Fixing Vinyl, Paint and Fiberglass Paint Scratches or Chips on Trailer, RV, Bikes or Cars

As you know, I have been working hard at fixing up the trailer. I am so close to finishing it and have about one more days work to finish it but it hasn't been the best of weather and the one day we did have nice weather, my human barometer head (see that post here) wouldn't allow me much ability to work on the trailer that day. 

I tried to take some good before and after pictures of each of these three project areas so you could see the difference that the paint touch up did. 

On each area, I did some polishing as well but I want to post all that in the next post so I am not writing today about the polish but am talking about the paint touch ups. 

On the front of my trailer, there is a fiberglass window cover which keeps the rocks from the rear tires of the truck from cracking the front windows. 

Mine was VERY faded and as you can see, the fiberglass threads are showing through the paint as it has taken many years of sun and UV damage.


The door is the same on the trailer. It has some vinyl stripes across the door that match the paint job on the trailer. I am not sure why they didn't paint the door as well but since the door is fiberglass, they used the vinyl which over time has cracked and flaked due to sun and weather damage. 

They vinyl lettering on the trailer names has also had some cracking and peeling but not as much on the metal side as the door. If you click on the pictures, they will enlarge and you will be able to see the cracks better than in these small sizes. The "Nomad" was very cracked and you can see the white trailer under it. I wanted to make it look better so I took a dark brown Sharpie and started filling in the white cracked areas on the name with the Sharpie. 

It wasn't as dark as I would have liked so I actually ended up taking the black Sharpie and filling in the scratches and cracks with the black Sharpie. You can see the results. If the pictures are too small, just click on them and they will enlarge so you can clearly see how the Sharpie covered them up. 

From a few feet away, you can't tell that I filled in the cracks and scratches at all. Below the photo shows it all polished up and with the cracks all filled in and it looks so much better. You can do this on cars, boats, bikes, RVs and Trailers. You can use fingernail polish on thicker painted items such as bikes, cars and motorcycles but for the thinner painted trailer fiberglass and vinyl, I would stick with the Sharpie. 
 
On the door you can see below, I used the dark brown Sharpie and at first, I just filled in the holes and cracks but then I decided the vinyl had faded and the dark brown Sharpie matched the sides of the trailer better than the faded vinyl so I actually used the Sharpie on the entire two strips of vinyl on the door. 

You can see at first how I am just coloring over the white scratches but then I actually color the entire stripe as the dots were darker than the stripe. I went to EVERY store in town looking for the lighter tan versions of Sharpie but being a small town, they all only sold the variety packs and not the individual colors of Sharpie and only one store had a brown in the pack.
 
So, for the lighter brown strips, I will have to wait until I can get to a larger town with a Staples, or an Office Max to purchase the individual browns and tan colors I will need to fill in those areas. 

I know they sell them as I have purchased them for my mothers history but they are all in bins at my sisters so I will purchase a few of the colors this next week or two and then fill in the rest of the areas. 
 
You can see on the top photos, that I did the same thing on the front window cover. I used the dark brown Sharpie to fill in the white cracks but didn't take the time to color the entire dark brown area. 

Just polishing the fiberglass made a HUGE difference but I will share that with you later. 

 I think the tan Sharpie will really help the peeling vinyl you can see in these bottom pictures. 

You can see in the bottom picture of the door how well the dark brown Sharpie made the dark brown stripe look. I am excited to see how the rest will look once I fill them in with the marker as well. 

I am not standing that far back from the door but you can't tell even in the bottom two pictures that I painted them with the Sharpie marker. It is the best way I have found to spruce up old paint jobs. 

If you notice on the top pictures of the metal support bar across the center of the fiberglass window that the paint has come off the aluminum in that area. I think I may just use some spray paint sprayed onto a small art paint brush to cover that area. Acrylic paint won't stand up against the weather and I don't think I have ever seen a cream fingernail polish of that color so spraying some spray paint on a cheap craft brush would probably be the best bet.

It was funny. I was at Bunko with my girl friends the other night and I was saying how long this trailer is taking me to finish and my friend said something like, "I hate that trailer!" talking about how many posts I have on it and how many months I have been working on it. She knows how tired I have been and getting it finished has taken me MUCH longer than I ever expected but I can see the finish line and am VERY much excited to be reaching that goal and hopefully making the trailer last longer and be more enjoyable for us for the next few years!

