ADVENTURES WITH ???

For the past few years Shawn and I have been doing some thinking about our future, the near future and further.  We've contemplated whether we should move into a bigger home, buy a second home, or buy a camper that we can travel many places in.  Each have their own pros and cons so it was a tough decision.  Ultimately we chose to buy a camper.  The minimalist lifestyle intrigues me and I have thought about down sizing even more.  Less stuff, less mess, more memories, and hopefully teach our kids that material things don't mean as much as they think they do.

Once we decided for sure a camper purchase was what we wanted for our family the search was on.  We've both researched in the past but never this seriously.  It took a week to find her (no name yet) after stalking Craigslist and the frustration of many we liked that were already sold.  Shawn didn't want a trailer longer than 24 ft so that limited the options but did help with our budget.  We also decided it would be nice to have a private space for Shawn and I.  We didn't think a "bedroom" would be possible with our budget and the size of the trailer we were interested in but we lucked out big time!

She's a 2000 Sunny Brook.

She is in excellent condition.  We were pleasantly surprised how well she's been cared for. Everything works which was a huge relief.  Well, at least we haven't found any issues thus far.
We knew that the aesthetics were not our taste and regardless of what we bought it would need some sprucing up.  Even new trailers are just gross.  I don't know what these manufactures/designers are thinking.  Brown wood everything is not an updated look!

Here's some before pics.

We told ourselves that we were going to slowly update but that didn't happen.  The next day destruction had begun.
As you walk in directly to the right was a dinette.  The previous owner had removed one of the booths and in its place was a swivel chair.  Above the dinette area were cabinets, a shelf, and built in stereo.


I wanted a much more open feel so the cabinets and the dinette were removed.  Shawn was hesitant but I was not backing down, it had to be done.  After some frustration and doubt it was all removed with only minor patch work that needed to be done.  It looked so much better immediately.
Here's the first pile of trash.

We removed all of the flooring including the blue carpet.  Was this really built in 2000?  How in the world was blue carpet still popular in 2000?  It did look like there was linoleum flooring throughout but a past owner replaced it with carpet for the exception of the bathroom.

Then it was onto primer.  I'm sure some thought we were crazy for painting the entire camper but I envisioned white.  After some research we found a great primer.  I'm all about prime and paint in one but because the faux wood isn't really meant to be pained over we didn't want to take any chances and went with a primer from Home Depot called Gripper.  I get where the name comes from, the final paint color gripped to the primer well and made it so much easier.

See how much more open it looks.  Love!
We decided to go with a darker cabinet on the bottom to have a greater contrast.  I just love how it turned out so far.

We're currently working on painting the cabinets.  I'm so over painting!!!!!!

Just when we thought the stress of all the changes recently were going to improve they didn't.  As luck would have it our truck took a major dump on us.  We knew that it had a ton of miles but it was paid off so we were milking the no payment idea.  Shawn started to notice some major issues and took it in to have it looked at.  Turns out it needed a lot of work that was going to cost at least 4k.  Not to mention the almost 2k we put into it last year.  The costs of repairs were not adding up to the value so we needed to upgrade.  Not only is it nice to have a safe reliable vehicle to travel with our family but a truck is our livelihood right now.  It was a no brain-er.

2013 F150 and she's a beauty!