An Alaskan Aspen with 120 Hours of Elbow Grease

We live in Wasilla, AK, and I did all of the restoration of this 1977 Aspen trailer myself. I come from a construction background in residential bottom-up, commercial roofing and siding, and material fabrication and manufacturing. I took the Aspen all the way down to the frame and stripped the inside and outside skins off. I restructured and re-insulated the trailer before replacing the siding. The panels, hitch, and bumper are painted with PPG epoxy primer and a single-stage paint. The rims and spare tire mount and jack are powder-coated.

The whole process took me about 3 weeks and cost about $1,000 for the paint and another $300-$500 in accessories. Paper, plastic, tape, stir sticks and buckets and other miscellaneous items. So probably about $1200-$1500 and about 120 hours of labor. This was my first automotive spray job; time includes the learning curve. (This article was originally published in 2020, so prices may be different.)

The interior is the original cabinetry painted with Valspar commercial grade primer and paint system. I also applied undercoating in the wheel wells as well as the rest of the trailer undercarriage. The windows were removed before painting (highly recommended) and have been polished and re-gasketed. I have roughly $14K invested into it and well over 2000 hours over the course of about 4 years.