When we bought our 2018 Bighorn Traveler, it was brand spankin’ new. Korey was against any and all possible renovations. “Why would we change it, it is brand new?!” So I gave up on asking if we could paint the walls, paint the wood, remove the RV furniture. And then about a year in he started to change his mind. YAY FOR ME!!! Now that it was no longer technically new, he said we could go ahead and make some changes.

This was really exciting for me. Living in this RV full time I knew that it would be a process. So we started off small. While we were in Texas in November 2018 we purchased the new fabric to recover the ugly valances over the windows. We were in Waco for a day and stopped at a fabric store and scored a great deal…enough fabric to recover all the valances in the living and dining space for only $7…. gotta love that deal! There were enough staples and screws in these things to hold the entire RV together. We decided very quickly to just add the new fabric right over the old, then get them reattached. Looking back now, it would probably open it up that much more if we just removed them all together, but we recovered them and we are happy with the way it looks. We had the fabric for months before we actually got started on this project. It was not completed until the end of Feb 2019.

Here is a before/after: the brown and white with the brown curtains is what we used to have. The little window to the right it what we switched them out to.

Before the valance revamp we decided to start small and add a peel and stick tile back splash behind the stove.  This was a quick and cheap way to start to switch things up in here. It was about $40 and we still have tiles leftover in case we need to replace any of the sections. The only part that was a little annoying was cutting around the rounded window corners. Luckily any part that I messed up there is covered by the blinds 😉

Pic on the left is what came with the RV, pic on the right is with the new back splash to spramp things up a bit.

Then the ideas started flowing, what should we do next?! We knew we were never fans of the dark brown faux leather recliners and couch. The couch was not very comfortable and did not provide storage underneath. The recliners were comfortable and we did like them, but it was the color that we were not fans of. It just seemed that much darker with the really dark furniture. We knew we wanted to remove all of it and luckily we had planned to be at Korey’s parents house for a few weeks over Christmas 2019 so this would be the perfect time to get to work.

Here are the old chairs and couch getting taken apart so they would fit out the door of the RV.

Korey’s dad is SO HANDY and can build anything. I had what I had hoped to be built in my head, and probably did not do a very good idea explaining what I was looking for, but it’s like he was reading my mind and drew up a plan and he and Korey built the new daybed couch. My explanation was something close to “I would like a daybed that looks like a big toybox”… “something that could fit the instant pot and anything else that needed a home”.

The daybed build!

Time to paint that wall white, no more dark back wall

They added wainscoting to the slide out opposing the kitchen slide. This gave it such a homey feel. We found an oversized chair at Living Spaces for a little over $300 and a side table at Hobby Lobby for $70. I hit up Marshall’s and TJ Maxx for pillows to fill the new daybed. Pretty sure this was where I could have saved some $$ by buying covers and inserts but I found so many that would be perfect so we splurged here. The mattress is a little smaller than a twin that we ordered on Amazon, it is one of those memory foam mattresses that came in a box and it is so comfortable. We have one on our bed, a different brand, but we loved that one so thought this would be a great way to ensure that the mattress would not only keep it’s shape but also be comfortable. To cover the mattress we ordered a daybed blanket for a twin. It is a little big but tucks in nicely and is easily removed to throw in the wash.

No more recliners, new oversize chair, wainscoting and new end table. We also purchased covers for the dining chairs (that table needs a revamp!)

The new daybed! the top lifts up and the entire box is extra storage space. The mattress is super comfortable and the curtains block a lot of the sunlight…even though they look a little yellow when the there is direct sunlight we still like them.

Also, we replaced the kitchen faucet with a new black matte option vs. the silver we had before and the light fixtures were taken down and spray painted with a black hammered metal finish.

The large back window valance ended up coming down because we had issues with the rolling blinds, they did not want to stay up and to replace it, it would be more than a rod and new curtains. We still have the rolling MCD blinds on all of the smaller windows. We also removed the blind and added curtains at the window above the dining table. There are 2 different wallpaper patterns in our RV. One is a light white with grey and the other is a pretty dark grey with a white pattern. We decided that the dark wallpaper above the daybed needed to go, so we primed and painted that wall white. This really helped lighten up the area as well.

Our fifth wheel steps to head up to the bathroom and bedroom have carpet, and a faux wood wall backing. Well, that faux wood is thin. Korey was walking down the steps and the heel of his boot hit the back and boom… cracked wood. We weren’t sure what we wanted to do here to fix this so we did some Pinterest digging for chair renovations and saw that a lot of people had used peel and stick tiles and wallpaper. Well, there was a hole there so we opted to go with faux tin tiles and it worked like a charm. Looks great and covers that little mishap.

You can see the hole in the stairs just under Sully and new tiles in the pic to the right.

The bathroom renovation has started, but it is not complete. Also, I need to redo some of my work…. I failed miserably when adding the hexagon peel and stick tile. Not only did so many not line up right creating too much space in between, I shifted the way it was added to one wall so they did not line up. Not my best work and Korey will not let me live it down,haha. I will most likely pull down the tile, and paint. I did paint one wall and that looks good. We want to remove the heavy glass shower door and add a new retractable shower door. I found one online that almost looks like a large sideways rolling blind but heavy duty plastic. It is self cleaning, looks good and would give us that much more room to dry off when showering. I also realize that I need to take better pics while working on a project. In my defense it is hard to get a good bathroom shot, it is such a tiny space.

Bottom left picture is a “before” with the dark wallpaper. The upper left is a pic of the new peel and stick tile, along with another mess up….forgot to remove the corner pieces so they had to be painted (oops). The picture on the right is the painted wall with the peel and stick wallpaper above the shelf. The bathroom is so much brighter with all the white, even with the darker wood remaining.

So we are not done with our renovations just yet, but what we have done so far sure feels comfortable and we love how it looks. No plans to paint the wood. That would be a large task and neither one of us wants to jump on that just yet. Whenever I bring it up, Korey says to keep my ideas for when we are done traveling and buy a house,haha… ok, ok… no painting the wood yet.

Thanks for following along! 🙂 I promise to get our Yellowstone adventures posted soon.

🙂 Michelle & Korey