RV Bedroom Updates: Under-Bed Clothing Storage

If you’re just joining us, check out this post introducing Rhoda, our road-beast RV renovation project, or this one showing the extent of her water-damage, which we’re in the middle of repairing. Or, check out our other posts of the renovations we’ve written about so far.

To see what we’ve done so far on the bedroom, check out our first post, and keep checking back. In addition to the changes shown there, we’ve also built custom wood shelves and added some other creative touches – and will post those blogs soon!

One thing I really wanted in our rig was a full bedroom closet, but those are hard to find in 5th wheels, and Rhoda is no exception. Neither Danny nor I have tons of clothes, but we do like having a selection to choose from (rather than always wearing the same set of basics the way you do when you have very little room for clothing storage). Since we’ll be living in Rhoda full-time and not just enjoying her on weekends, this is especially important.

Our 5^th wheel Rhoda is 26’ long and very roomy with the back-end open kitchen set-up. However, she only has the two small closets and two cupboards in the bedroom for clothing storage, which is not nearly enough.

These pics shows our clothes storage (renovations still in progress). Not much room!

So, to help us fit more into the closets, we started by purchasing a 10-piece set of Magic Hangers.  Of the two of us, I have more hang-up clothes, so I took six and Danny got four.  I highly recommend them to anyone living in their RV full-time (unless of course you’re lucky enough to have one of those big Class A’s with ample closets and drawers).  They are true space-savers!

These things are great – and have allowed us to fit at least three times the clothing in those little closets that we normally would have.  If you have any bulky clothing, you can’t fill all five spaces on all six hangers, but you can fill at least three on each – which is awesome!

But then the question remained as to where to put all the rest of our clothes that didn’t fit into the closet.  With no room for a dresser, we decided to create our own. The only place it could go, since we’d already filled the corners with custom-built wood shelves (blog coming soon!) – was in the under-bed storage area.

Before deciding to build anything, we tried half a dozen styles of containers (like milk crates, clear plastic bins, and even old recycling bins), but none really worked very well. The milk crates were too small to hold much and were the wrong size, the clear plastic bins were too tall, and the recycling bins just looked trashy (pun intended) with the handles taking up too much of the valuable space. So, we ultimately decided that Rhoda was about to undergo another custom wood renovation project!

Plenty of space under the bed!

Danny started the job by removing the carpet and padding. As you can see from the picture above, the carpet underneath the bedframe itself stayed, so ensuring we had all those tiny little carpet pieces out of the main area was a real pain the ass, but Danny was a trooper and got the job done right.

After several long discussions about how best to set it up and measuring (and re-measuring) to calculate the perfect size for the clothing cubes, we decided to go with 13 total spaces – 10 of which are the same size and three of which are smaller. Since Danny sleeps on the right-hand side, he would get six full-size spaces for his clothing on that side. For me, the left-hand side would have four spaces of the same size and three smaller ones (for my more delicate items).

We determined that each of the large cubes would measure 15″ x 15″ with the small cubes measuring 15″ x 13″.  That gave us some space at the head of the bed (under the part of the bed-platform that doesn’t lift) where we could store our luggage (since we hadn’t found another place for it yet).

Danny began by installing the 1″ X 2″s that would provide stability for the lengths of wood that would make up the cubes. From there, he cut some of the Luan wallboard we had left over from rebuilding the walls in the slide and kitchen – to make three long strips for separating the cubes horizontally. He then sawed spacer-lines in them with his sawzall where the cross-pieces would be placed.

The project required three sets of 1″ x 2″s – and here are two sets in already!

Horizontal luan wallboard installed. Spacer-lines sawed (but not yet sanded).

Prior to installing the cross-pieces, he sanded each of the cut lines. Unfortunately, at this point, we realized that he’d cut one of the lines in the wrong place (bottom left cut line shown in the pic above). Since that space would be made into three cubes rather than two, that area would need two different lines rather than the same line as was put everywhere else. Since this extra line wasn’t hurting anything, we decided to just leave the piece in – and keep moving forward on the project (no need to replace it – who’s gonna see it besides us – and you – anyway?!).

Clothing cubes created!!!

Danny used small pieces of 1″ x 2″s to shore up the cubes (on the bottom right in the pic above) that were made with pieces that didn’t stretch the length of the bed. These were also used inside each cube where they connected to the bedframe or end-piece. Ensuring it would be stable enough to endure frequent use was important, so even though these small pieces of wood steal some of our valuable space, they are worth it.

Additionally, the cross-pieces that are closest to the head of the bed had to be made shorter than the rest of them – and had to be cut to have a downward angle – so that we would be able to reach the storage area under the head of the bed.  Once everything was installed, Danny used a sanding block to smooth out the cuts and make sure we’d get no splinters when reaching for something to wear. We also talked about painting the cubes, but in the end, decided that the amount of time and effort that would go into that wasn’t worth it.

