A Long Goodbye / A New Beginning

Yesterday marked the first day in a long farewell between me and my original mobile store.

Obviously I’ve been anticipating her being gone since I made the decision to sell her back in September but Sunday was the day the new (soon to be) owner had a cheque placed in my hand. Only the usual paperwork and the handoff of the keys and she-who-was-never-named gets to ride off into the sunset with her new owner leaving me to concentrate solely on her replacement, who shall be known as LorigamiVan.

God saw fit to give me (and Mom) a beautiful week to get the majority of the store work done in LorigamiVan and now I will have time to get the physical bus upgrades done. I know. Most people would have done it the other way around but the added electrical will run off of solar and at least one portable battery - none of which will affect the store area of the build. 

I say build but it’s really more of a no-build build. At this particular point in time, I could remove the store and replace the seats and seat belts and no one would ever know a yarn store had been there. That will change when I add the solar and lights. 

Enough preamble. Let’s see some before and after photos! Remember - the lights aren’t installed yet so the after pictures are darker than the finished store will be.

Photo 1: all the seats and seatbelts still intact.

Photo 2: seats and seatbelts removed. Floor covered with our favourite soft flooring and the second of three incarnations of display designs partially completed.

Photo 3: final top to bottom yarn display with the bus’ original lights (which only work when the motor is running). LED strip lighting will either run down the center of the ceiling or under the front edge of the overhead storage. Still working on that.

I’m also trying to decide if I’m going to leave her as a plain white bus and just hang my signs from her windows like I did with the rv or put some decal signage on her. Any helpful suggestion - pros and cons - are welcome so please comment. 👍

Written by Lori, happy TCL owner, who can’t wait to get LorigamiVan out on the road this spring!