In the summer of 2019 I  found myself once again traveling half way across the country to purchase a RV. I had sworn on the previous two occasions I would never do this again. The things we do for love.

First was the Casita in Rice Texas, then the Earth Cruiser in Salt Lake City Utah and now, a twenty five foot Airstream Flying Cloud in Abilene TX.

Following is how I modified the Flying Cloud to make it into my Full Timers Man Cave on Wheels.

Here is pic on the way back to California from Texas. I still had the Four Wheel Camper. My original plan was to use the Four Wheel Camper for off road adventures and have the ‘Cloud’ as a base camp. This didn’t pan out for a couple of reasons. One, the overhang on the back of the truck camper would hit the front of the trailer on a tight turn and two, I didn’t have much room for storage in the Four Wheel Camper. More on this later.

If you are contemplating getting an Airstream, spend some time learning all the the different models and what year they made them. Its not so straight ahead what separates the different models and what year certain floor plans had changes. I wanted wrap around windows front and rear plus dual axles. I also wanted to keep the length to less than twenty five feet. After a few months of looking I knew I wanted a front bedroom. With the front bedroom you are not looking at the back of your tow vehicle when you sit down to relax or eat. Once I saw a twin bed I knew I wanted that as well. With the twin bed you have a running floor space all the way from front window to the back. This makes the interior of the trailer appear a lot larger.

Before I even got the trailer home I knew the stock round sink had to go. The round sink and counter top protrude out into the hallway. This is right where I envision my desk chair so I would be bumping into it non-stop. I had seen other Streamers modify this to a square sink, most notably The More We Explore

In the pic to the left you can see what the original sink looked after the counter top was removed.

Some of the mods I dreamed of as the miles unfolded en route to California included solar panels, Battle Born LiFePO4 batteries, Victron charge controller, 16 inch wheels and new tires. Okay lets get started.

The first step in this project was a trip to Vinnie’s Northbay Airstream Repair

Vinnie removed the old sink, counter top, stove top, gaucho, dinette and stove top to get things ready for Mike over at R&B Custom Cabinets in Santa Rosa, CA. Mike modified the original cabinets to accommodate a square sink. He also installed a desk top where the gaucho used to be

Once that was done I headed back to Northbay Airstream Repair where Vinnie installed a new Furrion Stove Top and had the new gray quartz counter top installed.

In the pic of the counter top above you can see a second faucet. This is for drinking water. I know the Berkey water systems are popular but I wanted something built in that didn’t require set up or storage so I opted for a three canister home system. A couple of weeks ago I did a blind taste test versus some Calistoga bottled water and couldn’t tell the difference between that and my home made brew.