Camper Reno

Let me start by saying… if I can do this- ANYONE can do this!

JP (my lovely boyfriend) owned “our camper” before we started dating. It’s a 20 foot pull behind camper that we spent the first 4 months of our relationship exploring in. Because of those memories we are connected to the thing and I just was not ready to trade it in for a new camper! It’s perfect for just the two of us and the odd visitor! We don’t need anything more but we really wanted something “better”. Last summer my dad put new flooring in his camper which is about the same “age” and it really just brightened it up! So when I went into the camper to get it spring ready and I seen the linoleum had cracked even more over the winter I was excited to pull it up! Yay- we get to do what dad did! (again please remember I’ve never renovated anything ever!)

So up came the floor. I literally started pulling up the floor before JP was home from work to approve me doing it. (if anyone knows us they know I’m the spontaneous one and he’s the thinker… if I left it to him this project wouldn’t be started yet!) What I didn’t realize was… pulling up the floor – especially the carpet (that was even in the bathroom) was way harder than I thought! So needless to say- when he got home he finished the job for me!

Then when JP headed back to work I decided I wanted to paint the walls. I hated the look of the wallpaper panels. (Please note I’ve never ever painted a wall before so I had no idea what I was about to endure.) With so much research (see JP is wearing off on me a little) and so much talking to every kind of person in the world I literally ended up going for regular old latex paint and primer! I did nothing special and it covered perfectly with two coats. Uhgg sounds easy right “just two simple coats” NO! The taping and washing and priming took me almost 6 hours! Then I stopped for supper and went back for another 3 of painting! Thank goodness the painting really cleaned up the look and I loved the finished product because 11 hours of work was NOT pleasant!

I also decided to do some back splash in both the kitchen and shower area (it saved me probably an hour or more of painting so I’m happy with that choice!). I just bought the simple peel and stick back splash from the local home hardware and it was awesome! It was a tedious job… but a simple one! Now- I have never done any sort of tiling.. but I’m assuming that this peel and stick is a million times easier than any sort of ceramic tiles!

Now that things were looking so clean on the walls- and I could imagine the floor I decided I needed to get rid of the busy, retro looking and probably dirty cushion covers! This was another project that I researched and looked online for more hours than I’d be willing to ever admit. I was in a town a couple hours away for a dance competition and found they still have fabric in their Walmart (something us Canadians are not used of) so I finally bit the bullet and bought some fabric to make covers! I have never sewed (are you seeing a theme?) but I do have a sewing machine that I insisted I needed when my grandma passed away! So this part of the project was very very special to me because every step of the way I felt my grandma there with me. I hauled my sewing machine to a friends and she taught me how to use it- and gave me a very easy “pillow case” like pattern! I managed to make them all and honestly they aren’t perfect but I’m so proud of them!

The next thing I decided I needed to do was pull all the dirty, old blinds out and replace then with curtains!! I bought 2 panels of curtains at Walmart and two on amazon and cut them and hemmed them to fit on the windows! With any extra fabric JP’s mom helped me reupholster the cupboard areas (see the red between the mirrors above the couch *( why???) , and a couple other spots (below the couch for example).

Then JP got home. He took over and started with the flooring. This was another project that ended up being a heck of a lot more work than him and I anticipated. But at this point I was hours and hours and days in and he really just took over. He used vinyl planks (again.. we talked to everyone we knew… researched every single option… and decided on this)

While he was busy on the floor I was busy on amazon finding some last minute touches that would really make it feel like “our home away from home.”

This project ended up costing us about 800 dollars:

Curtains and cushion covers – 170

Decor- 100

Paint and printer- 70

Back splash tiles- 150

Floor- 350

Miscellaneous-50