Our New Project! It’s Done!!

July 19, 2021July 18, 20216 Comments

Not only is this project done, but now I have more exciting news!! My daughter, Haley, got engaged this past weekend!!! I’m so excited for her and my soon to be son-in-love! Now I get to help with the wedding planning! I’m not sure how much I will be able to blog about, but I will try to document some of it. But now on to the show!

If you didn’t see the first post of what the trailer originally looked like, you can click here. I will include some of the original pictures here too.

I went for the Bohemian look this time in the trailer. A lot of the pictures and things are from the old trailer and I found new places for them to go. As you walk in the door, you can see our Camping Rules. Most importantly, is Make Memories! You can see in this picture, we outlined the slide out with varnished wood. I love how it turned out! Looks so much better than the plastic pieces that were up there!

Just to the left as you enter the door are 2 swivel chairs by a big picture window. You can see here that all the brown is now painted white. I used Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee for all the paint in the trailer. I used the original handles, knobs and hinges and painted them all gold. I bought the blinds from Home Depot, and the fabric and pom-poms from the 99 Cent Store. The seat covers came from Amazon.

The little table was a t.v. stand and Steve reconfigured it to fit over some of the hose and electrical hoses and wires that are underneath. I painted it and decoupaged the top. I added some fun little decorations to the top and the shelves.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Straight in from the door is the couch. I covered it with an old chenille bedspread I already had and some fun pillows. I used the same blinds on the window and fabric for the curtains. I love that I could use all different colors and it all looked good together!

I recovered the cushions at the table. I used velcro on the back to hold them in place. You may have noticed, but we took down all the valances over and around the windows. We added our own curtain rods and the new woven blinds.

I also covered the table with a marble look contact paper from Amazon. I used a regular width paper and I probably should have used a wide width. It would have fit better. I used black spray paint on the poles that hold up the table. You can see one of them a couple pictures above.

This is my favorite picture!! I hung it in the little hallway that leads to the bedroom.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It’s hard to believe this is even the same room!!! I absolutely love this bedroom! We removed the headboard and recovered it with a sheet. I also added the cute little chandelier above the bed. My good friend, Robin, made me the cute camping blanket at the end of the bed. Doesn’t it match perfectly?

I made this cute little Relax sign out of bits and pieces I had in my garage.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Isn’t it amazing how much of a difference paint can make?

Loving my flamingos!

There isn’t much storage in the bathroom, so I added this basket holder above the toilet to store a few things in. I found it at Home Goods, but I added the bits of material and pom-poms to give it the Boho look.

We have not changed out the floor yet, but it is something I hope to do in the future.

BEFORE:

Doesn’t this look so much better?! Did you know that the pieces on the front of the fridge are just a thin piece of cardboard? I just slid them out and spray-painted them with chalkboard paint. Such a simple update!

I also used a peel and stick subway tile from Amazon behind the sink and up on the wall. I love how it turned out! It gives such a fresh and clean feel. I reused the blind on the kitchen window and used a bit of sheet to make the curtain.

We’ve collected magnets from all the different places we have visited. It’s fun to talk about the different places we have traveled to.

I would love to hear what you think! I had so much fun planning everything out and I really love how it turned out!

Now that the RV is done, it’s on to other projects!

Our New Project!!

June 15, 2021June 8, 20214 Comments

Good morning! How have you all been? I have been good, but so busy with a new project! I’m so excited about this one! My husband and I bought a new travel trailer and are doing renovations on it! I’ve wanted to do this for several years and now I finally get the chance to do it!

I loved our last little trailer, but now that my kids are adults, it was just too small for all of us. You can see a partial makeover I did on that trailer here.

As you can see, this trailer is much bigger! It’s actually bigger than what we were looking for, but the timing and the price were right, so we couldn’t pass it up.

I was specifically looking for the separate bedroom so I wouldn’t have to make up the couch or table every day. I love all the storage too! These pictures were from the sales ad. I love the walk around bed!

Can you believe the size of the bathroom? Most trailers with this layout have the bathroom split with the hallway down the middle, but this one is all on one side, so it is quite large. There are two doors into the bathroom, one from the bedroom and one from the hallway.