On this Thanksgiving weekend. I am thankful and grateful for Sharpie Markers. I have almost one of every color (except the browns apparently) and I use them ALL the time for all sorts of projects. It may be odd to give gratitude for that but when you need one, it is nice to have!

Giving Thanks This Thanksgiving

I started this post TWO years ago! My girls were painting things for the wedding that would be the week of Christmas for Princess Number One.

Here is the only thing I had written and this is the only picture I had uploaded.

"Today was an interesting day. I ate a banana with peanut butter for my breakfast and lunch and didn't eat until my sister brought me some triscuts"

I don't remember that day. I do remember the girls painting those little plant stands using the "Hammerite" paint I talk about in my trailer post. (see that post here) This was the first time we actually used that paint and is the reason I chose the paint I did to use on my trailer. 

I liked the title and figured I would finish off what I started two years prior.

I am giving thanks this Thanksgiving. If you remember my "Living the Good Life" post from a week or so ago, you will know how I feel about my life.

I lay in bed nightly wondering why I am so blessed. Every time I take a shower, I give gratitude for the hot water and am so grateful for a nice shower that is light and open. I remember the Peruvians with no bathrooms at all and a mud shack for a home and wonder how they ended up there and I ended up here.

Last night, I was soaking in the six  foot whirlpool spa tub after a VERY long day driving over six hours for a wedding and fighting a horrible migraine pressure headache since I woke early in the morning. As I lay soaking in the tub, I was once again overwhelmed by how blessed I am in my life. It seems like every needful thing is given to me. Each thing I want or think I may want, shows up within a few days.

I can't begin to tell you how overwhelming it is to be so continually blessed in my life. Just this week, Princess One is getting further along in her pregnancy and mentioned the other day that she would like a rocking chair or a glider for the baby. I suggested she take my glider downstairs as it is rarely used as most people sit on the couches when in the family room. I told her we could cover the cushions with whatever color fabric she wanted.

I did tell her that the gliders and the recliner chair she was mentioning do pinch babies fingers at times. She told me she would think about it.

Forward about three days. I am sitting at home with lots on my list when I get the feeling I need to go to a second hand store in town. I had NO errands to do and rarely ever go to those type places without having other errands to run and will just stop in on my way.


I go to the store and walk right to a boxed item. I look inside and started laughing. It was a "Cracker Barrel" solid wood oak slat rocker brand new in the box, never had been taken out or used. It was $30.

Princess will be moving before the baby and I know she would rather pack a box than a rocker so I called her asking if she would like a new rocker for Christmas and had her look it up online so she could see what it looked like. It is $140 plus tax to purchase it new from the store. It had everything still in the box. I could see it hadn't had anything taken out.

There were two other new items in boxes that were donated from other stores. Not sure why someone bought them and didn't use them but perhaps they never got around to putting them together.

I figured it is things like this that make me feel Thankful all the time and I don't post half of them as most of the time I can't put up a picture or they are a miracles to me but others may not see them that way.

I hope we all remember to give THANKS this Thanksgiving. I hope I remember to give THANKS daily and need to get my other gratitude frames on here so they can help remind me as well as to how blessed I really am.

Happy Thanksgiving and I want to let you know that I give thanks for you! If you are reading this, you are probably someone I love and care about as I don't think many other people care to read about strangers.

Catching Fire -Best Show in Years

If you remember my post about reading "The Hunger Games" series, you will know that I LOVED the books. 

Here is a link to my blog post about the books. 

When the first movie came out, we were so excited to see it. It was the first time in my life I had gone to a midnight premiere of a movie. My girls were so excited they couldn't wait. 

I HATED the first movie. I don't know who directed it but it was so jumpy and the camera skipped around and they never left the camera on the actor long enough to get the feelings. The special effects were horrible and I kept being pulled out of the "story" with the bad effects and jumping cameras. I posted about our midnight show. Here is a link to my post about that.

When Princess Five found out "Catching Fire" the second book was coming out in movie, she wanted to attend the midnight showing but our theater didn't have one. They had an early showing but we had commitments that night. I purchased tickets for the first viewing we could which was the opening night, fist showing, rather than the premiere night. 

It was cold the day of the opening and we decided to start a fire, it wasn't until we started it and flames were shooting out that I realized in a few hours we were attending "Catching Fire" so I took a picture of our first fire of the season just before we headed over to the theater. 

