Grace 5 - Extreme Makeover

[Sharkey]

This is the fifth installment in an ongoing photo essay detailing the history of Prakash's bus Grace.

The previous installments are:

The Early Years
Room Addition
Repaint then Road Trip
The Great Highway 1 Housetruck Race

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The next time I saw Grace was the next time I visited Santa Cruz, April of 1988. The bus was in the final stages of a more-or-less complete remodel and restoration.

Like most projects, this one started out small, a repair to some weathered roofing which was last attended to in 1979. Removing a small portion of the plywood underlayment revealed dry rot, which when probed, seemed to have no end. It soon became evident that it was time to completely remove the roofing, underlayment and anything under it that was also damaged.

This ended up becoming a whole-bus rebuild, partially because of the water damage, but because when enough of the top of the bus was going to be deconstructed, it made sense to do some refinishing as well.

The roof itself was resheathed in plywood and an impervious covering of galvanized steel was applied. No more leaky composition roll roofing.

The sides of the upper story were similarly rebuilt with steel siding over wood. This required that the bus be repainted. Since Prakash was living in a stable situation with adequate storage, he decided to repaint the entire bus. Of course, no sense doing that unless the body work was completed, etc. The snowballing project from hell.

Anyhow, I came upon the bus after the roof, body work and painting, but before the interior was completed. Instead of house paint applied with a brush and roller, Prakash used high-grade automotive lacquer. This paint was unforgiving in showing any defects in the body work or paint preparation, so the entire bus was completely stripped down to bare metal, sanded and primered, masked and then painstakingly color matched. The resulting showroom-quality finish was absolutely astounding to behold:

Photo 24:



Details of some of the architectural changes tomorrow...

[Sharkey]

Aside from the new paint, the most obvious changes to the exterior of the bus is to the rear of the upstairs and the archway over the deck.

Photo 25:



The new sheet metal on the sides of the loft now have a sculpted appearance where they end at the back porch, which also integrates the knee bracing that went up to the roof. The scrolling end of the wall is actually a cutout in the metal, with a routed wood underlayment painted black. The small "squiggles" at the top of the scroll are similarly cut away.

At first, I didn't understand what the idea was behind this design. Even after asking Prakash about it and getting a vague answer about wanting more privacy in the sleeping loft, I still thought that the design was a bit loopy, and strictly a fanciful bit of filigree. A couple of years later, I was thumbing through my copy of Shelter and found an image of a rafter tail with this exact design carved in it.

The changes to the knee bracing at the back of the porch were also difficult for me to understand. I always thought that the original scalloped timbers were very attractive, but Prakash had replaced them with solid units that let less light into the porch, and by consequence, into the sleeping loft.

Again the answer didn't come to me until much later, when I viewed a photo that I had taken of the rear of the bus from straight-on. The new design made the archway at the rear a complete half-circle, while presenting a lighter version of the original scalloped design at the edges. It also tied the design at the sides into the rear, making the porch look more integrated, rather than a tacked-on addition.

The roofline at the sides and rear were thickened. giving the roof more visual weight. The enclosure at the sides also protected the rafter tails from exposure to the weather, and provided a more streamlined appearance. I was so impressed with the roof line that the roof on the Crown is a complete duplication of this new roof on Grace.

Check out photo 11 again for the difference. The new construction is much less "old timey" and less cluttered, while providing structural support and creating a unique feel to the bus (like it needed more):

[Sharkey]

Now, onward to the interior.

During the restoration of the exterior, the inside fo the bus was also gutted, all of the furniture, cabinets, fixtures and interior paneling was removed.

The rustic and splintery barn board was replaced by carefully sanded, stained and finished Thriftite beaded paneling. All of the metal surfaces were prepared and painted to match the exterior. The driver's seat was reuphostered in material purchaced from the Gillig bus company.

The old flooring with it's annoying broom-foiling seams was pulled up and replaced by new oak planking.

Photo 26:



Note the steering wheel from a Ford Model T. This is not a recent addition.

Photo 27:



In these photos, the interior is mostly complete, and awaiting the reinstallation of the furnishings and kitchen counter, woodstove, etc.

In the front loft, all of the glass was replaced with tinted safety glass, and the floor was covered with new deep-pile carpet in the color "sea green":

Photo 28:

[Sharkey]

Before I end this chapter in the Grace history, a couple of bonus photos.

Prakash and Kamala, his wife of five years, were living in Grace in a private, hidden valley outside of Aptos, California, just south of Santa Cruz. The property was owned by an elderly woman who had taken them on as caretakers, and they helped her with chores, shopping and upkeep of the property.

The land itself was situated along a drainage and was perhaps 3/4 of a mile long and 1/2 mile wide, ridge-to-ridge top. Aside from the owner's residence, there were no other houses, no streets or roads, no mercury lights, and absolutely no road noise or other distractions. It was country-livin' paradise.

Prakash and Kamala's homestead on this property was in about the center. They were given the use of a three-bay agricultural shop building which had water and telephone service. Prakash built a small studio for Kamala's painting and sewing, and a large redwood deck for sunning. An outdoor shower with adjoining tub occupied the garden behind the studio.

When the bus was emptied for the remodel, much of the interior was stored in the shop building, and an outdoor kitchen as assembled to keep the food coming.

In this photo, you can see the studio on the left side of the shop. The plastic at the corner is the kitchen:

Photo 29:


Although the studio was very compact, it served as my guest bedroom during my visit.. I'm including a photo of the interior because a crop of this photo is used as a background on one of the Grace pages on the web site.

Photo 30:


At the time of this visit, I was employed at one of the local AM/FM radio stations as Chief Engineer, and had been living in the city for six years. I had forgotten the peace and contentment that being out of the noise and haste of city life had brought me in the previous years of living in a rural setting and being self-employed. The few days I spent with Prakash and Kamala shaped my life in some unexpected ways. I relearned the lesson of leading a leisurely lifestyle, and reaffirmed my desire to life somewhere clean and quiet. I felt that my daily life was flavored by the experience for months afterwards.

As with all things too good to be true, shortly after my visit, the property was developed by the elderly woman's heirs, and Prakash and Kamala were evicted. I visited the property during a 2001 visit to Santa Cruz. Boldly ignoring the "private drive" and "no trespassing" signs at the entrance, I drove in to see what changes had taken place. I expected that the valley would be wall-to-wall condos.

No condos, just 8-10 residences, and one grand estate at the end of the road. None of the houses looked very inviting, and there was no evidence of the three-bay shop building that I had visited in 1988.

I still dream about the day that I find a similar private place of my own.

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Proceed directly to the next chapter: Guest House