A little curtain.

We purchased a curtain rail off eBay a little while ago. This was to go between the cabin and the living space to shut it off a bit.

It is a 'special' little rail. Super slimline and comes with all the fittings.

The best parts are the fact that it can be ordered by the metre, cut to the perfect size when it arrives...

AND...

It can be bent to the shape of the roof!

Yay!

You can order some here: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MINI-CURTAIN-TRACK-Brushed-Aluminium-Low-Profile-Bendable-Caravan-Van-RV-Boat-/141810144989?var=&hash=item21048b16dd:m:mXJwwxdOcZ-RESQaB8oe7_A

It will arrive by courier, taped to a long bit of wood so it doesn't get damaged.

Anyway, we got ours and set about cutting it and bending it to shape. We had kept some of the stainless roof joiners from when we demolished the inside of the bus. My husband easily bent it to the right shape.

Next we drilled and screwed it into the bus frame and popped on all of the sliding fittings. Easy.

Yesterday we had to drop a Christmas visitor off at the train station so we took advantage of the visit to town and hit the Boxing Day sales!

We managed to pick up the perfect curtain in Spotlight for a good price.

Today I re-hemmed the bottom, making it the right size and I hung it on the rail.

Bit tricky to get the hem perfect because there is a hump in the middle of the bus where the engine is.

https://goo.gl/photos/2Lg6nWXzpQ1B2tiq5

It all tucks away behind the pantry cupboard. I'll probably secure it with a Velcro strap.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on... well, it is in anyway.

Note to other motor home/bus converting people:
If you find something you like for your bus, make sure you buy as much as you're going to need, all at the one time!

We had enough of the white, shiny plastic coated ply for the roof interior (purchased at Mitre10 a long time ago) but only bought a couple of the 3mm plastic joining strips that we needed. It turned out that we needed LOTS more than we first expected. The trouble is, they didn't get it back in... and they couldn't order more! They pulled a gungy bit of the strip from the skip bin and gave it to us, but it still wasn't enough (I cleaned it up using toothpaste... it came up alright too!)

ANYWAY...
Today I found some.
It was in our old caravan which my husband uses as a bit of a workshop.

SO...
we put the ceiling in!

Remember this eBay purchase from AGES ago? I think it was about $83 (I think I might ave been the only bidder) and it came with a white interior surround which had a little roll out sun screen and a roll out fly screen. 

Here I've rolled 1/2 of each out so you can see.

It pops open like this.

My husband cut the hole out while I was at work. We sealed it with bitumen coated foam and black Sika seal. It stayed that way for MONTHS so we know it is well and truly watertight. A metal frame was welded up and went around this part to reinforce the roof. I stupidly forgot to take a photo. I hope the engineer can peek through the hole and see it.

Here is the ceiling partly lined. We used the same insulation as in the walls. It works really well and is also a sound deadener. Pouring rain on the roof sounds amazing. The electrical cables are running in the roof in some spots, as are the cables for the speakers up the back. They are all in conduit so as not to rub on the steel frame while driving along (see on the left of the photo. This grey stuff is from Bunnings and the speaker conduit from Supercheap).

After the ceiling was all up, we then added some plastic surround to neaten up the edges (it is mostly covered by the white sunroof surround now).

The whole ceiling in its shiny, white glory!

Shame about the building gear and cleaning stuff laying around!

Closed sun shade.

Closed fly screen.

 Opened hatch!

(Excuse the grubby fingerprints. I was too excited and took pictures before cleaning).

From the outside.