Next came the task of organizing our clothes to get them to fit into our new cubes. Since his time in the Army, Danny’s been rolling his clothes. We took this space-saving trick to heart and everything got rolled into dozens of little clothing sausages. I put my clothes into the cubes vertically (up) because I thought it would be easier to see everything so I wasn’t always wearing what was on top. However, this does make my cubes look messier than Danny’s (due to the varying heights, fabrics, and thicknesses of the clothes within each one).  Danny piled his differently – but, as you can see, our dearly-departed Coconut approved of his technique. Or maybe she just liked the giant box of soft things on which to sit while she stared out the window at the bunnies playing in the yard next door. Who knows what mysterious things go on inside cat’s heads?

We have to fight with the kitties to keep them out of there EVERY SINGLE TIME we open it.

One thing we came to understand the very first day after building and filling our new under-bed dresser was the importance of pulling out the next day’s clothing before going to bed. Danny and I are on a strange schedule – right now, he works nights and I work both nights and days (I choose my own hours based on deadlines and work availability). We try to sleep at the same time, but that doesn’t always work out. On this particular evening, I had only been sleeping for a few hours when he had to get up to go to work. He realized quickly that I was sleeping atop all of his clothing and had no choice but to get me out of bed to retrieve them.

Even more unfortunately, I sleep like the dead and can be a bear to wake up … but luckily, I can also be awakened, do half a dozen things, and go right back to sleep … half the time without even realizing what I’ve just done. This has translated into dozens of interesting situations in my life. Like the couple of times I had phone calls with people and arranged to be somewhere … and had absolutely no memory of it when I woke up hours later to angry phone calls asking why I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. This time, though, he was able to wake me fairly easily so I stood beside the bed (mostly still asleep) until he got what he needed from underneath the bed. Since I have no memory of this, I’m recounting what he told me happened … so … yeah. Which brings me to today’s tip:

Make sure you get tomorrow’s clothing out of the under-bed dresser before going to bed!

Lastly, since the bedroom in a 5th wheel can get pretty cold (if you don’t have skirting and are living in a cold area), we figured our clothing would do a great job of helping to insulate the bedroom – or at least the bed – and keep us warmer than expected in our new home. Ya gotta love a happy ending!

Thanks for joining the latest edition of the adventures of the Gypsy Rangers! Keep following along as we rebuild and renovate our road beast – and head off toward Seattle in September!  We still have A LOT left to do in the next three months, so send us positive thoughts and motivational blessings! Namaste, my friends!

Fewer than 3 months remaining, then we travel 3100 miles to start our lives anew!

DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse or represent any brands or products, nor do we have any sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our journey or our nonprofit foundation, Vuja de Enterprises Foundation, we welcome your kindness and generosity!

Slide Renovation: Part III – Walls, Ceiling, and Slide Border

If you’re just joining us, check out this post introducing Rhoda, our road-beast RV renovation project, or this one showing the extent of her water-damage, which we’re in the middle of repairing. Or, check out our other posts of the RV renovations we’ve written about so far.

This is a three-part series – so you can follow our progress on the slide renovation from start to finish.

• Slide Renovation: Part I – Deconstruction
• Slide Renovation: Part II – Floor
• Slide Renovation: Part III – Walls, Ceiling, and Slide-Border

The new plywood is installed in the floor – and we continue forward on our renovations!

So, before the final flooring that you saw in Part II went in, Matt came by and helped us get the roof and ceiling frame repairs completed (which I’ll show in another post soon).  During parts of this, he worked alone (with Danny and I available as his shop-bitches, as needed), so we were free to continue our work in other areas. Danny moved forward with kitchen demolition, while I worked on the slide walls.

Since we needed to repair the slide border before we built the missing slide wall, I decided to prep and paint the remaining walls. I knew it’d take a couple days to get two full coats applied-and-dried, and by that time, we’d have the slide border repaired. I began by sanding down all of the wood paneling on the bottom half of the slide walls. On the upper walls, I repaired random holes, and cut in the windows.

Walls are sanded and prepped, and the cut-in has started.

First coat of tan is on the walls! It looks a million times better already!

All (already-installed) walls got their first coat!

The second coat of tan and the first coat of green go in! The warming contrast has made the place feel so freaking HOMEY everywhere we’ve applied it!

