Re-carpeting the doghouse

Not the actual dogs doghouse. The fiberglass cowling that goes over the engine in between the front seats.

"Sure, I see how it is."

The old carpeting was thoroughly glued down, but fortunately the glue had degraded over the years and peeling it off was pretty easy.

Just a bit of wire brush work and a wipe down to get a nice clean fiberglass surface ready for re-carpeting. Since the old blue carpet peeled off in one large piece it made a perfect template for cutting the new carpet, which saved a lot of time measuring, cutting and going to Lowes for more carpet when I get it wrong. I very nearly tossed it in the bin since it was pretty nasty, but my natural inclination is to save everything because you never know when it might come in handy (Thanks, Dad, for that!) With the template it was super easy - so if you ever do this never, ever throw anything away until you are completely done and absolutely certain it will not have a purpose. That will be brilliantly illustrated when I get to what happened to the old bathroom cabinet we took out in a later blog post!

So with a bit of fitting and cutting darts and gussets - this is very much like sewing a fitted bodice! - I got a perfect fit on the form and ready to start gluing it down. I picked up a can of Elmers Flooring Glue and just to be safe; a roll of double-sided heavy duty carpet tape. I decided to do this in the RV rather than lug the heavy fiberglass up three flights of stairs to the apartment. So it is sitting on the dinette table.

Never having done this before I figure a complete coating of glue is the way to go so I just grab a putty knife and start slathering it on, very much like frosting a cake, and once I have a layer of glue over the entire area I just lay my pre-cut carpet over it and start fitting and forming it down on the gluey fiberglass. I wasn't sure how to hold it in place until it occurred to me that giant bulldog clips would work brilliantly! Luckily I have lots and lots of these - they are dirt cheap and I use them to clip potato chip bags, bags of frozen veggies, piles of mail, hold things on hangers; if something needs holding I am a firm believer a bulldog clip will do it. In this instance they were the absolute perfect tool for the job.

After clamping and gluing I needed to weigh down the top to get a nice firm and flat adhesion up there. The box the interior paint came in worked quite nicely for this!

That is Rustoleums "Cabinet Transformations" kit, which is perfect for painting RV interiors!

Now that the doghouse is all carpeted and ready to go back in place all I need to do is get the man tinkering with the Chevy 454 out of my way and re-install it:

 The finished product back in place and looking great with the newly re-carpeted cab area:

 Now all it needs is a really cool center console to hold drinks and maps and stuff.....hmmm, where did that bathroom cabinet get to?.......