Kadett Chronicles 13: Progress report (5/10-5/11)

Work continues on the engine; it's over half rebuilt now and the plan is to finish that up tonight. Also, we stopped at the body shop last night and got a sneak peek at the paint job. All I can say is wow. It's amazing. The blue is a smidge darker than the original paint it seems, but I quite like it. It has a hint of sophistication to it. And the bright white on the top third of the car is beautiful. I love the combination! Pics will be posted as soon as we get to bring the baby home.

Beyond that, The Gearhead pulled some dark blue carpet out of another Kadett that he owns. He took it over to a car wash and pressure washed it to see if it cleaned up (and didn’t disintegrate for that matter) as a possibility for use in this project.

Normally I’m all for repurposing things, but I have two issues with this old carpet:

1) I’m not sure a dark blue carpet will look right in a baby blue car with black interior. It just seems like one too many colors.
2) This carpet has been out at the farm for long while now. There are creatures at the farm who like to use fuzzy things like this for nesting as well as a repository for other bodily functions. I’m not keen on using this and anyone that has ever owned a pet will probably back me up and attest that there are some stains that just don’t come out. I’m a big proponent of just moving on and going with new in this particular category.

So now that I just made that command decision, we’ll end up using this carpet as a template to cut new stuff.

We were at our favorite home improvement superstore recently and combed through all our carpet options. There was a decent selection of options and colors, but in the end, we picked up a couple of 6x8 foot outdoor area rugs from their patio department.

The rugs are actually near exactly the same as the actual carpet sections in terms of color and texture. The rugs are a little more flexible; meaning that they aren’t as rigid as the carpet samples so we think it will be easier to cut and install. The rugs are a black/charcoal gray mix of fibers so it will blend with the interior of the car perfectly. They are for outdoor use so they can take a beating and be hosed down if we ever need to deep clean them (although we do have black rubber floor mats going down on top of them so chances are we’ll never have to cross that bridge). Beyond that, the rugs were the cheaper option too so it all worked out in the end!