Are you loving all the brown!? The couch and the table are part of the slide-out, which gives so much space! I really like this type of dinette because it goes room for more people to sit around it. You can see the arm of a chair at the bottom corner. There are two swivel chairs that sit in front of the big window in the back of the trailer.

More brown! It is so depressing! But here is the kitchen, with so much storage and even some real counter space! It has a nice size refrigerator too.

While I love the layout of the trailer and the space we will have, I was not loving all the brown. 🙂 So here is where the makeover comes in! The first step is to clean. Ugh! Prepping is the worst, but so important! Don’t skip this step!!

CLEAN

I washed down all the walls and wood with a mixture of TSP and water. Anything you are going to paint, wallpaper or add peel and stick tile to, needs to be cleaned. Our trailer was pretty dirty, so it needed cleaned anyways.

REMOVE EVERYTHING THAT HAS TO GO

After cleaning, we removed all the cupboard doors, drawers and anything else that had to go. We took down the valances over the windows and doors, a shelf, and took off the outlet covers to get ready to paint.

SAND

But before painting, everything needed sanded. Even the walls! The ‘wallpaper’ isn’t really wallpaper and it’s not worth trying to take it off. You don’t need to sand down to bare wood, but rough up the surface so the primer and paint have something to stick to.

TAPE AND PRIMER

Once everything is sanded, you need to tape around anything that isn’t going to get painted. We didn’t paint the ceiling, so we had to tape around the whole top edge. We also taped around window and door frames. Finally, it is time to use primer. I used my favorite, Kilz. On the walls we did one coat of primer, but for the dark wood, it needed two coats. Be sure to let each coat dry in between. All the cupboards and drawers were taken off, cleaned, sanded and then primered in our garage.

I took off all the knobs and drawer pull and handles and spray painted them gold. I even did the screws! Crazy, I know.

PAINT

Now it was finally time to paint! I had found a big 5 gallon bucket of Oops! paint at Home Depot a few years ago and I had plenty left. It is Behr, Swiss Coffee. It was the perfect color for a big freshen up! Again, we painted 2 coats of paint all over and some of the dark brown even got 3 coats. I went around after everything was dry and used a small paint brush to fill an any areas that were missed.

Yes, this is a ton of work, but so worth it!! The trailer looks so much lighter and now I have the fun of decorating! I’m going to give you a sneak peak, but I will post the whole thing in a couple of weeks. We are going camping in it and I can’t wait to try it out!

Here is the bedroom after primering. The cupboard doors were taken off to be painted in the garage. You can see the tape all around the top edge since we weren’t painting the ceiling.

Eeekk! Doesn’t this look so much better!!! I can hardly believe how much brighter it is!

One more peek! The dining area is all painted but no curtains or many accessories yet!

I can’t wait to show you the finished trailer in a few weeks!! It was so much work, but I am so glad we took the time to do it right and now we can just sit back and relax!

Have you ever redone a trailer? I loved looking at all the ideas on Pinterest! See you in a few weeks!

How to Cover RV Cushions Using Velcro

August 26, 2019August 26, 20192 Comments

Good morning! Is everybody back to school? My first day is today! I have to admit, I am a little nervous about how this year is going to go. I have a very full class and just the mixture of kids is going to be interesting. But I will give it everything I can to help these kids learn.

Last week I showed you my RV makeover. I am so excited about it! It just looks so great! Jump on over here if you missed it. I told you I would show you the little shortcut I took to cover the cushions. I did sew some straight seams, but you could also use the iron on kind of hem tape or something similar if you don’t sew. I am not much of a sewer, but I can sew a pretty straight seam and then fudge the rest. 🙂 Here are the cushions and the ugly faded curtains before.

As you can see above, I had a lot of cushions to cover. The one along the back seat is almost 7 feet long, the width of the trailer. Then there were 3 large seat cushions, 3 small back cushions and the two weird triangle ones in the corners. It took about 10 yards of material to cover them all. I had some pieces left over to make curtain tie-backs and make a reversible pillow.

