Summer Capsule Wardrobe: 22+ Outfits, 10 pieces

Tweet

So, let's face it. Traveling is summer fun and looking adorably vintage is summer work. That's why I've done the work for you! With these 11 pieces, you can make 22+ outfits and still fit everything in a backpack. By the way-I did the whole shoot with one pair of strappy white wedge sandals and one camel colored belt to minimize needed accessories. 

What I've done here is put together an example of how to make a capsule wardrobe full of summer style and what it would look like in practice.  So let me talk you through how to make your own.

The steps:

1. Before you even try to pick out clothes, you need to decide two thingss:
1. Your neutral color. (I chose white and added a little tan, you could also choose tan, or a light grey, or even blue! Just stay away from black and brown, remember it's summer!)
2. Your bright color. (I chose red, because there is nothing more femme fatale than red, but pick any color that looks good on you, just keep it cheery).
2. You need high-waisted denim shorts. The one's I am wearing are from Forever 21, they are cheap, go get some.
3. You also need at least one pair of nicely breathing or linen pants. You will need them for going anywhere that is overly air-conditioned, or for going to dinner to dress up your look a bit. They are a must have especially if you are traveling. 
4. If you REALLY want to embrace the vintage look you should have a summer suit. Go thrifting for this. Once again, linen is the best fabric! And don't be afraid to try skirts and jackets that didn't come packaged together, you can piece together your own suit.
5. Also in the category of REALLY vintage is the playsuit. I went with one in a neutral because it was easy to match with my whole wardrobe, but if you went with a color that just looks fantastic on you, you could easily match it throughout your wardrobe as well. Playsuits are difficult to find unless you know how to alter 1980s versions of these. Luckily for you, soon, very soon, I will have some for sale in my Etsy shop for much more affordable prices than you can usually find online. Keep a look out! 
6.  Throw in a dress. Or two! Get crazy. I only included one, but dresses are always a good idea and can be paired with the jacket from your summer suit. Or with a light cardigan. 
7. Lastly, think about a strongly patterned shirt, preferably one that features your bright color. Mine is a Ralph Lauren shirt I thrifted. It features red flowers and green leaves in a bold pattern with a kind of Hawaiian vibe, very late 40s inspired. 

Here is the piece by piece list of my capsule wardrobe:

1. White and tan summer linen suit

2. White and tan gingham playsuit

3. Baby blue linen dress

4. Red sleeveless front tie shirt

5. Red off the shoulder fringed crop top with subtle palm tree print

6. Red and Green flower shirt

7. White off the shoulder peasant top

8. Denim high-waisted shorts

9. Tan linen pants

10. Red wide-legged trousers

Accessories: camel colored woven leather belt, white strappy wedge sandals.

Below, I'd like to show you how I combined these things to make outfits!

-Baby blue dress by itself 

-Could be paired with my summer suit's jacket!

-Playsuit by itself

-Playsuit shorts
-White Peasant top

-Playsuit shorts

-Fringed crop top

-Playsuit shorts

-Red tie front shirt

-Playsuit shorts

-Red and Green floral shirt

-Playsuit top

-Denim high-waisted shorts

-Playsuit top

-Tan linen pants

-Playsuit top

-Red trousers

-Playsuit top

-White summer suit

-Playsuit top

-Summer suit skirt

-White summer suit

-Red and Green floral shirt

-Red and Green floral shirt

-Summer suit skirt

-White summer suit

-Red tie front shirt

-Red tie front shirt

-Summer suit skirt

-Denim high-waisted shorts

-White peasant top

-Denim high-waisted shorts
-Red and Green floral shirt

-Denim high-waisted shorts

-Fringed crop top

-Fringed crop top
-Tan linen pants

-Tan linen pants
-Red tie front shirt

-Tan linen pants
-Red and Green floral shirt

-Red and Green floral shirt
-Red trousers

That's 22 outfits and so many more possibilities! Send me pictures from your own capsule wardrobes on Instagram @razzledazzledarling 

Step 3: New Beams, Insulation, and Sub-Flooring

Tweet

This is our last major construction day and boy are we excited. We worked late into the night, but we finished up all the prep you saw in step 2,  replaced the rotted support beams, laid the insulation, and then put in the new flooring. There isn't too much I can personally instruct you in here, more like just show you the outcome of our work.

The beams were a pain. If we had a chance to lay the entire floor by scratch the beams could be laid out in a nice even pattern, but for a partial fix we had to make up some of our own rules. To do that we purchased straight braces and L-braces to best secure the 2x2's. L-brackets were used to secure the new beams to the outer 2x2 frame like this:

And the straight brackets were used to brace together new beams to the solid old beams we found:

Laying the insulation is fairly easy. We purchased this kind: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Owens-Corning-R-19-Kraft-Faced-Insulation-Continuous-Roll-15-in-x-39-2-ft-RF40/202585898 

It was a good compromise between price and level of insulation. The roll appears thin but expands to the perfect thickness for our floor when it's unrolled. The width of course is too wide but you can just use scissors to cut the insulation to size. Make sure you wear gloves to to protect yourself from the fiberglass pieces, you want to avoid the itch they cause, trust me. Plenty of insulation is better than too little insulation, just remember that, and stuff your floorboards. 

