Before & After RV Remodel

Finally getting around to posting our before and after pictures of the RV remodel. Here goes!

Kitchen:

Here's the Family Shrine, and the refrigerator with chalkboard paint. The kids love doing art work on the fridge.

Bath:

Trying to show my favorite vintage hook I got, and the crown molding my hubby put in the bathroom.

Living Room:

See those beautiful glass windows above the chairs? We didn't know what to do about those. Then, we had an idea to paint them with chalkboard paint! They were covered nicely, and they're so useful. We write notes to each other, or our To Do list, or Grocery List, or meal planning on them. I love them now! My "after" picture didn't turn out for those...will have to post that later.

My Hot Contractor, working hard. Cute and happy.

Loft/Kids' Room

This is after The Hot Contractor tore it apart and rebuilt it.

Happy kids in their loft. They love it! We have their toys and books around the edges, and their bed in the middle.

Bedroom:

My kids, helping the Hot Contractor work on things.

There's no "before" for this shot, but this is our "office".

I wanted to show the crown molding my Hot Contractor put up. This is the view from laying on the bed.

Here's the outside of the RV in process. The Hot Contractor rebuilt the loft over the cab because the outside wall had come off. There were some pretty amazing things underneath that loft....like three ant colonies!

He also took off all the windows for painting and repairing the walls. He had to remove many of the inner walls as he discovered more and more dry rot as he began taking things apart. I'm just glad we discovered it, and that it's gone. Plus, with all the walls torn out, it was a good reason to do new texture and paint.

"Cheese!"

Just before we left for our adventure. Yes, I'm hugely pregnant. I think this was at 34 weeks.

Here's us driving away. I'm driving the RV, pulling The Hot Contractor's tool trailer with The Princess in the cab of the RV. The Hot Contractor is driving his truck, hauling his flat bed trailer with my car on top, and he has Little Brother with him. We looked like something out of Beverly Hillbilly's traveling down the road.

Shameless Plug:

Now that you've seen what my talented hubby can do, may I ask that you keep him in mind for projects you or your friends might have coming up? We will be traveling the country, so we may be coming to a neighborhood (or RV campground) near you! We would love to meet people, explore new places, and be able to make some sort of income while we do it. For more about what The Hot Contractor can do, or to see pictures of past projects, you can check out his website here. Thanks, friends!

Update On Our Plans

Since it's been more than two months since I posted about out adventure, I figured it was time for an update.

We decided mid-September to move into the RV pre-baby, rather than try to do it with a newborn. The thought of packing up and moving while pregnant was also a little daunting, but I think it was the better option of the two. Considering this has been my easiest pregnancy so far, I was feeling up for it.

So, we began the remodel. First, The Hot Contractor rebuilt the area over the cab. It was all dry rotted, and he even found three ant colonies living under the loft bed! He rebuilt it, and now it's water proofed.

Then he tackled the dry rot in the other areas of the RV. He ended up replacing/rebuilding almost all the other walls, as he kept discovering more dry rot with each removal. It took a little longer than we planned. Once all the walls were done, he repainted them (and the cabinets). We chucked the gold cabinet hardware, and put on our oil rubbed bronze ones. I plan to do a before and after post, and I don't have my "before" pics handy right now, but here's a little sneak peek of the "after".







We also decided to paint the fridge and the gold laced mirror cabinet doors with chalkboard paint. They're super fun! The kids draw on the fridge whenever they have an artistic itch, and we use the freezer part for our grocery list. We've been using the other three (previously gold-laced ones) for our to-do list. Here's a sneak peek.





You'll notice our family shrine here too. :-)

Here's how the bedroom turned out.





The Hot Contractor and I both sewed new curtains. He did most of it, as he worries I might destroy them. Again, justified worry.

Without going into too much detail, we became very stressed as the Mad-Rush-to-Finish-Before-Thanksgiving arrived. We loaded up Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and hit the road! Somehow we made it. It was probably those days working from 7am-11pm for the two weeks prior. Ugh. It was hard, but it's over.

I left Oroville before The Hot Contractor because he had more things to load, and I needed to get to Sacramento to buy our refurbished washer/dryer before they closed. The Princess and I were in the RV, towing The Hot Contractor's work trailer loaded with all his tools. Unbeknownst to us, the ball on the hitch was a little too high, and every time I touched the breaks, I would skid. Sometimes not even stop. It was the scariest drive of my life! We made it (miraculously) to Sacramento 15 minutes before they closed. I told The Hot Contractor how scared I was driving. I thought the brakes had gone out, but he checked everything he could think of, and found nothing wrong with the brakes. He had the thought about the ball on the hitch being too high, and the weight of his trailer lifting the back tires on the RV when I braked. He lowered the ball, and it fixed the problem. I love that he's so knowledgeable, and that he can figure out stuff like this! I felt so safe and protected by him, knowing he wouldn't let us get on the road again until he was sure it was safe. We ended up spending the night in Sacramento, parked in the driveway of the RV salvage place. We left early Thanksgiving morning, and made it to Santa Cruz only a couple hours after we told my in-laws we would be there. I was full of gratitude. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.