I bought a Barth pickup slide in camper a few months back that I have named Sleeper. The obvious part of the name is for one of its uses, but the hidden meaning is that I intend it to be more than it seems.

The particular truck camper had some water damage which was fine by me because I would have a hard time gutting a camper that looked nice inside. It turns out it had more than I thought.

In any event, I was inspired by some of the older Airstream trailers I had seen that we're gutted and rebuilt better than new. I restore boats so I have some interesting ideas that carry over from that.

First is the concept, lighter is better. Copper and black pipe are heavy, and I would focus on keeping things light while adding modern features. Water resistance and durability are also important to me. I do t want to put a lot of effort into this and ever need to readdress water damage issues. Still there will always be maintenance, so I want it to be maintainable. More on this later.

I spent the last few months kicking ideas around and working on one of my boats. All the while I have been thinking about camping in Ontario's cottage country. It was time to get started. I spent the last two days gutting most of the interior. I will finish gutting it tomorrow and then start repairing dents, resealing seams, and begin wiring. I expect this work to take a while and I was going to use this forum to show my progress but instead decided to ease of loading pictures and so forth to create a blog on it. I do not have much to show for it yet, but I have started the restoration. If anyone would like to offer comments or suggestions I'd welcome that.

My Blog:

http://barthpickupcamper.blogspot.com/

Enjoy your project. We'll be waiting to see the finished beauty......................

Looking good so far! I love the idea of a yacht theme as well.

Nice blog you got going there.

Not much of a blog yet. I have barely begun. I am in the middle of several other projects, two boats, two minor boat trailers projects. So it will take a while.

I am nearly done with one boat and the other one is big and it is getting a whole new interior --that will take a lot of time.

The nice thing about the Barth, is that it is right here behind the barn. I can walk out there anytime. I like slide in campers because I can still tow a boat trailer. I want to be able to pull four Sunfishes to Florida in the winter, or take my 30 sloop anywhere. None of these boats have a place to live while driving around.

Being into sailboat, I don't need a lot of space.

I see the gorgeous motor coaches and I love them, but they are too big for me. I want to get 13-14 mpg which I think is achievable with my Silverado with camper and a light trailer behind it.

Hey! This blog [with lots of pics] is still up....
even has a nice discussion
about using wood stove inside his Barth!!!

http://barthpickupcamper.blogspot.com/

...and info for stoves:

https://rockymountaintinyhouse...ons-for-tiny-houses/

I sold this camper and the blog was my own. The fellow I passed it on to will be finishing it off.

Does he know about this site?