For the walls, we used the same tan and green contrast that we’d used in the other rooms we’d painted (bedroom, bathroom, fridge). I just loved the combination because of how warm-and-homey the colors made it feel. The tan is Olympic Antique Parchment and the green is Olympic Guacamole.  While I worked on this, Matt and Danny finished up the repairs on the small-wall area over the slide. The whole roof and ceiling supports had to be rebuilt in that area, as well as the framing for the area over the slide. In some places, this required custom-cut/designed pieces of framing and shims to make everything fit perfectly. I say again how thankful I am to have had such a great friend engineer all that, as it was out of Danny’s and my capabilities to do the sturdy job it needed.

Danny provides leverage while Matt installs new wood in the small wall area above the slide.

Matt shimming up the walls, like the stud he is!

Roof, new framing, and wall-area (above the slide) are complete! Now … remove the rest of the rotted wood!

After Matt headed home, we still needed to remove/replace the rotted wood from the slide border, and rebuild the walls and ceiling of the slide. So, we started with the slide border, since that was the biggest and most-urgent of the tasks.  The entire kitchen-side piece of the slide border was rotted, as well as the long piece that went across the top (and provided the strength that held the whole thing in at the top!). So, we got to work tearing it all out!

I take the pry-part of the hammer to the rotten wood; grossed me out how little strength it took to pull it all away. You get a sneak peek of the area of kitchen wall/cabinets we’re renovating, as well!

Danny takes the reciprocating saw to the rotten wood. You can see the pretty new roof/ceiling right above him! No more leaks!!!!

Removal of the rotten parts of the slide border is complete! Can I get a “hells yeah!” … ?

In removing the wood along the top of the slide border, we realized it was just glued together pieces of plywood – all making an abnormal width we’d have to recreate on our own. Since we didn’t have the equipment (or patience, tbh) to do this, we installed this “sub-wall” before installing the two – 2″ X 6″s that would make up the outside edge of the slide border.

Danny cut and installed the thin wood planking to go behind the nice wood we planned to install on the slide border.

We didn’t get many pictures of the slide border wood going in – but this one shows the completed rebuild, while Danny’s in-process in cutting out the hole for the window. Don’t mind the toilet paper – it was winter and we both had the sniffles something fierce!

When we installed the new slide-border wood, it took both of us (one to hold, one to use the screw gun), so we didn’t get many pictures. For the kitchen-side edge, which sagged because it didn’t get proper support from the rotten wood, one of us had to hold up the slide while those pieces went in – to reduce the sag. It’s still there a bit, which sucks, but we’ve done the best repair we could do, so we’re satisfied.

With the rotted wood gone and the new wood in, the place smelled so fresh, it was like we had a whole new house! Next, we cut and installed the missing wallboards in the slide, which Danny finished off by using our friend Michael’s Rigid JobMax Oscillating Multi-Tool, to cut out the hole for the window.  (As an aside, we both firmly agree that oscillating tool is our new favorite, and our very next tool purchase.)

We used a beautiful wallboard that had designs in it that reminded me of bird’s-eye maple (one of my favorite woods); it almost physically hurt to paint over it (but it had to be done!). [As another aside – full of those today! – I was also a bit annoyed that we couldn’t change out all the walls to the new stuff because they were just so damned niiiiice, but that was not in the budget (which we’d already seriously blown by this point) … so it wasn’t even discussed).]

Beautiful new wallboard is installed, and the window is cut and re-framed. YAY!

Such a shame to paint over that pretty wood (she winked, slyly), but it had to be done!

To finish off the slide border, we used our Minwax Early American 230 stain to finish off the exterior wood – and pull the whole slide together. Since the slide-length was 12’9″, it was prohibitively expensive to purchase two 2″ X 6″ pieces of wood of appropriate length. So,after installing the inner unstained piece (which was the right length based on the wood-piece left at the right-hand end of the slide border), we cut two 6′ pieces, stained them, and installed them on either side – leaving a one-foot hole in the middle, as I had come up with a creative way to solve the issue of the missing foot of wood.

Danny installs the stained slide-border wood. You also get a sneak peek of the chair-rail border we put on the slide walls and the crown moulding we used on the wall above the slide.

The hole that stressed Danny the fuck out! (Check out the wood wall borders!)

Danny couldn’t figure out what we could do to fill this hole and I only kept him guessing for one night. I asked him to cut me the one-foot piece, kissed his nose, and told him not to worry! While he slept in preparation for his impending night shift, I went to my computer – made a design that represented the both of our spirits – and got out my wood-burning kit. It took over four hours, but the results were as fabulous as I’d hoped they be!

This says it all.

I wood-burned a specialty piece for the slide border – then put moulding along the connection points. The rest of Rhoda is filled with custom-wood projects, but this one makes my heart smile.

The custom-wood-burned middle section stands out, but not too much.