I have to say that I was a bit unsure about the movie as I didn't know if the director or producer were the same but WISHED that the camera wouldn't jump about making it hard to enjoy the story. 

FABULOUS! WONDERFUL! EXCITING! were all words that came to my mind after seeing the movie. I actually jumped in my seat and made a noise at one point I was so interested in it and I was startled by what was on the screen. People around us were laughing and jumping along with us. 

At the end of the show, the theater burst into clapping and cheers! EVERYONE loved it. My girls were so excited they want to start reading the series over and don't want to wait for the next one to come out. 

The special effects were 100 times better. The dress actually looked like it was on fire and like it was smouldering. VERY much improved on the first. Princess Five said she wished they would remake the first one now! 

I highly suggest you read the books before going to the shows as they seem dark but read my post on the books and I will share the ending of book three and explain what the books are about. 

"May the odds be ever in your favor!" 

Cute Party Idea Swedish Fish and Goldfish Snacks

Since it is Thanksgiving week and you may have lots of company over and may be leaving lots of snacks out on the table, I thought I would share this cute idea I came up with the other day. A friend of mine gave me these two "fish bowl" looking bowls with some colorful decorations in them. 

Since you know how I am about decorating for holidays, you can guess how long they lasted on my counter. :-) 

I was planning on donating the bowls to a local second hand store when Princess Four was having a date night with lots of her friends and their dates coming over to watch a video after a dance. 

I was getting snacks out for the group and had these two bowls on the counter and thought they looked like fish bowls and I was serving of all things.... 

FISH! 

So, I poured our Pepperidge farm goldfish into the bowl and then was pouring in the Swedish fish when I had the thought that if I used some clear cellophane crumbled in the bottom, it would hold the fish in different places and it would look like the fish were swimming around the bowl. Even a light blue or green Easter cellophane would work. 

I thought it was a cute idea. I kept the bowls for that reason as the kids are always having friends over and for some reason, goldfish are one of their favorite snacks.

May be a short post but since we are having family for the holiday, I don't want to have to post over the holiday. Thanks for understanding. Have a wonderful week. 

Swedish Fish and Suckers for the Swedes

 

We have some neighbors that served as Missionaries twice in Sweden. They had a Swedish teen boy come and stay with them last year for the summer months. At the same point, we had an exchange student from Spain. 
 
Since we were taking our exchange student to see some fun places, we thought we would take their Student from Sweden with us on those fun outings. 

For the past week or so, that boys family has come to stay with our neighbors. We got to hear some wonderful talks by them at church today.

Even the young boy here gave a WONDERFUL talk about paying tithes to the Lord and how he sold some things and got a gift card as payment and he was worried about how to pay the tithes on that as he couldn't break up a gift card. 

He said he was really worried about it until he started taking the items people purchased and delivering them. The people started to give him tips and he made enough to pay the tithing on the amount he earned. 


I really enjoyed the parents talks as well. The father had to to translate but he did a wonderful job. The only word he didn't know was "Endangered" talking about earning money to help the endangered animals. 


We thought perhaps the boys would like to come over and make some homemade suckers as our exchange student thought that was great fun. We called and offered to have the family over but the parents were tired so we had just the boys over. 


They were great workers and made four different batches using all different types of molds. They never got bored which was great. They kept at it and finally, I sent them down to play the Wii as I finished up the last batch.

Over the years, we have learned that foreigners don't like the taste of "root beer" as it tastes like a medicine they have. The favorite flavors are usually fruits like, strawberry, watermelon, cherry and candy flavors like bubble gum. 

They chose, raspberry, strawberry, pineapple and watermelon. They each helped pour in the ingredients, stir the mix, learned how to listen for the "crack" when the mixture is ready and I didn't let them pour the mix as I usually burn myself which I did again today. 
 
They greased all the molds, chose the shapes and molds to use and then bagged them all and when they were finished, they laid them out by shape on the dining room table to see how many of each they made. 

When the were finished playing the wii and ready to go home, they each chose 8 suckers to take home and share. 

You can see by the smiles on their faces (along with the cute dimples) they really enjoyed themselves. 

I thought it was funny how they really opened up while playing the Wii and look how they sat exactly the same way and held the controllers exactly the same in about 10 different pictures over time. It was cute. 

I blogged about their older brother when he was here and here are the blogs he is in: 
Here is the link to him fishing with us.

