We used to have a place on the island called the Exchange where we could take things we no longer wanted, but that still had a bit of life left in them, and where people who were looking for usable items could go to retrieve them. It was a wonderful place and must have kept tons of stuff out of the landfill. We've made both deposits and withdrawals from the Exchange over the years. Unfortunately, the Exchange burned to the ground about a year ago, leaving us with usable stuff that we'd like to get rid of and wishing we could go shop the Exchange for a piece of metal, or 1 foot of pipe. At least a dozen times while we were working on Buster, we've said, "dang, I wish the Exchange were in operation."
But, if the Exchange had been in operation this last year, we would have had to have done something different for our privacy curtains because I recycled a shade I took down in our kitchen. Now we don't have curtains on our windows at home, but sometimes, in campgrounds, you need them either for privacy or to cut down on the light.
So starting with my old, stained, accordion pleated shade, I cut the metal top and bottom rails off it, and spray painted the interior side red. (I LOVE paint--it's transformational, and I am willing to try to paint darn near anything.). Then I cut the pleated material to size, and sewed some industrial strength Velcro tabs on the curtain, and glued the other side of the Velcro to the van. These meet my criteria for curtains:
- they are out of the way 99% of the time
- can easily be removed completely
- can be deployed in a snap if needed
- AND, they were my favorite price, which is FREE.
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| Folded out of the way and held in place with little velcro strips. |
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| pulling the curtain up |
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| velcro tab on the back of the curtain, and matching piece on the metal of the van |
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