It is not an easy job to do a home improvement project, especially as a couple; but Bridget and Bob Flory from Tennessee managed to pull it off beautifully. The Florys, who tied the knot on St Patrick’s Day last year, have turned a moldy camper into the perfect sewing studio.
Bridget Erikson Flory has a passion for redesigning clothes and her husband was determined to support her passion. A skilled carpenter himself, he took on the project to give his wife a personal workspace to do her sewing.
Initially, their idea was to build a small studio. However, the price of lumber was prohibitively high, so they put it off. Later, Bridget came up with a money-saving solution. As she told the Epoch Times, “Then, I thought of taking a camper and gutting it.”
The couple managed to find a camper that was in good shape exteriorly, but the interior was destroyed with mold and mildew because a window had been left open for nearly two years. Anyone who has experienced a vehicle exposed to the elements will have an idea of the challenge they faced, but this did not stop the couple from building their dream studio.
It was not an easy task to clean out the entire camper, and it took much longer than they expected. Bridget commented, “As we kept gutting out the inside, it revealed more and more destruction from all the water that had accumulated.”
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They cleaned the camper from top to bottom because there was so much damage. Due to the rainwater that had collected over the course of two years, they found when they were pulling up the floorboards, that even the insulation there was soaking wet.
They invested in a dehumidifier and an ozone generator to take away the moisture and eradicate the mold and mildew at the same time. Ozone generator treatment uses specific UV-light wavelength oxygen atoms to effectively eliminate any odor in an enclosed space.
Bridget, who started her company Land of Bridget, in 2013, sketched out a design with counters and shelves to meet her needs. She had a large number of materials, and “it was really necessary to have everything at my fingertips to design with,” she said. Since the new studio was detached from the house, she could work there at any hour.
With Bridget’s ideas, and the camper clean and fresh, it was time for her husband to show off his carpentry skills. Bob installed 12-inch tiles on the floor, built Bridget’s custom counters and shelves, and painted the ceiling, wall, and fittings white, to make it look spacious and clean.
Ever-thrifty, Bridget also created a makeshift mannequin for fitting purposes out of a bra and two pillows duct-taped together. It became a colorful companion when she applied decoupage, a collage technique of pasting decorative pieces of paper or material over a surface.
Bridget was so pleased with the completed project that she could not resist sharing the photos with her members-only Facebook group, Upcycle, and Repurpose. She showcased her husband’s carpentry skills there and was really shocked with the reviews she got, “The reaction was unbelievable. Over 3,300 reactions and hundreds of comments… Bob is truly an amazing carpenter, he is able to have an idea and make it happen.”
Those who have tried DIY projects know the struggle of the process and how frustrating it can be if the outcome is not what we had hoped. Some people leave a project midway because they lose interest or it becomes too complicated.
In the case of couples projects, it can be really hard to work together. If one has the wrong attitude, it can take the fun out of the project and they might both lose interest. Luckily, this was not the case for Bob and Bridget. They managed to realize their dream by cooperating and working together with their separate skills to build Bridget the perfect sewing studio. She is thrilled with her new workspace, and proud of a job well done.