Here is the link to him at the bat caves etc.

Here is a link to him in a Tee Pee.


Here is a link to him playing hide and seek at Goblin Valley.

Doesn't the blonde brother look just like him? 

I offered them some Swedish fish I had in the cupboard and they liked eating them. Our fish however are about 1/2 to 1/4 of the size they have overseas. They didn't complain about that or anything and were the perfect gentlemen. They are welcome to our home anytime!

I am "Tote"ally Grateful

I have spent thousands of dollars on totes in my life. We used to have a dirt/cement cellar that opened to the outside when we lived back east so everything down there was in bins. We got some biting bird mites years ago and I thought we had bed bugs. Here is a post where I talk about it in more detail and what we did to combat them.  Here is another post where I mention it.

I spent at least $1,000 on clear sided bins due to thinking they were bed bugs. I put EVERYTHING we didn't use daily in the bins and put thyme oil and ground thyme and tea tree oil on cotton balls and then sealed the edges with tape and stuck them in my yard and hot suburban for a long time so that the heat and oils would kill them. 

Over the years, each daughter that has moved out, has taken those clear plastic bins and moved their stuff to college etc in those bins. They like those bins because they can see what is in them and they stack VERY well with the lids on and off. My garage has many still in there with the girls stuff in them waiting for them to need the items again. 

Each time they move, their new place may already have a toaster oven, can opener, blender etc. So, until they marry, they won't always need that type of thing so it is stored. 

When Princess Three left for college. I had about 8 types of bins that we were going to use but they wouldn't stack so when she would move to different places at college, she wouldn't have them as she didn't have room to store them so I would have to take them home. I went out again and purchased another hundred dollars in the clear stackable bins. 

She still didn't have as many as she needed when we moved her to her new apartment and it got a bit messy. I have started getting Princess Four ready for college and have three or four bins of stuff already but they are all sizes and shapes and aren't see through. I thought that I would need to get her some clear totes before she leaves next fall. 

I was at Walmart the other day picking up bananas and on my way to the register, they had a cart FULL of the clear bins marked half off the lowest clearance price. That made the bins $2.00 each. Normally, I paid almost $6 each tote. 

I grabbed the cart as quickly as I could as one woman had just taken two and headed to the checkout. I took the ENTIRE cart to the checkout. A woman walked that way once I was in the checkout and I overheard her asking where the clearance totes were.

There were 8 more bins than lids. I asked if they would be willing to go and see if they could find more lids or see if the white bins had extra lids in case someone that bought the clear bins took the colored lids rather than the white lids. 

The manager called back and guess how many lids they found? Yep, 8 more lids. I got 25 bins at $2 each. You can see where they rang some of them up at the original price of almost $6 on the receipt. Even on sale, they are usually 2 for $11ish

I will probably have just the perfect amount for all of Princess Four and Five's college clothes, pans, kitchen and bath stuff. It is SO much easier for them and me to have the unified bins and LOVE that I can see what is in the bins without having to label them or open them. They just stack the bins in their closet at college and use the top open bin as their laundry basket.

These totes are tinted but still see through. You can see how well they stack and since our "bug" problem, I am a tote queen! I had such a HORRIFYING time with the bird mites that I am OCD when it comes to bugs. If it is in a bin, they can't climb into it or out of it due to the slick sides. After the hell I went through for that year, I think they are well worth the price.

It is so wonderful to me that when I ponder on something I need, my Heavenly Father tends to send it to me in a way I can afford. I would have been happy with some used bins like them and even at the second hand stores, those bins are $4 each. I have NEVER seen them for $2 anywhere and I had just been down in Princess Fours closet thinking I needed to get some clear totes this week. It happens to me weekly that I need something and He provides it. 

I am SO blessed and now Princess Four and Five are as well but they may have to share a few with Princess three who has the least amount and probably needs a few more.

Gluten Free Homemade Cake - Any Flavor

I am not a cake lover. I have never really enjoyed cake. I used to not enjoy anything chocolate. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that I even enjoyed chocolate ice cream or brownies. This is weird to me but as I talked with my Bunko friends, they all say that as they have gotten older, they like darker and darker chocolate. 

So, I guess I am not alone in this. I HATED dark chocolate when I did have chocolate and now, the darker the better. 