As you can see in the picture above, we have already installed the insulation in the slide ceiling, so next we put up the ceiling board. It took waaaaaay more screws than I ever expected, which we found out by going through a “needs more; needs more!!” process, while we tried to get the small waves that showed at the straight ends to disappear.

Danny adds even more freaking screws to remove the wavy spots. You can see the tape we used the mark where the ceiling studs were (for ease in screwing in the right place!).

Once we finished the ceiling installation, we painted it the same tan color as the walls, rather than the white we used on the other ceilings. (We also did this in the bathroom!) Then, we cut, stained, and installed chair-rail / border all along the connection points we had built (plus all those that matched on the other side). Lastly, we installed ceiling and floor moulding to pull the whole thing together and finish it with a flair.

My mom used chair-rail moulding throughout our house, which at one time, was painted a similar combination of colors (she also loved many shades of green). When I showed my mom the pictures of what we’d done, she commented on how it reminded her of her own home, and that made us both smile. It was a lovely shared moment in a dark time, and I will hold onto that forever.

The slide repairs and renovations are complete and the curtains are in place! The only missing piece is the finish-moulding that will go on the edge of the slide floor (after we’ve installed the rest of the flooring). Sneak peek of the kitchen here!

You can see the finished catbox area in this picture, too. We still have to re-install the ceiling lights, and you’ll see those in the pictures we take once the couch and desk are built/installed.

We couldn’t be more pleased with the polished-yet-down-to-Earth look our RV slide has now, and hope you like it, too! Thanks for being on this journey with us! We know we’re taking longer than anticipated to start the actual traveling, and we appreciate your patience!

Next, we build the custom couch and custom shared desk! These are two of our biggest and most complex builds, so be patient and stick with us! Namaste, my friends!

Let your lovelight shine with a little soul music!

DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse or represent any brands or products, nor do we have any sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our journey or our nonprofit foundation, Vuja de Enterprises Foundation, we welcome your kindness and generosity!

Slide Renovation: Part II – Floor

 

If you’re just joining us, check out this post introducing Rhoda, our road-beast RV renovation project, or this one showing the extent of her water-damage, which we’re in the middle of repairing. Or, check out our other posts of the RV renovations we’ve written about so far.

This is a three-part series – so you can follow our progress on the slide renovation from start to finish.

• Slide Renovation: Part I – Deconstruction
• Slide Renovation: Part II – Floor
• Slide Renovation: Part III – Walls, Ceiling, and Slide-Border

So, at this point, we’ve already deconstructed the water-damaged areas, and pulled out all (still-partially-wet) insulation. We mopped up the remaining water, and set up a fan to dry that section of the RV for the first time in likely a year. Then, we treated the whole area for about a week before moving forward – so that we could be sure there were no remaining mold spores to reinfect what will be our new home.

To ensure the mold was eradicated, I used a two-part approach:

1. Sprayed the entire area with a bleach-water solution – three or four times over the course of three days (leaving enough time to dry fully between coats).
2. Sprayed the entire area with a strong vinegar solution – the same way as I did with the bleach solution.

I read that bleach only kills surface mold, and the vinegar is needed to kill the deeper – and more dangerous – hidden mold. So, the whole affected area got three heavy doses of both. I have a pretty bad mold allergy (which I constantly fight in Florida), so we needed to be sure we removed it fully. Plus, we reaaaallly don’t want to ever have to rebuild Rhoda again – especially due to hidden mold.

Rotted wood and (still-wet) insulation has been removed. At least we know that bottom webbing is water-tight!

So, after all this, our next step was to fortify the floor more than it was, as well as to insulate it with much higher quality insulation than had been in there. Rather than installing a new dining set on this part of the slide, we planned to build a double desk (with a pull-out dining table). I work at home (and will be working from the RV once we move in) – and so this area will need to be as custom-designed as we can make it.

Because of the amount of time we’d both be spending on this area of the floor – and the fact that it pained me to realize the flooring that you see in the picture above is the wood-and-webbing that makes up the bottom part of the slide – we wanted to reinforce the wood-slats there to make sure the floor never has any strength issues. Additionally, the extra insulation will help keep the section of the RV we’ll be using most warmer than it would have been.

Slide flooring removed down to the wood/webbing that makes up the underside of the slide. Fortification of this side of the floor is in progress.

To add to the floor-structure, we cut and screwed in 1″ X 2″s around the frame and across the wide sections. As you can see in this picture, the slide-border was all rotted – and the wall on this side had sagged a bit due to the lack of support. We’ll talk about how we repaired that in Part III of this three-part series, so stay tuned.

The sections that got the most extra support were the two areas where Danny and I would sit at our co-working desk.

