The Story of a Camper Transformation

So between camping trips we have been "updating" and fixing the camper which was in remarkable shape for being 15 years old but still needed some love. So here are the before photos:

So it could be worse but still... very dated! The FIRST thing I did was tear down that horrible ruffle (literally tearing it out, it was stapled into the ceiling!) It was already greatly improved :) I didn't mind the cushions but the curtains had to go! They were faded, musty & had holes in them, yuk! I decided I wanted it to feel "beachy" so the new curtains & cushions had to match & be colorful. My mom is an EXPERT decorator (truly gifted!) so she & I corresponded via emails of photos of fabrics & colors while I shopped around until we could go out together. We found the PERFECT striped fabric for the cushions & privacy curtains (for the beds) & got a navy solid for the other curtains. She put her creative touch on everything & lined the blue curtains with the stripe to tie it all together. The end result is nothing short of SPECTACULAR to me...

Tell me that isn't an amazing transformation??!! We are very happy with the end result & I truly can't thank my WONDERFUL mom enough for sewing all the fabrics for me (it would have been a disaster if I had done them) LOVE YOU MOM!!

There were other less obvious changes we made that contributed to the update too. All the hardware inside was brass & with a simple paint job it all became silver :) (I did that, I can handle paint! oh the irony... read on) Also my AWESOME husband fixed so many things it's hard to list them all!! The biggest few being the AC cord that was hanging in the middle (!!) of the room he put nicely back in place (it was a MUCH bigger job than I can explain here) & the really cool LED lights he put inside (complete with dimmers & multiple switches) which give the inside a nice glow. Again, I can't quite explain enough how BIG these "little" jobs were but I'm so thankful for such a handy hubby, LOVE YOU CHARLES!!

So for all the things we did right on the inside, things were much different for the outside. Here's the outside before:

Again, not too bad. Pretty simple design & MOST of the stripes were still there. Before we decided to delve into repainting the whole thing I actually resorted to using Sharpies to fill in the chipped parts of the stripes! Hmm, yeah, not so much... So we decided to paint. Now we had a modest budget & couldn't take it to someone to get it done professionally (which I recommend, btw) but I've painted so many rooms & other things that I thought "I can do this!" Yeah, right.

I headed to the hardware store for some advice & paint. I got both, and some strange looks too when I explained what I was doing... don't judge, I'm going to MAKE this work, lol! So I decided to try to match the color of the canvas material on the tent part which was a strange greenish-bluish color & got some house paint. Off I went:

The photo makes it look better than it was, totally dull. It was as close to the color of the canvas I could have possibly gotten but even glossy house paint isn’t as vibrant as painted canvas. I thought it needed more “sparkle” so I did something that Charles will NEVER let me live down (He even videorecorded me doing it but that recording is, ahem, unavailable for this post ;) I used spray glitter over the green, you know, the kind you use on t-shirts & stuff. Yeah... interesting but not quite the look I wanted (as Charles nearly falls over with laughter...) So, crap. I have this stupid glitter-camper now. (you’re laughing now, aren’t you? Yeah, me too)

I couldn’t go out in public with this thing, I’m sure someone would have taken a photo & posted it in one of those “Biggest redneck” emails or something. So it had to come off, all of it. Easier said than done:

I had already spent 2 days out in the heat painting this thing & now I had to undo all of it. And it wouldn’t. come. off. Gah!!! We ended up back at the same hardware store, asking for paint remover this time. (oh the shame) We tried the usual stuff first then we moved on to industrial strength...WOW! Not only did it get the greenish-blue off, but it also took off all the stripes & all the factory white. We got it down all the way to the aluminum! But now what?? I slumped down in defeat. For the first time in this project I was at a total loss for how to fix the issue. Well, we knew we couldn’t leave it mostly aluminum with bits of white & green all over the edges... so back to white:

It remains this way to this day (weeks later) as we wait to decide to either get it painted professionally or to just pinstripe it ourselves (I could see that going VERY badly). We had big plans for the look of our treasure, here is what we wanted:

But in the end, plain white isn’t so bad... For now :)

Happy Camping!