I started with the easier rectangle ones. I cut out the fabric about 8 inches larger than the cushion on each side. This gave me enough material to double fold a hem and then fold over the cushion, about 3 inches thick, and then continue onto the back.

I ironed one fold around the edges and then folded again for a nice clean hem. I am planning on being able to remove these and wash them if needed, so I didn’t want any fraying to happen when washed.

I used both sew-on velcro and stick-on velcro. I sewed the velcro onto the edge of the fabric and used the stick-on velcro to put on the back of the cushion. My cushion backs have a vinyl back so it was easy to stick the velcro to it.

Once the velcro was sewn on, I folded the long sides up and over to the back of the cushion and matched up the velcro strips, attaching them together. Then I folded the ends like a present. I found it easier to place the sticky velcro onto the sewn-on velcro and then fold it over to stick to the vinyl. That way they matched up perfectly.

Here’s how the ends look. Nice and neat!

This is the back of the cushion. I didn’t have them meet all the way in the middle because I wanted to be able to use the vinyl to stick the velcro on. Plus, it’s on the back. Most people are not going to see it when it’s in the trailer.

I’m not even going to show you how I did the triangle ones. They are not pretty at all! I had a terrible time figuring them out, so they are just kind of velcroed everywhere to make them stay. Ha! No one will notice, right?

I love how everything came together!! I found my fabric at Hobby Lobby, but I did post some links to Amazon in the first post, here.

If you have any additional questions about how I covered the cushions, please don’t hesitate to ask! I’m so glad I took the time to do this project. It made such a huge difference! Thank you so much for coming by today!

I’m So Excited About My RV Makeover!

August 19, 2019August 13, 20197 Comments

Good morning! I’m so excited about this post today! If you are on Pinterest at all, you have probably seen a RV makeover. So many of them are amazing! I have always wanted to do one, but have a couple of reasons for holding back.

The only time I really have the time to do all the work in a full RV makeover is summer. Our summer has averaged between 95-108 degrees. Too hot to be out in a trailer!!
I don’t have a good place to work on the trailer. My trailer is parked in my driveway, right next to my neighbors yard. I wouldn’t have been able to pull stuff out of the trailer without constantly being in their yard. I don’t think they would appreciate it and I wouldn’t do that to them.
Did I mention it’s hot?!

Anyways, I had kind of put it out of my mind. Sort of. But then I realized, I could do a partial makeover. Duh! I could make some changes, but not go all out. My trailer is a 1999 Rockwood, 21 feet long, with the beds folding out of the ends. I knew I wanted to change out the fabric on the cushions and the curtains, which were very 1990’s. Of course, then my mind just kept spinning and I came up with more changes. Anyways, here are some of the before pictures.

Dining area and bed, table also makes into a bed

Kitchen

Refrigerator

Storage area and another bed in the back, bathroom on the right

That’s it in all it’s glory. In my makeover, I didn’t do any painting or major changes. The linoleum flooring really needs changing, but that will have to wait for another time. I am not much of a seamstress, but I managed to get the cushions covered with a slight short cut. I will show you a little here, but I will do another post next week to show you what I did. Here it is! I love it!!

The door is just on the other side of the refrigerator and you walk straight into the kitchen area. In the front is the seating area and then one of the beds that pulls down. You saw the table in the before pictures, but it is so big, it’s hard to get in and out of the seats, so we only use it when we actually have to use it for a bed.

I found the olive/grey striped fabric on clearance at Hobby Lobby for only $4.00 a yard. That was how I decided what colors to use! Lauren and I also found the cute trailer and camper fabric that I had to have! It makes the cutest pillows. The last fabric was the curtains, and these had the perfect colors so they all coordinated together.

Grey and White Fabric * Camper Fabric * Floral Fabric

I also used the fabric to make curtain tiebacks. I wasn’t going to make curtains to separate the beds from the rest of the trailer, but after making the the other new curtains, I couldn’t leave the old ones up! They looked terrible! All the curtains were faded, dirty and torn. I used some old curtains I already had on hand and put them up on curtain rods.

Instead of the large table, I used this little folding table in the middle. It looks so much cuter! I just found this towel and a coordinating one at the lake this past weekend. It is the perfect match to the colors I had used. And of course, hot cocoa is a must when camping!

