In a previous post I talked about the things I have done to the trailer with some Ikea products. Here is an update on how they have gone.
The clear winner at this point, and the way that Ikea got its’ point, were the fold up hooks. These are wonderful and we will be adding more around the trailer for everyday living.
Ikea: 1, Airstream: 0
One issue we had was with the Ikea storage unit (the ‘pantry’) that we put in the wardrobe closet. Underneath the wardrobe ‘floor’ are many components for the fresh water system including the water pump. There are also many different wires, etc. Since there are items that might need access the ‘floor’ is not secured. I actually had to remove two knobs, that are used to lift it, to allow a flat surface. Obviously I didn’t think much of it. Until after we had lunch at Kramer Junction:
In getting back on highway 58 I took a very bumpy route. It jarred the truck and trailer quite a bit. I didn’t realize how much until we stopped again and looked inside.
In our wardrobe the ‘floor’ had come off of one edge of the supports (the one nearest the hall) and had fallen into the are underneath. This caused the ‘pantry’ to lean forward to the point where it almost was whacking the mirrored wardrobe door. The preliminary fix was to empty the wardrobe, reseat the ‘floor’ and put everything back. I knew it would happen again.
It did. I now needed a fix and before it broke one of our doors. The solution was in Salome, AZ.
The path I took was kind of remote and the towns were relatively small. I decided a couple of screws through the ‘floor’ into its’ supports would do the trick. Alas I brought no screws or phillips bit for my drill. Family Dollar store #9045 came to our rescue. I was able to buy a screw set and a multi-tip screwdriver. I used 3 screws and one of the tips from the screwdriver in my drill. Nice and solid and no more problems!
Ikea: 1, Airstream: 1
The final Ikea issue was the toilet paper holder. If you look at the post mentioned above, go ahead I will wait, you will see that we were not happy with Airstreams toilet paper location. We got a holder from Ikea and I mounted it under the cabinet in the bathroom. We found two issues with this. First is that we could not put anything on the counter under or in front of it. It blocked easy access. The second item is that it came off during travel. We were putting the roll back on every time we stopped! Here is our new location:
We haven’t road tested it yet but I hope we don’t hit bumps bad enough to pop this off! We will see soon however as we will be back on the road to Alumafiesta pretty soon.
Final Score:
Ikea: 1, Airstream: 2