The framing is complete! The extra-thick slats on the right-hand section is where the couch framing will be, so every place the couch will sit – got extra fortification.

Making sure to add extra support where my desk chair, Danny’s desk chair, and the couch would be, we completed the updated framing in the slide. We then added Johns Manville R-13 poly-faced insulation for 2″ X 4″ walls, which we taped in with aluminum tape. On top of this, we stapled thick black visqueen. We did this to seal the area more fully – and create a much-thicker wind barrier, since our research has shown how cold RV slides can be in the winter.

The new framing is complete, the insulation is installed, and the thick visqueen barrier in in the process of being stapled in. This area will be the best-insulated part of the whole camper!

Before installing the plywood floors, we had to clean out the areas around the giant bolts that hold the whole slide together to the steel frame. It was an absolute bitch to get all the carpet and gunk out from around those buggers, let me tell ya! Then, when installing the plywood, small chunks had to be cut out of the wood over the areas where each of those sat. Despite these minor annoyances, we got the plywood installed, then sealed the place where the new floor met the walls with self-expanding foam.

Giant bolts of annoyance. Oh, how they mock me!

First piece of plywood installed. You can see the areas along the back wall where the bolts are placed.

The plywood is installed – and self-expanding foam applied!

Once all this was complete, we continued our work on the walls, ceiling, and slide-border, which we’ll detail in Part III of this series, and which you’ll get a sneak peek of at the end of this blog. When I was able to get back to finishing the floor, I installed the same flooring we had put in the bedroom. Except for the penny floor in the bathroom, this flooring will be throughout the RV.

As I mentioned in the first post on our bedroom updates, for flooring, we went with TrafficMaster self-stick vinyl planks in Walnut Ember Java. It took three-quarters of a case to complete the slide floor, since we gave a small section of it a different flooring treatment. The slide contains an opening to the outside that will be located directly behind our new custom couch. In this section of the couch base, we’ll keep one of the two catboxes – so we can access it by pulling up the couch-seat or from the outside easily. So, for this floor-section, we treated the entire area with three coats of Black Jack Roof-Guard Elastomeric Coating. For the area surrounding that, we put down peel-and-stick carpet tiles (in tan). We’re hoping this thick coating will keep any “over-spill” from soaking into the wood, and the carpet will act as kitty-paw litter-catches and keep it from traveling beyond the catbox areas.

We’ll be traveling with five cats (rather than the seven we’d anticipated having), since the November loss of our beloved Midnight and the March loss of my dearest Coconut. To make this home theirs as much as ours, we’re building two catbox areas (to keep the mess contained and potential smell at a minimum), a cat tower, and specialty-kitty areas. I’ll highlight all these in a later post, so keep checking back (especially if you plan to travel with cats in your own RV).

Now, back to the floor! Aside from the catbox area, we put down a base coat of paint before installing the flooring. I hadn’t remembered to do this in the bedroom, and had a few issues with tiles not sticking as well as they should. After researching it further, I found a recommendation to paint the floor first, so that’s what I did here (and what we’ll do when we install the main flooring). Like it was in the bedroom, the pieces went in pretty easily. The hardest part was making sure cuts I made (for around corners or floor-bolts) were straight and in the right spot. It took me about an hour (or so) to finish installing the flooring planks.

Admit it! You’re checking out the sneak peek of the walls, aren’t you?! BUSTED!

Half the floor planks are installed. In the bottom-right corner, you can see the whitish-area where we used the elastomeric to protect the floor.

Wood floor planks are installed, elastomeric area painted. Next, I installed the carpet tiles around the catbox area.

After this, we worked to finish the other parts of the project, then installed the floor moulding, which finished the whole job perfectly! I’m not going to post a finished picture here – so move to the next installment to read about how we fixed the walls, ceiling, and slide – and you can see a final picture there!

Thank you, dear friends, as always – for continuing on this journey of life with us. Next stop – a refurbished slide!

DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse or represent any brands or products, nor do we have any sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our journey or our nonprofit foundation, Vuja de Enterprises Foundation, we welcome your kindness and generosity!

 

 

 

Slide Renovation: Part I – Deconstruction

So, it’s been a few months since I’ve posted, and it’s been quite the busy-busy time!

If you’re just joining us, check out this post introducing Rhoda, our road-beast RV renovation project, or this one showing the extent of her water-damage, which  we’re in the middle of repairing. We’ve done a host of other repairs, so we hope you catch up on all we’ve written about since the beginning of this project. We’ve done a lot more than we’ve shown so far, and I’ll keep working on these to catch up to our actual progress! So, stay tuned!