Camping Life Towels * Tin Cup * Mocha Table * White Table

I also added a valance above the kitchen sink and the stove. There hadn’t been one at all before. This made it look much softer and ties in with everything else.

And this new pet bed! Isn’t it adorable! The bowls even match! We always take our dogs camping when we go, so I just had to have this! Of course, the turquoise is perfect! They came from Lakeside Collection, but I found similar ones on Amazon.

Camping Pet Dishes * Camping Pet Bed

I also painted the front of the refrigerator with chalkboard paint. The faux wood piece in the front just slid out so I was able to paint it outside the trailer. Now I can write down the menu for the weekend.

Bristro Chalk Marker * Chalkboard Spray Paint

Haley had given my these lights awhile ago, and I thought they would look cute in here. I hung them above the refrigerator along with the divided basket. I used some white foam tape on the bottom of the basket so it doesn’t move and fall off when we travel. This is the perfect place for a box of Kleenex and holding items such as keys, change and sunglasses.

Rattan String Lights * Divided Basket * White Foam Tape Squares

I love these canisters! My aunt and uncle were getting rid of these and I snatched them up! They are so retro! The lettering was for coffee and tea and I changed it with some scrapbook paper and stickers to coffee and cocoa. When we used to have a cabin at the lake, we had cups like these. Several years ago, I found these at a yard sale. I can’t believe how perfect they go with with all the other decor.

Black Canisters * Galvanized Canisters * Happy Camper Mug

Here’s a little sneak peek at how I covered the cushions.

I sewed the curtain tiebacks and added small plastic rings to the ends. Then I screwed a cup hook into the wall and can place the rings on the hook.

Cup Hooks * White Plastic Rings * Sew-on Velcro * Stick-on Velcro

I used the seashell specimen art I made a couple of years ago, to hang on the wall. Another blogger used Scotch Extreme Mounting Tape. It’s amazing! Even over all the terrible roads, none of the pictures or other items I hung up with this tape have fallen when we traveled.

Scotch Extreme Mounting Tape

I also painted this metal box to use as a shoe holder when we camp. It’s so much easier to have flip flops right by the door, so you can slip them on quickly to go in and out of the trailer. I painted the stripes with spray paint to match the ones on the shower curtain in the bathroom.

Galvanized Bin * Rustoleum Spray Paint

The hooks are a great place to hang our dogs’ leashes when not in use. Perfect! Isn’t this little lantern the cutest thing! It was an Avon aftershave bottle. I just poured out the aftershave and washed it out really well. 🙂

Command Key Rail * Tiny Coleman Lantern

I placed some old books and a candle up above the table. I used the same white foam tape to keep them from sliding around. I made the fabric banner a few years ago and hung it up across the front of the bed. It’s made from fabric squares and twine.

There was a hole here in the cupboard panel where we removed an old speaker. I painted a small piece of wood white, glued it to the panel and then hung the beach sign on it.

Beach Sign

The last thing I added was a Camping Rules chalkboard. This was an old sign I had and so I added some of the ‘rules’ and hung it next to the bathroom. It got rubbed against a few times during this weekend. 🙂 I need to get a new white chalk pen!

I don’t have a before of the bathroom because I changed this room before I decided to do the rest of the trailer. This wall used to have a medicine cabinet on it. I took it down and added these baskets to store all our personal items in. I added a little picture on the wall below the towel mostly to cover up some holes in the wall. The mirror on the right is the mirror from the medicine cabinet. We removed the mirror from the cabinet and hung it above the window.

Grey Plastic Bins * Seas the Day Plaque * Striped Shower Curtain

I hung up this striped curtain over the shower. It used to have just a plastic curtain, but this is so much cuter!

I bought this towel along with the other one on the little table because ‘This is how we roll!’ I also collect magnets from the different places we visit and place them on the oven door. I love the memories it brings back!

So what do you think? I love it! As I was sitting in the trailer this weekend, I looked around, and just love how it all looks together! I’m so happy I took the time to do this makeover! I would love to hear your comments! Thank you so much for coming by!