Well we are making our way through the motorhome and the bathroom is now done! The first picture is before and the other two are after.
We replaced the sink with an EXPENSIVE one from a local plumbing company. I could not find a sink that would fit this small bathroom that wasn't plastic. I hated our plastic sink and wanted something more like I would have at home so I bit the bullet and got this sink. I love how we put the facuet in the corner and my husband did a great tile job on the countertop. The counter curved and it limited the space we could use in the bathroom so Gil made it come straight across. I painted the wood in the bathroom so it matched the rest of the RV and we replaced the toilet with one that had a "step" flush rather than behind the toilet. The small things we appreciate.
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Well we just got back from a fantastic vacation to Brasil for Garrett's graduation trip. So the motorhome was, once again, put on hold until we got back. We are at it again and making a lot of progress. In fact, we are going to take it for a test run tomorrow and go camping for a couple of days close to home. We still have things to do but it is at a place where we can use it now.
The desk was an interesting job. I really like the desk but after stepping back and looking at it, I'm not sure I would do it exactly the same if I did it again. I think I probably should have left the middle drawer white...BUT it is done and sealed so there is no going back now. I think it turned out pretty good. I always forget to do a "before" picture so this is "almost" before and "after". Well...the hallway is done! I painted the closet, wall and bathroom door. The sun is coming through the window but I think you can see most of it. I closed the bedroom door because it isn't as clean as it was in my previous picture :-) I didn't want you to see the mess. We did some changes in the hallway that I love! See the pictures below. We replaced the front of the refridgerator with a piece of metal (magnetic) and painted it with chalk paint. The verdict is still out on whether we like it. It makes a little bit of a mess with the chalk. The great thing...it can easily be changed if we don't like it. It looks cute though and that's all that matters right? The top picture is a before picture (farther away) and the bottom is what it looks like now. I love this! This is on the hallway wall by the bathroom. The tree was a pain in the $%#@# to put on the wall and it isn't perfect but I love it with the bible verse! So appropriate for a motorhome that is on the run! This is really cool! We have a lot of storage in the bedroom for clothes. This is also another closet in the hallway (that is why we love this motorhome...a lot of storage) so we decided to use half of it to make our own "pantry". We got these drawers from Lowes and my handy husband installed it. The other half we can still use to hang up our coats! Can't wait to use this!
So this is an area above the door going outside. We use to put movies here but I decided I wanted a wine rack there. I couldn't quite visualize it (which is usually the problem...I'm a visual person and have to actually see it). But then I was at Bed Bath and Beyond and I found this!!!! Now how cute is that!!! The only problem is, it is about 2 inches two long, 2 inches short on the width and the bottles won't fit in that space vertical. They have to be tilted on a 45 degree angle. So...my husband needs to cut the bottom off, find wood to put on the sides that match and then jerry-rig (is that how you spell it) the bottle holders to angle at a 45 degrees (so basically I don't think the metal will actually be connected to the wood anymore). He asked me how he was supposed to do that and I said I didn't know but I knew it was going to look fantastic when he got done with it. :-) I will post pictures when he gets it done...I know it will be incredible. Did I tell you how much he loves me and my great ideas!
Road Block #1: Well, I'm learning as we redo this motorhome. One, no one wants to replace carpet in a motorhome. They won't touch it with a 5 foot pole. I can find the carpet (because it isn't regular carpet, you use boat or car carpet) but I can't find anyone that will install it. So....we are going to clean it really well and see how it goes, as well as repair them and get creative with throw rugs. We are replacing 80% of it with hardwood floors but there are a few places I want to keep carpet (bedroom, slide out and under the driver & passenger seats). I figure eventually if I get tired of the carpet, I will search more or possibly find someone at an RV place that is willing to do it. Right now, I can't waste anymore time trying to figure it out. So it will do for now. I actually don't even think you will be able to tell but I still eventually want to get it replaced. Road Block #2: I hate our sink in our bathroom. It is plastic and the dirt just sticks to it. I would love to have a porcelain sink but....no one has one of those either. Camping World only has plastic and they are really cheap looking and cost a fortune. I tried Lowes but all the ones they have are too big. I haven't solved this problem yet. I'm going to do a little more research. Who would have thought getting a nice sink for an RV would be such a challenge.
Well, I've been getting a lot of work done on the motorhome lately. Honestly, it is just to keep my mind from thinking. A little bit of therapy. A dear friend of the family was with his family on the Snake River and the boat was tipped over and Steve came up missing. They've had search and rescue continuing to look for him, as well as my own boys going to walk the banks of the Snake River. It is unbelievable to think that he is gone. It is also a reminder about how precious life is and how quickly it can be gone. It put a spark under me to get the motorhome going a little more quickly. Although we are really enjoying taking our time fixing it, I do want to get it to a point that we can take it out and enjoy it. Even if it is not completely done. We can still work on it as long as we can still use it. So, as we mourn the loss of a dear friend, we continue on this thing called life and enjoy the little things in life. You will be greatly missed Steve!