We’ve been in-flux since the first week of February, when we moved out of the location where we’d been living for a year-and-a-half. Rhoda, our road-beast RV, was not yet ready to be moved into, so we stayed a month at our friends’ Shelly and Ronnie’s, while we rested from the previous six months of continuous-and-stressful on-the-go. During this time at “the spa” (as we call it), we did more recovering than RV-work, If I’m to be honest, though my work schedule never slowed down. It was a tough time mentally, though since, during our stay, we found out that my mother was nearing the end of her life, and so was my 18-year-old cat, Coconut.

Over the course of the month, our plans changed several times, and we nearly went to Missouri to care for my mom in her last weeks, but she ended up traveling here to Florida, so she could spend her last days near where all her kids lived. After the month was over, we moved Rhoda and ourselves to Matt’s house. It was still my permanent address (after living there two times totaling eight or nine years), and the majority of my furniture and belongings were still there. Plus, Matt’s house feels like home (he’s always been my brother-from-another-mother), so it was the best place for us (me, especially) to be during this highly-transitional and difficult period.

My dearest friend Matt and I – during happier times – at my favorite park on a weeks-long cross-country trip we took with my niece in 2014.

My mom, JoAnne’s, struggle with advanced COPD (that turned into stage four lung cancer) ended on the morning of Saturday, March 24th, 2018. She’d gotten to spend time with all three of her kids and both brothers before passing, and went in peace. Two days later, Danny and I held Coconut, whose nasal infection had actually been a nasty, fast-growing tumor, as the vet gave her the last shots she’d ever have. As I’ve struggled with Bipolar II depression and anxiety my whole life, it’s been a really low point for me lately, and the quicksand (as I call it) is high. So, if you don’t mind, before we get to the next set of RV-work pictures, I’d like to share a few of my mom and my little Coco-bean.

This was taken a couple years ago when my brother and I traveled to my mom’s house in Missouri to help build a big shed.

This is another picture of my mom during the shed project. Growing up, she was inspiring with her range of skills and abilities, and I learned a lot working as her helper on all sorts of projects.

This picture of my mom was taken when I was in high school. I get my thousand-yard-stare and piercing eyes from her, though hers were green and mine are my dad’s blue.

18-year-old Coconut – about three weeks before her death, enjoying a cool day at Aunt Shelly’s spa. She’d been getting medicine for her nasal congestion / cold for a couple weeks by this point.

Coconut in her favorite spot on the mama-cat’s lap. She always spent time with me, no matter where I was in the house, but in the last month, she spent as much time on my lap as could get.

Coconut all snuggled on Aunt Shelly’s lap – both of them perfectly content with their current positions.

Thank you for letting me share that with you. Now, let’s focus on work (which has always been a salvation for me), and get to the work we did to repair and renovate the slide.

If you remember, the water damaged area in the roof was in the kitchen/slide corner over where the slide begins when it’s in the all-the-way-out position. By the time we figured out how deep the water-damage rabbit hole was, we realized we’d have to re-do nearly the entire slide (along with a big section of the roof / kitchen ceiling, several kitchen cabinets, and the countertop).

The slide before we started tearing things out to see the extent of the damage.

The recliners were still in really great condition, though they needed a good cleaning. We pulled them out, scrubbed them up, and donated them to the community where we were living at the time.

 

The valances (of course!) had to go, and the dining set was rotted from the rain it had taken through the leaky roof. There was never any question about replacing that nasty carpet, either. If you look in the top left corner of the picture, you can see the area where the water was coming in.

As Danny’s primary task was demolition and removal, he began with tearing out the dining set. We also un-attached and removed the recliners, so they could be cleaned and donated to the community where we lived at the time. We considered keeping them, but planned to build our own custom couch, so they had to go.

The first inklings of the water damage begin to show.

My handsome husband takes a well-deserved break from the removal and demolition process. Don’t worry – he wore a mask while doing the actual work.

The dining set is removed – and the rotted/damaged walls are torn out. You can see how damaged the slide-border is.

Another picture of the mess. By this point, part of the ceiling in the slide had been removed, and so had the top kitchen cabinets that were rotted all the way back to the wall.

It took nearly a week of long, hot, icky labor-filled days to get through the demolition, but Danny was a trooper. While he worked on demolition, I focused on getting the kitchen prepared for renovation, and began building a cat tower, which I’ll detail later.

Danny cuts out the slide carpet, which was full of mold. The floor itself would also have to be replaced, as you can see.

With all the carpet out, you can see the rot goes for two-thirds of the slide.

We pulled the rotted wood out. Underneath, the thin insulation that sat over-top the stiff webbing making up the slide floor was still wet. EEEEWWWW

By the time the demolition was finished, the entire RV smelled a thousand times less like mold, and I wasn’t having such bad mold-allergy reactions every time we went in there (which was a plus!).

