CAMPER RENOVATION

Sadly, we still don't have a name for her.  We think it'll come to us after our inaugural trip.  Well to be honest we've been busy with other things to actually brainstorm some names.  Got any?  When we bought her we told ourselves that we were going to slowly make upgrades and use it in the process. Since there was mostly just aesthetics that needed attention it sounded reasonable.  That didn't happen.  The very next day destruction had begun {See the first post here}.  After eight long weekends of blood, sweat, tears, arguments, frustration, failures, exhaustion, no free weekends and interrupted naps.  We're DONE! (well, 95% done).  Neither of us had tackled a renovation of this scale before. We knew it would be challenging, but this was a whole new level of challenge.  The hard work and failures was to be expected, but what was very difficult was juggling our kids (mostly baby Reece).  If we were able to park her at our house it would have been much less stressful as we would have more time and be able to juggle our kids at the same time.  Thankfully we have the best family anyone could ask for, so they made it possible.  Thank you!

We set a realistic budget knowing we would exceed it.  I watch way too much hgtv and knew better. We did indeed go over a few hundred dollars, so I'd say that was a success.  Not everything in our budget went to the eye candy, unfortunately.  We needed a new spare tire, new hitch, trailer brake control, light bulbs, and some other boring but very necessary purchases. Fortunately, we scored big time on the trailer itself as in everything works.  Phew!

I'll cut to the chase and move on with some pictures.  That's why you're here, right?

Bedroom:

We painted the entire camper white.  Even the ceiling.  After tons of research we decided to paint over the existing wallpaper and cabinets.  Faux wood is not easy to paint over so we went with a recommended primer from Home Depot called Gripper.  For the paint colors we chose Behr silky white and mined coal.
The curtain fabric was purchased here.  Custom made by yours truly.  Yes, I finally dusted off the sewing machine I got for Christmas a few years ago.  They turned out decent, especially once I got the hang of it.  Just don't look too close.  Hehe.  It took longer than expected to finish them because they shorted us 1/2 a yard (insert eye roll).  Moving on.  Notice the glass cabinets?  We brainstormed what we could do to replace the glass and ultimately decided to paint them.  The same way we did the walls and cabinets, one coat primer and one coat paint (with some touch up).  Oh, I almost forgot to mention.  The mattress was a must to replace.  We ordered one on Amazon and apparently our measurements were off because... it didn't freaking fit.  We ordered the correct size queen short, good thing we're vertically challenged.  Have you heard of a short mattress?  Me either.  We then needed to figure out how we were going to return the wrong mattress to Amazon as it came to us vacuum sealed in a small(ish) box.  Fat man in a little coat just came to mind, love you Chris Farley.  Anyway, we reached out to Amazon and they made an exception on the return.  We could keep, sell or donate it!  That was a relief.  We ended up giving it to our cousin who has a trailer as well.

Bathroom:

I love how everything in this space turned out!  The shower curtain was purchased from Ikea.  The deer print came from here.

Living room:

We needed to figure out a way to cover the wheel well.  So, Shawn made a little table for the girls to color on or eat on if necessary.  I love it!

Can we take a second to swoon over these stump seats.  Awww.  I initially wanted a pouf of some sort but everything we did we tried to keep weight in mind.  The poufs were more expensive and much heavier.  These beauties are actually inflatable.  Win-win.  I can't take credit for them Shawn actually spotted them on Amazon.  As soon as he showed me I just had to have them.  They are perfect!

Below this blanket set from Ikea is a blue flower print.  Nice, I know.  We will eventually get the fold out couch reupholstered as we knew it blow up our budget.  I initially wanted to take the couch out and get a folding couch/bed from Ikea.  But, under this couch is the fresh water tank so that was a no go.

I was insistent on taking the dinette out.  It was so bulky and there was really no room to move around it.  I could just imagine us 5 in there.  No!  We spend most of our time outdoors after all that is why we bought her other than sweet memories, of course.  So we will eat outside where I don't have to pick up the remains of my kids food.  We have a folding table we'll use for now, but I would like to invest in a light weight folding picnic table.

Kitchen:

Can I just tell you now how much I love the color contrast!  We thought all white everything (even though I love the white on white look) would be a bit much especially since we will be around dirt all the time.  So we went with a dark grey.  I'm squealing as I write this.  It turned out perfect!  We were going to just paint the existing cabinets handles but Shawn came across these babies on Amazon.  They were actually chrome so we painted them black.  The black ones are seriously 3x the price, literally for the same thing.  I thought for this look it would be out of budget but it was only $30 for a pack of 25.  Score!

Finally, the flooring:

Welp, this was a pain in the butt! To say the least.  We knew we wanted something, again, light weight and durable but not too pricey either.  Picky, I know.  So we decided on vinyl.  We went to both Home Depot and Lowes first to check out what each had to offer.  We found this flooring at Home Depot and I completely fell in love with the natural rustic look to it.  But, we had to order it and it was more expensive than other flooring we saw at Lowes.  So we ended up purchasing the peel and stick flooring.  After tons of research and stalking other blog renos we felt comfortable with our decision.  Plus it was in stock, cheap and quick and easy to lay so we felt it would be best.  Even after the recommended primer we could not get it to stick at all!  The sides were fine but the center of the pieces were lifting up.  We knew it wasn't going to work out even if we tried to figure out a way to make it work with glue.  So, Shawn had to rip all of it up and returned it to Lowes for a full refund no questions asked.  Thank you, Lowes.  We ordered the original flooring we fell in love with that was twice the price from Home Depot.  It is still peel and stick but its floating floor so instead of sticking to the floor they stick to each other.  It worked flawlessly!  And turned out beautiful.  It's more durable and virtually waterproof which we need with three kids.  Lesson learned, never settle!

We may paint the exterior eventually, but not right now.  Thanks for coming along on this tour.  We put so much hard work into it!  This project of ours consumed us for months and we spent a lot of time at home improvement stores.

But looking back at the before/after pictures I'm amazed.  All the hard work was worth it!

Now excuse me, I have to leave we're going to travel and make tons of memories.