Our Top Tips on Downsizing As Seen In Apartment Therapy!
Spring cleaning season is officially upon us and there's no better time than the present to get rid of all that extra stuff.
Read MoreOur 5 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2016
2016 was one crazy year for us. We spent 339 days in 2016 (and a few in 2015, too) traversing the lower 48 states and writing about our experience along the way. As we close this year of travel and prepare for our next big adventure (whatever that is!), we thought we'd share our most popular articles of the year.
Read MoreShe's Still Got It! A Walking Tour of Elsie 9-Months Later
We are officially 9 -- nay almost 10! -- months into our yearlong road trip. And one thing we continue to marvel at is just how well our 1968 travel trailer has held up. Carson and I both keep waiting for the wheels to fall off or the first fatal crack to show, but it hasn't happened (yet!).
Read MoreElsie's Small (But Mighty!) Bathroom Renovation
We'll be the first to admit: the bathroom was the last room on our minds. Not because it's not important; trust us, it's vitally important. Especially when you're living on the road full-time for the year. But it was also the toughest to transform.
Read MoreLocal Color XC (and Elsie!) in Apartment Therapy
Yesterday, Elsie made it on the homepage of Apartment Therapy! It's a site we looked at many, many times while renovating our tiny house. There are so many good articles, house tours and inspiring ideas on AT. But we never thought our little renovation would make the ranks.
Read More6 Easy Updates to Transform your Old Travel Trailer
We've been getting a lot of questions about our old camper and how we've specifically renovated certain aspects of Elsie. While we did a complete overhaul and spent nearly a year getting it all done, there are some pretty simple tricks we'd recommend to anyone purchasing an old trailer that can give it an instant facelift without all the work.
Read MoreMake Your Own Dog Dish Drawer
Space is a luxury in a 120-square-ft travel trailer. And feeding your 70 lb. goldendoodle takes up more space than you think. Thus the dilemma: where would we feed Costello?
Read MoreElsie: The Big Reveal!
We FINALLY made it. The big “after” reveal of our brand new Elsie. When we first started Camper DIY, I thought we would have reached this point months earlier. But once we started cataloging all the work we did, it slowly grew and grew. But we’re happy to finally share in great detail what Elsie looks like post-remodel.
Read MoreThe Multi-Purpose Multi-Use Floor Cabinet Station Thing
We don't really know what to call this thing. Work station. Chopping block. Kitchen island. Floor cabinet. And we're okay with that because we built it to be exactly this: an ambiguous work / storage / organization unit.
Read MoreForget IKEA -- Build your own Folding Desk!
Don't get us wrong -- we visited IKEA a lot over the course of the remodel and use a lot of IKEA buys in the trailer. However, there are some times when you just have to say "screw it, I'ma build this sucker myself."
Read MoreReasons to Install Vinyl Plank Flooring in your Trailer or RV
We knew the flooring would ultimately make a strong visual impression in the trailer, and picking out the right style / color / weight was something we took very seriously.
Read MorePlaying Plumber: Build Your Own Pipe Lights
We didn’t set out to build our own light fixtures. In fact, Elsie’s original wall sconces were among her most charming features. A bright light – literally – among a trailer that required a lot of TLC. Which is why it surprised even us when we decided to replace them.
Read MoreCreating Custom Cabinetry
After stripping off the old contact paper, there wasn’t much else that the cabinets needed. We primed them, painted them and planned on calling it good. But being us, we decided the cabinets needed a little something extra. Creating custom trim was the way to go.
Read MoreHow to Reupholster your Travel Trailer Cushions in just Five Weekends!
I did successfully reupholster Elsie’s cushions with little to no sewing experience. Looking back, I probably should have started a little smaller. But seat cushions are like one big throw pillow, right?
Read MorePlumbing, Cracks, and Plumbers' Cracks
Ultimately, we started over. We stripped out the old copper lines and replaced them with PEX, or crosslinked polyethylene, a flexible and corrosion-resistant material more in vogue with plumbers today.
Read MoreArguing Aesthetics: Concrete Countertops and a White Sink
At first, the avocado green didn't seem so bad. I even remember a time when I thought "that's probably one thing we actually won't change in the trailer." After coating the walls and cabinets in bistro white, however, the green sink led to the first of many "aesthetics arguments" that Jerry, Carson and myself would have over the course of the renovation.
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♫ Backsplash Fever ♫
I'd seen several cool reclaimed wood backsplashes online and wanted to try it in the trailer. After some deliberation over color and whether or not it could withstand full-time travel, all we had to do was figure out how to make it!
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White Wallpaper in Winter: Tips to Covering your Ceiling
Elsie’s ceiling was a Frankenstein patchwork of bolts and seams and glue stitches once Jerry and Carson were done with it. We had a lot of ideas about how to cover the scars at first. Tin tiles, pennies, wood, paint. Then one winter day in Lowe’s, I stumbled upon a white, texturized wallpaper and I was sold.
Read MoreHot Tub Prime Machine 2 – OR – How We Committed The Perfect Prime – OR – PUNS!
Despite our plunge into lunacy, we pushed forward...Once the walls had been freed of the tyranny of the contact paper, we began the priming process.
Read MoreA Patchwork Ceiling
The one area of disrepair that Ray had been upfront about was a small hole in the corner of the ceiling. He said it probably wouldn’t take much work to fix it. “No big deal," I said. But what I had meant to say – what I was thinking – was that I had no idea if that hole in the corner was of serious concern, and that either way, I did not have the skills to fix it.
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