With our work cut out for us, our friend Matt swooped in and helped us get the roof repaired. We were way over our heads with that job, so it was a true saving grace for him to be so amazing like that. That repair included the damaged roof, as well as the damaged small wall-section over the rotted part of the slide. I’ll detail everything on that repair soon, but here’s a sneak peak of that portion after the initial repair-work was complete.

The roof repair is complete, and so is the repair to the small wall-section over the slide.

Thanks for sharing our demolition-journey! This three-part series includes two more sections – one detailing the repairs/renovations to the walls, ceiling, and slide border, and the other details what we did to fix the slide floor.

Namaste, my friends – and happy travels! Remember – no matter how long your life is – it’s always too short, so make every moment count.

Move next to Part II – Floor and then on to Part III – Walls, Ceiling, and Slide Border!

DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse or represent any brands or products, nor do we have any sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our journey or our nonprofit foundation, Vuja de Enterprises Foundation, we welcome your kindness and generosity!

RV Bathroom Updates: Countertop, Sink, Faucet

Click here to see where our RV bathroom started!

Check out how we added storage to our bathroom cabinet, as well as how we added flair!

Check out the new custom wood shelves we built in the bathroom!

As I said before, we wanted to do away with the crappy RV countertop and cheap sink-faucet combo. Mind you, there was nothing really wrong with either of them, they were just too ordinary to be representative of Danny’s and my home. We are both creative-types who like our lives to be colorful and interesting – not only in how we live, but also in where we live. We wanted each space in our RV to be representative of who we are.

So, here’s where we started:

The bathroom cabinet was standard-RV-issue and oh-so-boring!

You can see that there are no obvious cuts or stains in the countertop, and that the sink, although quite yellowed, is still in workable condition. But, holy hell, how booooooring.

While Danny was continuing with his efforts toward dismantling the sitting area / kitchen where the rot and mold had taken hold, I continued my work in the bathroom. The plan was to re-do the entire bathroom cabinet, so I got started by taking off the doors to make the workspace a clean one. I then disconnected the faucet plumbing, realizing that one of the small plastic pieces was broken and would need to be replaced. To keep the plumbing parts together, I taped them to the interior of the cabinet. From here, it was easy to pop the sink/faucet combo out.

The drawer and doors have been taken off and the sink/faucet combo has been removed. You can see it sitting forlornly in the tub, confused as to what the new purpose of its existence will be.

After removing the sink, I next had to remove the countertop. This proved much more difficult than you would imagine it would be (or much more difficult than it would be in a standard house). In an RV, any furniture that is up against a wall is attached with screws that come in from the outside. The furniture (and therefore the screws) are put into the RV before the exterior siding goes on, so they are protected from the weather and the outside of the RV looks screw-free. This makes it an absolute bitch to remove the furniture from the wall without ripping holes in the exterior walls. Granted, they would be under the siding, but still not okay.

Bathroom countertop is partway removed.

The left-hand side – where the sink had been – was much easier to remove than the right-hand side. The left side pulled up and off fairly easily, though one of the 1″ x 2″s that it was connected to (on the side closest to the tub) came off in the process. The right side, on the other hand, was a total bitch-and-a-half. After much swearing and beating on the thing with a hammer like a mass murderer on holiday, the majority of that side was removed. It took more wrenching and teeth-gnashing to get the remainder of the pieces off, but after about an hour-and-a-half of working on it, I finally had all the pieces gone. I used the reciprocating saw to sheer off the screws coming in front outside, as I wouldn’t be able to use them on the new countertop, and they’d just be in the way.

Old countertop gone!

We wanted a nice wooden countertop rather than formica or some other cheap material.  I researched ideas on Pinterest and found that our best bet (easiest, cheapest) would be to use wood tongue-and-groove flooring. So, we set off to Home Depot and Lowe’s in search of some. Our efforts were not rewarded though, since it seems that both stores no longer carry that type of flooring unfinished. Nobody wants to finish their own floors anymore (can you blame them?!). So, we decided we’d have to go to a smaller flooring store, and went about collecting the other items we needed.

While we were looking at lumber, we came across the most perfect pieces! They were slabs of wood that had been glued together and sanded into one piece. They had the perfect width for us (it was 16″ wide, which was exactly what we needed). Overjoyed, we took our prize home and set about our other tasks.

A couple days later, I came back to this part of the RV project and measured out the piece to be cut. Since the left and right sides of the cabinet weren’t even, a section would have to be removed to make the new countertop fit perfectly. So, without putting the unfinished piece onto the sink (like I fuckn’ should have), I measured out what I thought was right and made my cuts. I took the piece in and set it down – and can ya guess what happened? YUP. I cut it WAAAAAY too narrowly. For some reason, in my head, I had thought the piece was 19″ (not 16″) and would need to cut some off the full length. YUP. Ruined. $13 down the drain, just like that.