Finally, we laid the new subfloor. You can use either a 1/2" or 3/4" OSB plywood depending on the width of your previous floor. We cut it to fit the sections we had removed, so there's about an inch of old flooring around the cabinets that will butt up to the new flooring. Check out the overall finished product below.

Pictures:

New Beams                               Sub-Floor

New Beams                               Insulation                               Sub-Floor

New Beams                               Insulation                                         Sub-Floor

New Beams                                  Insulation                                      Sub-Floor

New Beams                                       Insulation                                       Sub-Floor

You may also notice that the walls look dingy; it is because they've been sanded to prep them for paint. Sanding doesn't have to go very deep, the surface just needs to be roughed up so the paint will stick. You can see that I've sanded the walls in the pictures with the sub-floor and I've also sanded the bathroom, shown below.

Next we'll cover the painting of the camper in step 4. 

Step 2: Tearing out the Sub Floor!!!!

Tweet

This is the most demolition we get to do. And it was grueling. The flooring that was put in here had already been repaired once and that led to a combination of adhesive, nails, staples, and screws holding the plywood down. To battle something like this you're going to need quite a few tools, because this was a monster.

Tools:

• one small crowbar
• small is good in this case because there are a lot of tight spaces in this camper
• http://www.walmart.com/ip/Stanley-Wonder-Bar-Pry-Bars-13-3-8-wonder-bar/19284706
• 
• one MASSIVE crowbar
• we chose a heavy weight one with a long shaft for more leverage, this thing packs a big punch
• http://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-36-in-Wrecking-Bar-DWHT55131/202985573
• 
• cordless tool set, this is the best deal I found for buying many tools at once on a budget
• we chose Ryobi because they are inexpensive, they have a wide variety of battery powered tools, and the batteries are interchangeable between all the tools in this line.
• the drawbacks: the battery life isn't that long, the drill bits wear out readily, and if you have access to a higher grade of tools, or just feel like spending about $800 dollars, go for a better brand, as it is we spent just under $300 for everything we need. 
• http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-ONE-18-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Super-Combo-Kit-4-Piece-P883/203466914
• We needed all of these things to get the floor out (excepting the flashlight). 
• Cordless drill
• cordless circular saw
• cordless saws-all
• cordless battery charger
• You will also need a drill bit set and extra batters, get at least two. If you're feeling adventurous, their 6 battery charger would also be super useful. 

Now that you've got your stuff, the basic principal of tearing up sub-floor is: get it up in any way you can without damaging its supports or in this case the metal bottom of the camper. In all the places the sub-floor was screwed down it was best to remove the screws first rather than try to pry it up. Finally, you'll see in the photos that we cut a straight edge around the walls and cabinets or benches that we didn't remove. It was our thinking that those pieces would stay better supported that way. So without further ado:

My wonderful hubby (who puts up with and helps out on all my crazy "adventures") breaking ground on our demo!!!

Tips and Tricks for Demo and Floor Prep:

• Pry up everything possible with the crow bars, and don't be afraid to bring the saws into it. Having the pieces cut down into smaller sections makes them considerably easier to pull out in the small spaces and weird angles of the camper.
• Making nice clean corners is best done with a small handheld saw, we picked one up for a few dollars at walmart, but any home improvement store will have saw choices as well. It's hard to see in the picture below (sorry we were working in the dark), but my husband is wearing gloves for hand protection and sawing out a corner.

• Once you've cleaned up all the edges, remove the screws for a smooth final surface to lay your new subfloor on. 

• Then use a crow bar to remove all the nails

• Rather than removing the staples, we found it was easiest to just use a hammer to flatten them into the beams (since they were old and rusty and prone to snapping off when we tried to remove them anyway).

Pictures:

Before                                           After

Before                               After

Before                                  After

After: Left Bench Area

After: Right Bench Area

This is where the worst of the water damage was, we believe it is due to a poorly sealed storage door on the outside of the camper. 

Repairing the Bottom Metal Sheeting:

This is the barrier between the outside and the inside of the camper. It lays on top of the trailer frame and is AMAZINGLY delicate. We punched a few holes in it ourselves and also found a few holes due to rust. Luckily there is a cheap way to fix the damage with a metal tape used to repair duct systems.

Tape:

 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Intertape-Polymer-Group-2-in-x-50-yds-Medium-Grade-Cold-Temperature-Aluminum-Foil-Tape-ALF175L025012/206313672

Behold the damage:

1.  Find a hole

2. Start taping in one direction

3.Place perpendicular tape strips

4. Third layer of tape in the original direction

5. In all possible cases repair holes from inside and outside the camper

 Annnnnnnnnnnnd now we're done. We are ready to put in insulation and the new sub-floor. That will all be covered in step 3.