Troy and Cathie Sissons had been looking for a project for a while when they spotted their vintage caravan on TradeMe.
“It was about a month before the first COVID lockdown when we saw it online and bought it sight-unseen from a man in Tauranga,” Troy explains. “We’d been looking for a while, but when we drove over from Napier to collect it, it’s fair to say we were a bit shocked at the size of the project before us.”
Troy says with the CI Munro Sprite caravan in worse shape than anticipated, the drive home to Hawke’s Bay was initially a bit ‘hairy’ until they got the hang of it.
“At first, we thought we’d just do a bit of a ‘reno’, but we wanted to do it all properly and things just snowballed, so we eventually renovated the entire caravan from the bottom up.”
The couple had been renovating their house using Resene paints, so it was a no-brainer to use them on the caravan. Troy has been a commercial painter and says he knows paints. He really rates Resene paints.
“They’re very durable, they flow on easily, and they’re good value,” he says.
The couple also chose Resene wallpaper.
Centre: Adding a bright pop of floral impact (with Resene Wallpaper Collection 408355) is a nod to the both era and nostalgia of this CI Munro Sprite, while giving the interior a strong visual focal point.
Right: Troy and Cathie Sissons are delighted with the finished results of their project. They receive ‘heaps of compliments’ on their caravan, particularly around the use of wallpaper (Resene Wallpaper Collection RD576 and 408355).
“We used Anaglypta-embossed wallpaper, which we painted over, and we also used a patterned wallpaper. Both are from Resene, and not only are we delighted with the results, but we’ve had so many positive comments about them and have been specifically asked where we sourced our vibrant wallpaper.”
For anyone asking, their purchases were made from the “lovely staff” at the Resene ColorShop in Taradale, Napier.
Troy and Cathie admit that renovating the Munro Sprite was a pretty big undertaking.
“We didn’t do much at the start of the lockdown but then it took a couple of years of part-time work to complete.”
After completing remedial repairs and rust work, they outsourced the painting of the outside and took the caravan to a professional painter. Beginning with the exterior is something Troy highly recommends.
The couple also wanted to retain the vintage look for the inside and it was a labour of love. Troy says it took him a whole day to just to wallpaper one wall.
A special project was rebuilding the original gas stove. It was a major undertaking, and one which they debated the merits of, but the result is a cooker which “works like a charm”.
They also wanted all of the exterior details to honour the original brand and took templates to a sign writer to recreate. And, just in case there are any unforeseen scratches or scrapes, they had Resene specially create a spray can of Resene Automotive touch-up paint in Resene Black White. Painted in Resene Concrete, the interior wall was then wallpapered in Resene Wallpaper Collection RD576, and floral Resene Wallpaper Collection 408355.
Last summer Troy and Cathie took their grandson with them for the maiden voyage to Ōhope Beach TOP 10 Holiday Park in the Bay of Plenty. This time the caravan towed well, Troy reports, thanks in no small part to Cathie’s beautifully balanced packing, which she learnt after a lifetime of caravanning from childhood.
This year, the couple intends to return to Ōhope for their summer break, before towing their classic rebuilt caravan to its new home in Christchurch, where they have recently relocated.
They’re now looking forward to many happy years of exploring the South Island and are particularly keen to visit the Nelson region.