My roar of frustration brought Danny into the bathroom. After he finished laughing at me, we agreed that, on all future cuts, I’d measure, then he’d check my measurements, THEN we’d cut. YUP. The first rule of carpentry (measure twice, cut once) and I fucked it up on the first cut I made in the damned RV. Luckily, we can use what’s left of the piece on the shelves we’ll be building in the bedroom, so at least the whole thing isn’t a total write-off.

After another trip to the home improvement store and another purchase of the same exact piece, we re-measured (twice!) and I cut the new piece. Where the original countertop had had a curve, I also put a curve. Using our jig saw, it was pretty easy to go slow and carve out the curve, and after sanding, it came out nearly perfect.  I then measured out the two pieces that would make up the backsplash, and cut out the notch for the outlet.

I applied the stain (Minwax Early American) and two healthy coats of polyurethane (letting each one dry thoroughly in-between, of course). We wanted to make sure it would hold up to water since it was going in the bathroom. Just as with the other woods we’re putting into our RV, this was a mixture of one type of wood for the countertop slab (not sure what kind) and standard pine for the backsplash, so the stain came out a bit differently on each wood, which you know I like.

Once the countertop dried, I measured out the sink area so the hole could be cut. I didn’t want to do it more than once, so I was extra careful with my measurements and cuts. This time, my curve didn’t come out so smooth or natural. In fact, it came out kind of lopsided. So, I got reinforcements and asked Danny to line out where it should be shaved down for a rounder / better fit for the sink. With his guidance, we made the hole nearly perfect, though it was still too wide on one section. Luckily, it was toward the back, so we were able to fill the area in with the caulk that we used to attach the sink to the new countertop, and are just hoping that no one will judge us on the shoddy cut.

As I said, we caulked in the sink, which was the coolest sink we ever could have. In looking for a replacement, the same kind of cheap plastic RV sinks were crazy-expensive, especially considering that I found this awesome thing on Amazon for $29 (no shipping)!

WWUUUUUUTT?! IKR?! This beautiful piece was handmade in Egypt and cost less than any RV sink I found, so it was a natural choice. Plus, with the penny floor we planned to put on the bathroom floor, the color and design were absolutely perfect. Since a pet peeve of Danny’s is things falling into the sink from the countertop, we made sure to caulk the sink in about an inch-and-a-half above the actual countertop, so nothing would accidentally fall in. For the faucet, we searched high and low for an affordable copper or bronze item, and ended up settling on the Pasadena from Pfister, which pfit with the psink pfantastically.  Danny liked the clean lines, and the dark-bronzed color was perfect.

Our new faucet was the Pfister Pasadena in bronze.

Next, we attached the countertop to the cabinet base with caulk. I didn’t want to nail it in just in case it ever had to be removed, and there’s so much caulk on the damned thing, it’s not going anywhere any time soon (I hope!).  We nailed the two backsplash pieces together and caulked them into place (against the wall and on the countertop itself). The shorter piece of backsplash was actually cut an inch shorter than the width of the slab, so that we could insert the new wood shelves on top – having them mesh together on top of the countertop perfectly.

New countertop created and installed; new sink installed. Now on to the faucet installation!  You can see how the shorter edge of the backsplash is cut an inch short to accommodate the custom wood shelves we planned to put in.

Before placing the sink, we had discussed where to put the faucet. The original sink had been right up against the outer edge, and we’d chosen to put ours a few inches in. We knew this meant that the faucet would not go directly behind the sink, and when Danny suggested we put it in the corner at an angle, we knew we had the perfect solution. We planned out where it would go and drilled the holes. It took a couple separate tries to get the holes wide enough and spaced correctly to get the faucet in, but overall it went in quickly. The offset piece gave the whole thing the eclectic look that we love, while keeping it from being hard to reach behind the sink (because we’d kept the sink raised).

The finished product!

All in all, the project went fairly smoothly and turned out better than we both had imagined. In the pic above, you get a glimpse of the penny floor that’s also going in, but we’ll talk more about that later (when the epoxy finally dries!).

THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING ALONG ON OUR JOURNEY AS WE (TOO-QUICKLY) REBUILD THIS RV SO WE CAN MOVE INTO IT AND TRAVEL ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO DO GREAT THINGS.

Namaste, my friends, and happy travels!

 DISCLAIMER: We do not endorse or represent any brands or products, nor do we have any sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our journey or our nonprofit foundation, Vuja de Enterprises Foundation, we welcome your kindness and generosity!