As soon as we pulled on to our road with the pop-up I realized I was in over my head with this new adventure. First, because it had been about ten years since I backed anything up (same for my husband) and second after looking at my notes I took during our tutorial nothing made sense! After what felt like 37 tries, we got the pop -up into our long drive way and managed to pop it up with no major malfunctions. That first day we couldn’t WAIT to start prepping so spent hours wiping every piece of that camper down. It was actually in fantastic shape, so there wasn’t too much that had to be done.
Once we finished giving the pop-up a good cleaning, we began to remove all the outlets and any cushions in the camper. As you can see, Lucy had to be in the middle of everything we did. This soon became her new favorite hangout spot. Once we removed all the outlets, we primed and painted the camper. Tip #1: always make sure to prime the cabinets or else the paint will chip off very easy. Additionally, it will take anywhere between 2-4 coats of paint to ensure it is covered. We used a semi-gloss so it was easy to clean and found that the dust and dirt didn’t stick to it as much.
Of course, in the middle of our remodeling adventure, I was called to Alabama for 4 weeks of training and school. Fear not! I did bring my trusty sewing machine and I was able to work on all of the curtains and cushion covers after school each day. In total, I made 10 curtains and 4 cushion covers over the course of my time there.
A few weekends I was able to travel back home and that is when we laid the flooring. We went with the peel and stick vinyl flooring from Lowe’s and it was beautiful! A word to the wise, make sure you have a REALLY sharp knife to cut it. Also, you’ll find that you’re camper floor probably isn’t 100% square. We had to get pretty creative with our cuts. After the floor was done, our little camper was really coming together! I went to the local thrift store in Alabama and was able to track down some of the rubber floor mats and we placed those underneath our bed. It felt like it made a big difference, rather than laying directly on the plywood under the foam bed.
Now that everything was coming together, it was time to hang the curtains. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO HANG THOSE CURTAINS! It took my about two hours to get the curtains in those little tracks and about three busted fingers – but it was done! After I hung the curtains, I cried. I really just cried tears of joy because my little camper was coming together! Now – side note – my husband isn’t the most crafty, frankly, he isn’t handy either. This was a big learning process for him! But he sat there, through every renovation, every cuss word and was my runner for every tool and request I had (and I had A LOT). He may not of been crafty or but he sure was a dang good foreman!!
I think the best part about remodeling our pop up was the time spent with my husband. Its amazing was 80 – something square feet can do for your communication with another person. We spent hours together working on various projects, talking about random topics and laughed a whole ton. I firmly believe that God brought that little pop up into our life for a specific reason – and we hadn’t even camped yet!
Here are some photos of our remodel. Over all, we paid $2800 for the camper and about $450-$500 in upgrades and materials.
Happy Hobby Campers 