With my new health issues coming forth, I can't eat any wheat, oats, barley or anything with gluten in it. I have had weird diets before and this one isn't that hard until I go to a fast food place or to a "dinner" of some kind where there aren't menu options and they are only serving breaded items etc.

Today, I had house guests and after breakfast we were discussing my new food options and he told me he had a great cake recipe that had no wheat in it or flour of any grain. I couldn't imagine a cake with NO grain flour in it. 

He then wrote down the recipe and I figured while he was still at  my house I had better make it so that if I had any questions, I could ask him for help. 


 Gluten Free Cake (Possibly brownies as well)

1/2 lb or two cubes butter. 
9 oz Ghiradelli chocolate chips (3/4 of 12 oz bag) 
(I used a 9 oz bag of dark chocolate I had instead. You can use butterscotch, mint, white, etc) 
5-6 eggs
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbs Coca powder
Flavorings of choice

First use a double boiler or a small sauce pan inside a larger sauce pan putting water in the bottom pan. Let the water in the lower pan get to a boil and put the butter and the chocolate chips into the upper pan. keep the water at a low boil as if it is higher, some of the water may bubble into the upper pan. The steam from the water heats the upper pan melting the chocolate at a low temperature keeping it from drying or burning. 

While the chocolate is melting, use some butter and butter your cake pan. I used a pie pan because that is what he told me he used. Later, he went to the car and brought in the pan he used after I told him the pie pan wasn't good because the top fell as there was no support on the sides and I think a cake pan would be better. When you see his pan at the bottom, it is a cake pan, not a pie pan but it tasted great no matter the pan. 
 
After the pan is buttered, dust it with powdered sugar so that the cake won't stick when it is done. 

Next, in a mixing bowl, mix 5 large or 6 medium eggs with 1/2 cup powdered sugar. If you want the cake to be chocolate, add the coca powder now. If you want it to be a different flavor or you want to add mint or some other flavoring, add it into the egg mixture now. I added four drops of mint and about 6 drops of almond extract. I could barely taste the mint but could taste the almond but the coca and the dark chocolate I used instead of the chocolate chips made it VERY chocolaty so if you want it to be VERY chocolaty and have some other flavor, you will need to add more than four drops of mint. 

If you are using white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips etc, you may not want to add any coca or flavorings. There are so many options and after tasting it, I have thought of several things I want to try but I will share those once I try it. 

Once the chocolate is melted, mix it into the egg mixture using a wire whisk. Once it is mixed well, pour it into your cake or muffin pans. If you are doing a cake, tamp it on the counter to get all the large air bubbles out just as you would a cake. 

This is the unusual part. You must put the round cake pan into a larger baking dish and fill the larger baking dish with boiling or hot water (I used the boiling water from the double boiler and added some hot tap water.)

It will look like the round pan is floating in the middle of the other pan. Don't fill it so full you can't move the other pan but enough that the bottom of the round cake pan is in the water quite a bit. Carefully put the pan into a preheated oven at 350 degrees on the middle rack. 

Set the timer for 40 minutes. At forty minutes, check the cake. If the middle is sunk and looks wet, set it for five more. If it is looking done like the top of a cake, take a fork and put it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If it is gooey, put it on for five more minutes. 

My cake took exactly 50 minutes. The fork came out clean and it wasn't over cooked but held together quite well except on the edges where they were not supported underneath. Use a cake pan, not a pie pan.

Once it is out of the oven, if you can take it out of the water without trouble, do that. If you can't, I drained some of the water off or you could use a turkey baster to get the water out far enough that you could pull out the center cake pan. 

Once it is out of the water, I let it sit for about 3-4 minutes and then I turned it upside down onto my hand and then put it on a wire rack to cool. If I had used a cake pan and not a pie pan, it would have been perfect. 

I thought it would need frosting because it looked like a cake. However, it is moist and almost fudge creamy or cheesecake texture because of the eggs. Due to it having eggs in it, after it cooled and we enjoyed a few pieces, I put it in the fridge and would have frozen some but I gave more than half of it to my friend leaving town and to some other friends that came over and my sister that came over. All four said they wanted the recipe! 

I told them I would blog about it so they could get it off here. 

I am going to try white chocolate and raspberry flavoring and drizzle it with raspberry syrup and put a mint leaf with fresh raspberries on it as well as some mint flavored melted chocolate and drizzle that over it as well. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Because there are several in my family that can't have gluten at the moment, missing out on the pumpkin, pecan and other pies on thanksgiving will be a hard thing not to eat. So, I intend to make this and take it to the family dinner for us to enjoy.

