Our first project camper was one that we did not choose. In fact when we purchased the camper, we specifically stated to the owner, we did not want a project as we had taken on so many home projects in the past. We really wanted something we could get in and go vacationing. Needless to say, when we looked at the camper it looked great cosmetically, but after we purchased it, we got a big surprise. We were told that at one time it had a leak, but he (the owner) had fixed it. After the first rain storm; however, we realized we were told a lie.
,After realizing we had a complete lemon, we really only had two options. One was to part it out (I could not try to pawn it off on someone else) and try and recoup some of our losses, or two take on the project of fixing it up. Well, we choose option two. At first it seemed overwhelming, but eventually, with a lot of cussing and work, we pushed through, with and made it usable again. We actually learned that we enjoyed the process and loved that we could customize the trailer and make it our own.
The first thing we did to overhaul the camper was to gut the inside completely. There was so much water damage that we needed clear out all the rotted wood and start building from scratch. Once the camper was gutted, we immediately worked on restoring the roof. We replace a few stringers and the rotted plywood on top. After that we recovered the roof with new rubber. The interior roof was the next thing to be replace. For that, instead of spending $60 for actual camper interior ceiling panels, we bought 1/8 inch luan and spayed a texture paint on it, then a layer of ultra white ceiling paint. This really worked out well, and was a lot cheaper than buying the pre made panels. Now that the camper was “dried in”, we then went on to replace all the wood that was rotted in the floor, then we installed a waterproof floor. From there we went on to build the new cabinets. These seemed easier to build than I expected. We utilized the similar floor pattern and reused the cabinet doors. We built the cabinets out of 1×2’s and 1/8 inch luan panels. Again they came out good, and they seemed better quality than the ones previously there, without much of a weight increase. As the project started to come together we started to add some personal touches like a custom bar, a new jackknife sofa, new dining benches and a custom built kitchen table. In the end we spent total with the price of the camper and all materials about $8300.00
We laughed when we were finished because we knew how angry we were at the beginning, but we realized we enjoyed the outcome. We enjoyed this camper and took it on several trips, one of which we had a wind storm blow apart our awning which was the back drop for our next redesign adventure.