Well, we were making progress but then we had a bump in the road. We not only had a Germany trip planned in March but Graduation was soon after. With graduation, we had senior week and Garrett and I were both speaking at the graduation...can you say stress. While we were in Germany, my step-dad died and we came home to helping my mom with his house and belongings as well as a memorial service. Needless to say, the motorhome was put on the back burner. However, we were making progress and we are going to start back at it again soon. It's funny, this isn't a chore. It's actually very enjoyable and it is therapy. So although some would find it a "job" to try and finish. I find it my "escape" from the world. The pictures above are before and after of the bedroom. We can't believe how much it lightened up the bedroom. Painting the cabinets were very easy. The hardest part is waiting for each coat to dry. I used Rustoleum paint kit. I included the pictures above because you can see the awesome job my husband did with the TV in the cupboard. I come up with ideas...he makes it happen. He cut the center out of the cupboard door and mounted the TV to the door frame. We also changed the hinges to the other side of the door so we can open the door so it faces the head of the bed. He has the top of the cupboard open for the DVD player so the remote can still control it as well. He added a small shelf to hold it inside the cabinet. You can still store stuff in the cupboard as well which is an added plus!
So it was our anniversary so what exciting thing do we do? We went to the big city of Salt Lake City and....went to Camping World and IKEA! We were so excited to get started on the motorhome but still felt like we needed a few more ideas on what we were going to do to the motorhome. We started at Camping World and looked around the store. We picked up a few Christmas presents :-) and a few things for our motorhome but not as much as we thought we would. We really were just trying to find some ideas. So we then went out to the RV sales department. We reassured the salesmen that we were NOT buying anything. We couldn't even be tempted because we knew we had a motorhome torn apart at home that we couldn't get rid of if we wanted. So there was no temptation in buying a new or used RV while there. We found an RV that had a working center plus table that we really liked. We aren't sure it will work in the same space we have available but we are going to try. So we are going to try and make a corner desk like this and then have it continue into our dining table and chairs. Well see how it works when we finally get started. Then we headed over to IKEA. I warned Gil that once you get into the store you can't get out. It is like a huge maze and it doesn't matter when you want to leave...you have to go through the whole store. I actually like the store but I don't like how you are trapped. Gil had knee surgery the week before so he decided to take a break halfway through. We came out with a few items but more importantly we came out with a lot of ideas. We took a lot of pictures with our phones and made a lot of diagrams. We had a plan and we were ready to get started. We are heading to a Nebraska football game in a week for Thanksgiving and then Christmas right after so we are a little worried about getting much accomplished over the next couple months. The work on the motorhome is not necessarily hard at this point but trying to figure out what we want is very difficult. I've looked at so many different RV remodeling ideas on the internet that I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore. I want something "clean" but not too trendy (green). I decided to start on the bathroom because I figured it was contained and if I screwed it up, I could close the door haha. Well, I went shopping and tried to find that "thing" that was going to be the focal point of the bathroom. I found the mirror at Hobby Lobby and I liked that it was neutral yet had some color so I started there. Then I painted the medicine cabinet and shelves to match (the front of the medicine cabinet is not on yet, it was drying). As I looked at it, over and over again throughout the day, I just couldn't decide if I liked it. In one way I liked it because it had color but then I'd look at it and I would think it was too much. So I did what everyone does, calls their sister! My sister knows how to decorate, I don't. So using facetime on the phone (which didn't work well because of the internet connection) and pinterest. We came up with some ideas on what I was going to do. This is not my motorhome but I'm going to try and model my after the colors in this picture. Which, yes, means I have to redo the bathroom now. I do like the bathroom but I don't want the whole motorhome to have this dramatic look yet I think it will look strange to have the bathroom with the bright colors and the rest of the motorhome with cool browns. So...I get to start over! Our oldest is about to graduate from high school and we are now looking into the future of "what next?". Our life has revolved around kids, sports, school and family trips. I have no regrets but we are now at a place where we say "What are we going to do now?".
We've played with several ideas of trading in our motor home and getting a 5th wheel etc. However, we have now decided that we are going to keep our motor home and remodel it for future trips with the two of us and our two dogs :-) I wasn't going to start this blog until we started traveling as "empty nesters" but then realized that the journey does not start when we pull out of the driveway. The journey starts as we dream, plan and remodel our motor home. You see, Gil's brother just recently died and it has put a perspective on life. We may get this entire motor home remodeled and never pull out of the driveway. However, the journey of redoing it is also a fun experience. Your journey is not what you plan to do in the future but what you are currently doing. So...the journey begins. The first pictures are the "before" pictures. The second group of pictures is after we started tearing it apart. He tore apart the front of the motor home trying to find all the whistles and noises that we get while traveling. Good thing he did this. The TV was barely hanging on with one tiny screw and with the right "bump" the huge heavy TV would have fallen on the dashboard. Definitely glad he decided to start there. That will be replaced immediately! |
AuthorIf you want to see the entire remodel, you will need to look back at past posts. It took us several months. Archives
May 2017
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