There is no short cut to painting your Airstream or Argosy walls. I feel the need to put this out to the Universe because, well, I have heard too many people paint the walls without proper prep. A year (or less) later, the paint comes peeling off. And I mean ALL of it comes peeling off!
Check out our Article on How to Paint the Outside of your Argosy / Vintage Camper!
Prep work makes the dream work. Trust me…. If the proper prep work is not done, you are wasting your time and money!!!
Thankfully, I have learned from the many that have painted their Airstream / Argosy walls before me and found out what worked and what didn’t. Armed with a lot of advice, I went to our local Home Depot and picked up supplies.
To quickly and truly get the stickiness off the walls AND degloss, TSP is your best bet.
I am a fan of the environment. TSP is not great for the environment. So, I went looking for a better solution. I had read how some have had success with Blue Dawn, a miracle product from the Dollar Store that can even remove Blood, Tub o’ Towels and a dilution of Bleach. None of these seemed to work long term and the stickiness that permeates the walls came through after painting. Historically, TSP was the only true product that seemed to work.
Taking a chance, on a contractor and a Home Depot employer recommendation, I bought a different product called Liquid Sandpaper. This is a no fuss, no dilute, no rinse product that requires a massive amount of cheap shop towels. Personally, I like this product because it’s safer, no smell and just put on a rag and scrub.
I had to scrub three times, four in some areas such as the kitchen but it seemed to make the walls smoother. I went back to check on the walls a day later. Either I missed a couple of spots or the stickiness returned. It’s important to wait a couple of days between cleaning/deglossing AND painting to ensure the stickiness does NOT return. If it does, try scrubbing one more time.
Once you are ready to paint, be prepared to put on at least two coats. Don’t put on too thick of a coat because thick coats can also peel easily. Truly, this is the same as painting your home interior: even strokes, not too thick and work in sections. A foam roller works best for covering the large areas. A good bristle paint brush or even a small craft foam brush (if for minimal painting) works great for those tight spots where the roller can’t get to.
The End caps and Kitchen have a slightly different material than the walls. It’s a hard plastic type of material. These areas will probably take more coats of paint. Ours took four coats.
If you notice in the above picture, the paint kind of just “bubbles up” and doesn’t want to adhere. THIS is what happens when you do not Prep, Remove the grime/stickiness and degloss!
Tambours have slightly different Painting Needs. Check out our Article on Painting Tambours.
This project seems daunting but it is super easy to accomplish and the final look is amazing!
I am on the fence with the Liquid Sandpaper product. It took extra steps and even my teenager noticed that it didn’t work great the first two scrubs. I think it’s a personal choice but I’ve listed the products below for you to check out. NOTE: Our local hardware stores did not carry DeGlosser on stock but they could order it for us. We found Amazon to be quicker.
We would love to see how your interior paint jobs turned out. Also would love to see the adventurous that chose a different color than white!!! We went with white because I have so many patterns with wallpaper and fabric.
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Mike
Sandy
