of the sites are already taken. I sat online at 1 minute to midnight on the first day available to make those reservations. I sat with credit card at hand, with two devices open, ready to book.... but the sites all got snatched up before I could get any of them!   So plan B is to take two sites nearby at Calumet County Park   We can drive over to High Cliff with all of the grandkids in their costumes for the trick or treating. We will still have our family fun camping with all of the kids and grandkids, and celebrate my birthday as well.

We are also thinking of a couple longer trips... perhaps in spring a loop down to Tennessee to see friends, and then over to another friend in Missouri and loop back home. Maybe 2-3 weeks.

Then in the fall, we are thinking of a jaunt out through Minnesota and see how far we go west, and then turn around and come on back for a 2-3 week span.

In the meantime, I will snuggle up cozy warm in our sticks and bricks house, sewing and weaving and spinning and knitting..... and looking out at the frozen landscape of Wisconsin.

Reweaving a Woven Macrame Lawn Chair

If you have spent any time in picnic areas or campgrounds, you may have seen these wonderful woven lawn chairs.  The uncomfortable plastic webbing is removed, and replaced with intricately woven designs using polypropylene macrame cord.

The cords last almost forever, but sadly the frames break and wear out long before the woven portion does.

My sister and I have woven many of these chairs together as a team.  Here are photos of some other chairs we have done over the years. My sister and I usually sit side-by-side to work on them while we are camping. We will call out the pattern back and forth to each other, and each complete a chair at the same time: "2 under, 4 over, 6 under, 2 over, 4 under and loop loop" !!!  Then we would stop and take a drink haha!!!

If you would like to learn how to weave the lawn chair,

here is a good link with step by step instructions: 

How to make a Woven Macrame Lawn Chair

But, like I said, the frames will break. Usually at the joints where cheap rivets are stuck through the aluminum tubing at stress points. We try to be careful with our chairs but often it's other people who sit down on them too hard and break them. When that happens, most people just toss the chairs away.  But if you have ever had to go through the work to make one yourself, you would HATE to throw away such a beautiful chair...

OUCH! The rivet tore right through the frame pipe! 

We LOVE these chairs that I made just a a year after we were married.  They were our anniversary presents to each other.  The seats are wider, the backs are taller, and they have nice wooden handles instead of plastic (that breaks too) ...  Unfortunately this style frame is not around in the stores any more. We got our original chairs with flat woven web at Fleet Farm almost twenty years ago. Then we cut off the webbing and I wove these designs for us with braided macrame cord. The pine tree motif is the same one we had on the shutters of our old log house in Oconto. The seats are all little pine trees.

The frames of both of our chairs had broken --- Soooo I want to repair the frames we have.  The only problem is I would have to completely tear out the cord and redo it again once the frames are repaired.   Ugh! 

Of course, we could try to locate new frames.  My friend Connie found me two wonderful heavy old chair frames, of the rocker style. I could remove the entire woven sections and move them over to the new frames, but the seats on these other frames are much narrower and the backs are shorter.  I don't think I can preserve the original pattern and style and total lettering of our names if I put the woven sections on the smaller frames. Thank you Connie for saving them for me.  I think I will use those frames for redoing my father-in-law's and step dad's chairs.... which are also both broken!

I still want to use the larger frames,

and would love to locate some like ours.

 We cannot locate any of this original size

in any stores anymore, nor online. 

(=== side note === my neighbor Diane 

has TWO of those original Fleet Farm chairs, 

still in original shape, 

and just sayin, someday,

hers might go missing!) 

My wonderful Steveio long ago determined that he could repair the frames if I would remove just the side cords where the woven portions are wrapped around the sides of the seat. The rest of the chair can stay intact.  After looking closely, I figured out how to remove the woven portion in order to repair the frame!

One of my Top Ten blogs that I have written, with over 3,000 views, is my blog about fixing and re-weaving the broken lawn chairs. I wrote it about five years ago when I had to repair and reweave a lawn chair due to the broken frame:

http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2011/08/re-weaving-favorite-lawn-chair.html?m=1

Today, I decided that this time I will write a new blog post about removing a section of the weaving, and repairing a frame.

First I needed to go through a process to secure the woven portion of the chair. I ran a long string in crochet fashion up both sides to help secure the woven pattern. Hopefully, the cords will not slide out of order and I can easily put them back in the same pattern.

I carefully unlooped (is that a word?) the side sections of the seat.  Besides the crocheted string, I also secured them in bunches of every three loops with little plastic clips.

Now it was Steve's turn to do his magic for me!

Steve drilled out the flimsy aluminum rivets and was able to reinforce the sections of pipe by sliding in some narrower pieces of stronger conduit. Then he used grade 8 heavy duty stainless steel bolts and nuts instead of the rivets.

Look what a great job he did with his repair!

Now it was time to reloop (is that a word too?) and secure the cords back around each of the side bars of the frame seat.

Although I'm slowing down in my old age, my hands take a real beating when I do this part of these chairs.

I use these size N crochet hooks to do the work. Notice how they are tapered down some before the hook portion? Some brands of crochet hooks are straight. Those are more difficult to work with.

I tied the original starting cord on in the lower right corner and started to restore the loops back in their original places.

My Oh My----  this really hurts my hands! I can only do a few loops at a time before I need to take a break. Here is a short YouTube video I made of how I actually do the looping and tugging with the hooks. Now you can see why it hurts my hands so much.

Getting Started--- first three loops done

Halfway There

I worked on it on again off again all afternoon and finished it up right before suppertime.  When the final portion is tugged and pulled through, then you tighten up the knots and flicker a flame from a lighter over the knot.  It melts it just enough to secure it without burning it all the way through.

And there you go, the chair is finished!

This chair was Steve's chair, of course. Mine yet needs to have a small section of the frame repaired at the hinge before I can finish it too.

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Note--- I am writing this blog while we are camping at High Cliff State Park this weekend.  Situated on the northeast shore of Lake Winnebago, halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay, WI.  Ahhhhh  what a nice place!

It's great to camp here, and we are subbing for the current hosts today for a few hours while they attend a birthday party. We are the camphost coordinators for the park. We train and set up one month long stints for hosts for the camping season.  Steve has such a short commute back to the campgrounds from the shop. For those readers who do not know, Steve is also the Facilities  Maintenance Specialist Advanced state park employee here.  But he is known as The Fix-It Guy here at the park!  LOL 

Campfire is ready for company with our other chairs around it 

(we try to save our woven ones for just us....)

We picked up some new patio lights for our motorhome.  World Market has them all at 50% off plus a coupon for 15% additional off.  It's a nice long string of 30 lights and is longer than our whole awning.  Often patio lights are short strands of 10 and you need 2 or 3 strands connected to complete the whole awning.

The dogs are happy to be camping too,

lots of new places to sniff! 

We had over Steve's brother Pete and wife Cindy for dinner and a campfire last night. We made BBQ ribs, sweet corn, and salads. Food tastes so much better when cooked and eaten outdoors!

 It was a pleasant evening, and we didn't get to bed until midnight!   

Nicely, our doggers let us sleep in till 8:30 this morning... 

what a treat!