I went to a church Christmas dinner tonight and they had a carrot type cake with caramel drizzle for dessert and everyone was raving about it. I couldn't eat it but had NO problem with that as I knew when I arrived home, I had a wonderful creamy chocolate cake to eat. There isn't much left but I plan on trying several different things. I was thinking if I used a square pan and cut it into little squares or used mini muffin cups and then froze them and then dipped them into chocolate, they would be good or putting a nut in the bottom of the cup before baking it or heath bar crunch etc. I am excited to find out what I can do with it. 

The edges tasted like brownies so I think if I used a "muffin top" pan or a individual brownie pan, it may be more brownie like or perhaps if I add just a bit more powdered sugar it may be more like a brownie. 

I think this is going to be one of my new favorite desserts.These are the pans he uses and he wanted me to see it is more of a decorative round cake pan. I can see why a cake pan is better. If you look at my cake, you can see that the weight of the top edges were too much and they cracked the cake where there was no lower support.

I will have to do some updates with what I find and how the girls like it. They haven't been home at the same time I have so they haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'll let you know....

I am grateful for friends that come just when I would be needing what they have to share! Rather weird he had his cake pans in his car with him from out of state.

Painting, Sealing and Fixing the Outlets, Vents and Covers on the Outside of Trailers and RV's

I have been working on this trailer for eight months now. There are always plenty of things to do on it. I think I am about done and then I realize that something else really should be fixed or finished. 


I noticed that the cover for the hot water heater compartment was rusting as well as the vent for the cooking stove. I actually pulled off the cover for the water heater and took it to the store with me so I could match the color of paint as close as possible. 

I couldn't get the exact color but I think part of that is that it has darkened with time. I purchased off white or cream to cover the vents thinking that would match the trailer side the best. You can tell me if you think it matches well. 


I just masked around the stove exhaust because I had already removed it when I replaced the butyl tape on the seal. I sprayed it with two coats of paint and I think it came out great. It would have been better and easier if I had sprayed it when I had it off months ago but it is a work in progress. I didn't want to have to use more tape by taking it off again as the tape I used would now need to be replaced for a good seal.

I removed the cover for the water heater and also removed the aluminum screen that vents the heater before painting it. I just thought it looked better with the screen not being painted. I don't think it would have mattered but it was easy to remove so I took it out before painting it. I did two coats on both sides of the cover just to make sure I had good coverage and wouldn't need to do it again. 


On the outlet cover outside, there was a gap between the trailer and the cover. The foam piece between the trailer and the "cover" had slipped and water could get in there if it hadn't already. I took a video of me showing how I took it apart and painted it and how to put it back on the trailer. It looked much better painted but the better thing about doing it was that I was able to put butyl tape under the foam pad and the trailer to help hold the foam into place and also help seal the outlet from any water.


The painted vents really make the trailer look newer than it is as the rusty areas were making it look old. 

Here is a link to the video on youtube where I show them all.  

I painted them on paper towels as sometimes with light colors of paint, if you use newspapers, the ink will come off your hands onto the light painted finish so I chose to use the paper towels. 

Also, on the video, I forgot to say that I removed the springs before painting the outlet cover. They don't work as well with paint on them so it was easy to just unhook the top of them and pull them out the back of the cover. 

You can see that the springs were lined up with the screws for the outlet on the rug. When I remove things like that, I like to lay them in the order that I removed them so you can see that the longer screws that go on the outside edges are placed outside. The little screw goes in the middle so it is placed there. The springs go on the upper corners so they are placed higher. 

In the past when I haven't done this, sometimes my screws and smaller parts get messed up and I can't remember where they go. So, I either tape them near the spot where they were taken from or they are laid out on a flat surface in the spot where they were removed figuratively. It works for me but I know others have a different method that works for them. 

Once the cover was dry, (I like to let it dry overnight so the paint is really cured and hardened) I put the springs back on through the back and hooked them onto the cover. If you don't use the springs, it will still work but may not stay closed or open. 

I just realized I didn't take a picture of the cover back on the trailer with the seal etc. 

It is late and dark and cold so you won't be getting the finished product picture. You will be able to see it on the finished trailer pictures probably. Hopefully, that will be this week sometime! I will be very happy and THANKFUL to see it finished!