So, I’m just going to start this by being completely honest. When we bought our RV, it was browwwwwn! I mean like someone took several gallons of chocolate brown paint and threw it up in the air, praying that it would look good…and I’ll tell you, it was NOT appealing. I was tired of looking at the boring, blah brownness of our camper and knew we had to do something to change it. After several conversations (perhaps pleading) with my husband, we agreed to do some minor (he may hate me for using that word) renovations. Here are 5 RV renovations we did to turn our sad, brown camper into a brighter, happier home.
People have literally laughed in my face after I told them we were “working” on our camper. “Why would you do that, it’s used for camping!” “You don’t live on it, why do you care what it looks like?” I get it…I do, BUT it is our second home, and I like my home to look nice! Making something your own gives you a sense of pride, especially if YOU are the one doing the work. If you’re not willing to tackle the big projects, like painting the cabinets, small changes can make a big difference too! Keep reading to see what we did!
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Add Peel & Stick Wallpaper
The walls on an RV can be so bland. Just by adding some peel and stick wallpaper to your space, you can truly change the overall look! Get creative! Choose a print that shows your taste and style! Adding wallpaper is a moderately easy RV renovation that will bring lots of character to your space…trust me!
Read our post about adding peel and stick wallpaper here!
Upgrade Faucets
Most RVs come with your standard, aluminum faucets. By changing out the kitchen and bathroom fixtures, you will go from boring and bland to beautiful and modern. Just look at difference this new kitchen faucet made!
Installing new faucets may also improve the functionality. Before, I would rather have just gone to the bath house and take a shower. The pressure was awful, and I felt like I had to bend my body in awkward positions to get clean! After we installed our new shower head, taking a shower on the camper is SO much better! The water flow pressure has increased, as well as the overall look.
Upgrade Blinds & Curtains
Updating your blinds and/or curtains can really impact the style and character of your RV. Most RVs come with flimsy blinds, plain curtains, and hideous valences. For a cost, but totally worth it, you can get custom made blinds from rvblinds.com! We chose to get blackout curtains…although our kids wake us up before the sun…eventually it will be nice to sleep in on the camper without the sun shining through!
Valences…why must they be so ugly?! I understand the purpose of concealing the top cover of your blinds, but ughhh! Did I mention ours were a cheetah-like print?! Yeah, we took those down. Oh, and our curtains…they were the same mushroom color of our couch, and the fabric was not desirable. So, we took those down too. But after installing our new blinds, I wasn’t crazy about seeing the exposed ends on each side. Solution = new curtains!
When adding new curtains, I challenge you to think outside of the box. Curtains in general can be expensive, and you either need to sew them to a custom size yourself or have someone that knows how to sew do it for you. If you are a little seamstress yourself, why not use shower curtains, or drop cloth? Or do what we did and use Turkish towels! We used our existing curtain rods, bought some curtain rings and a couple Turkish towels and voila! A less expensive way of going about it, and I think they look fabulous if I do say so myself!
Paint RV Walls
I know, I know…this task seems daunting. I’m not gonna lie, it was not a fun experience. However, the finished product made it WAY worth the hassle. There is debate on whether or not to prime, what type of paint to use, and if painting over RV wallpaper will truly take. I can only tell you our experience on what we did, and the fact that my husband is a MAJOR researcher!
We first thoroughly cleaned our walls with cleaner. This helps to allow the paint to stick. Instead of priming and then painting, we chose to spend a little extra money and got Home Depot’s top of the line, Behr Dynasty paint. We only had to do one coat, minus the very brown section of our Murphy bed we decided to paint. Painting RV walls is seriously like painting several bathrooms (lots of small spaces), but I am so glad we went for it! Our results provided us with a very bright, happier camper (and wife)!
Install New Flooring
Our Rockwood Mini Lite is a 2017 2505S model…meaning Rockwood was still making brrrrooowwwn campers instead of their new and improved gray toned. Our floor was literally a sheet of brown vinyl plank…yuck. We had area rugs covering much of the space to hide the unruly floor.
When we were shopping around for flooring, we originally bought luxury vinyl hardwood. It was beautiful, but golly was it heavy…and expensive at that! After doing some research, we found this peel and stick vinyl plank flooring from Lowes. The weight was half of what our original buy was, AND half the cost!
First, we primed the floor with this. You need to make sure it is fully dry before you install your flooring (I believe the manufacturer recommends 48 hours). The peel and stick vinyl are very forgiving to work with. Cuts are easily done by using a razor blade for straight cuts and an oscillating tool for complex ones. This RV renovation was the gold medal winner. Holy moly, our camper looks like a completely different camper. I am in LOVE!
As you can see, renovations CAN be done on an RV and make a HUGE difference! If you too are tired of your brown camper, take the plunge like we did and make some changes! I promise, you will not regret it! Please feel free to contact us with any comments or questions, we would love to hear from you! Good luck and happy camping!
