That Time We Bought an Airstream-aka House on Wheels

This is going to be a long one so I’m trying to think of where to even start…let’s see, it’s probably best to give a little back story for those of you who don’t know me personally. If it’s one thing my everyday friends probably know about us, it’s that Eric and I are a really random couple. Meaning, we take risks, we always find ourselves in some sort of project, and Eric has always had an entrepreneurial mindset for as long as I can remember.

You might remember me mentioning a few times here, that Eric and I are into real estate investment and currently living in one of our rental houses until we can secure our dream home.

Never did I think renovating an airstream would be something we’d be doing. That was a thought that never even popped into my mind.

My brother in-law actually owns a 1976 airstream out in California that he bought a few years back when he came out to visit us. There happened to be one for sale up the street from us and sure enough he bought it and had it shipped 3,000 miles across the country. Random fact, it’s actually an airstream that was in Beyoncé’s music video Party that he now has on his property and airbnb’s.

Ok, so let’s rewind to a few weeks back. I heard A talking about getting a house on wheels and didn’t think much of it. His little toddler self always comes up with some idea (maybe much like his dad) or project that he wants to make. This week it was building his own claw machine (you know like those arcade ones). Lord help me.

One night at dinner Eric mentioned he thought we should get an airstream. I’m sorry, come again? Did you mean pass the pepper? I quickly shot the whole thing down and told him it was not happening and that I wanted us to get settled into our forever home before we dive into another project.

Ah ha! So that’s where A’s idea of a house on wheels came in. They must have discussed this before finding the right time to mention it to me. As we ate our grilled chicken dinner, Eric painted the picture of us trailing around the east coast making fun family memories with the boys. And as enticing as that sounded, I wasn’t sold on it. I thought to myself, here’s another one of his brainiac ideas. I told him I would think about it, but honestly it was just a nicer answer other than heck no.

Well wouldn’t you know, the more I thought about it the more the idea grew on me. Mainly because I thought about this as a design challenge, alright, the whole part about family memories sounded pretty awesome too.

If there’s one thing we both have a passion for it’s renovating houses. The more I thought about it I realized, here’s a renovation I don’t have to live through (because those are always fun), I don’t have to leave my property to work on it (that’s an added bonus), and it would be something completely different than what we’ve ever worked on before. I think you can see where this is going…

Yup, I ended up caving in and the more I envisioned it the more excited I got about it. I told Eric I was on board with getting one under two conditions, we’d get closer to that dream home, and at some point we’d take it across country to his brother’s newly acquired property in Joshua Tree (that’s a different story).

The weekend of little nugget’s birthday we were down by my dad’s and while we were laying around the pool, Eric told me he wanted to take a little ride later on. I told him the last time he told me we were going to take a little ride he ended up surprising me with our dog. He laughed and assured me we weren’t getting another dog and to just trust him. I told my sister I thought he had something up his sleeve and wasn’t sure what to expect. Then I heard A slip about going to see a house on wheels and knew that’s what it had to be.

Sure enough, only a few minutes away from my dad’s was an airstream listed for sale. We went to check it out and immediately the boys jumped on the beds claiming their space and asked if we could take it home now. I walked through and took video of everything so we could go back and discuss design options. Everything in it was original and we knew it needed some work, but we saw the potential. We thought it over and decided to make an offer on it the next day. The seller was set on a price that we weren’t willing to come up to and told him that if he changes his mind to let us know.

About a week or so went by and Eric found another one listed but this time it was in Saratoga. We decided we would make the drive to go check it out but before doing so the seller let us know that he had someone else coming down from Vermont to take a look at it. He promised us he would let us know what happened and sure enough, that one sold. The crazy part is, the same day that one sold, the original guy we made an offer to text Eric and told him he decided to accept our offer. We knew it was meant to be and the next day we were proud owners of a 1978 Airstream 25′ Tradewind International.

I’m excited to share our adventures with you and all of the renovation ideas we have for it. Here are some pictures of what it currently looks like. There are certain aspects we are going to restore and others we are going to gut and reconfigure. Here’s to owning an airstream and all the exploring that will come along with it!