Making the RV a home!

We actually thought this would be the easy part, lol! But seriously, it wasn't...
After we got our new (used of course) 28 foot camper home, were happy with our purchase and had been "playing" around with it for a few days, we discovered some "issues". Yes, issues!!! We had been so stoked about this whole thing and all of a sudden, we just say a "problem" and wondered if we had made a "bad investment" or "choice" in this camper. This all happened when we were still playing around, talking about redecorating, this way and rearranging that way.

I am jumping way ahead, here, let me tell you about the layout of this camper, so you can actually follow along. Our new rolling home, has a bedroom to the rear of the unit. This bedroom has a full bed, lots of storage, and a closet, and dresser with a closing door...yea ha!!! We decided this would be our room (some privacy will be much appreciated when we are actually out on the road)... The middle of the RV has storage on one side and the bathroom on the other, leaving a hallway though the middle. Then comes the Galley area, with seating on one side and the sink, frig on the other and still the "hall type" through the middle. The front of the RV is the "living area". It has a couch and an table top, and such. This area is really not in the best of shape, the couch, drapes, carpet and such are ugly and dated and smell like smoke (we are non-smokers). This leaves the only other areas for sleeping....Which are the dining table that drops down into a bed and the couch that makes a bed.

Now, lets go back to the redecoration and such. We have decided to take out the ugly, usless couch and replace it with bunk beds for the kids. This way, they will actually have a real mattress and some area to call their own, not to mention, that a real mattress will be very important on the road, in our new moving home!!! This decision was not hard to come to, we had been told that the couch was not attached, because they (the original owners) had already moved it once and had never reattached it to the floor. So, being curious and all, I decided to move out the couch and "see" what is behind it. As I reach down to "pull" the couch up, my hand almost goes through the wall at the front of the camper. Needless to say, I was surprised! I called hubby in to look at it and so after we removed the couch completely, we discover that this camper has been leaking for a long time in that front area. We decide to "start" ripping our the paneling and see just how bad the damage is. It was a lot of damage, but not hard to fix. Cullen got started right away, he cut out all of the rotten wood and replaced it with new 2 by 4. He has to "reset" the window and build it up better. After we got that all finished, we decided to go ahead and build the bunk beds for the kids, because it would be easier to see the "supports" and the placement would be easier. And so that is what we did, we build in the bunks and they looked great. Cullen then cleaned all of the roof area and re-sealed the roof. After that, he cleaned all of the connecting corners and scrapped old caulking off and re-caulked them. We should have bought stock in a caulking company, because we used a lot, lol!! He re-caulked the windows, the corners, the outside light fixtures, and everywhere there was a screw. This only took about 2 weeks, but we finally have the front end totally sealed. The next project is to add in the new paneling to coverup the repair job on the inside of the RV. Meanwhile, back in the house, I was sewing...up a storm, I might add, lol! I recovered all the seat cushions, seat and back cushions. I made new curtains for ALL THE WINDOWS. I washed the inside of all the windows and hung up the curtains. For the kitchen and living areas, we went with some neutrals...A nice beige solid, with accents in a cream with beige, brown and blue stripes and denim accents too! It all ties in really well together. Everything is light enough to "keep it bright" but dark enough to keep out prying eyes or harsh light. I have to say, that I did a really bang up job with the curtains and was really proud of myself. But I was even more proud of my hubby who worked and worked at fixing the leaks in out soon to be rolling home. It was a real pain at times.

So, we are going right along with the RV. We have also been making "changes" in our lifestyle, so that we can get ready to "be on the road". Some of the things we have been doing are small, but others have been proven to be harder. The one thing that we all "have been working on" that has been the hardest, has been to get rid of all of our animals. This was quite a task too, because we are true animal lovers and we had tons of them. We started out with some of the smaller items, and we decided to sell them on some of our areas local "classified" board online. We sold our golden pheasants, our Frizzles (chickens), our silkies (chickens), ducks, quail, and most of our egg laying hens. This was a bit hard, but we decided to "pool the money" and keep it for "things we needed for the camper", which made it a bit easier for the kids, because they got to watch the money "grow". Next came the goats and 1 of the dogs. This was a major challenge for my daughter, Simone, because these were her animals. She loved them so. She was very committed to them, in fact she has milked her goat for 2 years, twice per day and never missed any time, what a girl. She really handled it like a trooper! We really liked the "homes" we choose for all of our animals and this really helped. We have also gotten rid of 2 of our "inside" dogs and lots of our rabbits. The tally shows that we have 5 hens, 4 roosters, 15 rabbits and 2 dogs to go. We have realy taken our time with this, because we have been looking for good home and places where they were willing to "keep in touch" with us for a while to make sure the animals were happy. This has worked out well!

With all of this work, we still have tons to do to make this 28 foot RV our rolling home, so stay tuned here and see what we are up to next. And please, feel free to leave us any comments you like, we would love to hear from others, who travel, have ever thought of traveling, or just like reading about our family and life.