Pete,

I bought my '53 in 1993. The trailer had carpeting in it that was in ok shape but the smell of cat odor was strong (even for us and we have a cat that travels with us) such that I felt I had to rip out the carpet.

After I removed all the carpet, I found several areas on the plywood floor that had to be "repaired" because of previous water damage. Some areas I cut and replaced with new 5/8" marine plywood while other areas I used fiberglass with cloth and built the areas back up. After all this work I decided to put in wood floors.

The floors I used are the 3/16" thick Bruce hardwood (oak) plank flooring set from Home Depot. I cut each of the planks using only a hand saw and the specified "Bruce" contact type cement. The 2" wide planks are cut and groove so they lined up rather easily although all the cuts took a while for me to do.

I left about 1/2" spacing around all the boundaries to account for the floor expansions and contractions. After the floor was down I white glued (and supplemented with screws through and into the boundaries) quarter round trim to cover over the gap.

The only maintenance I have had is that about twice a year I put down 3 or 4 coats of minwax polyurethane. When we are on trips we give a quick sweep and vacuum twice a day.

Since the installation we have travelled over 40k miles with our three young children including 6 months on the beach when we moved and were waiting on our house. In all that time the floors have held up well such that I would highly recommend this consideration.

Tom H.
'53 Airstream Flying Cloud
WBCCI #6490