Camper Remodel

The forward compartment has these silly little flap doors. The compartment isn't silly, it's really awesome. The problem is that that this space used to be part of the bed base for the queen-size bed. That means any sufficient breeze could sneak in through those doors an under the bed. Not a great design to keep the humans warm. When we boxed in this section, we thought it would be a great time to insulate the sides that face the inside of the camper to try to keep the inside temperature controlled.

We used one 25 foot roll of 24" wide Refletix to insulate the pass-through. I'm hoping it will be sturdy enough to hold up through several seasons. This is where we store such wonders as chock blocks and camp chairs.

We finished off the plywood of the bed deck with vinyl, peel and stick planks. They are a little dark but not terrible. We had a piece of quarter-round oak in the garage that was perfect to finish the edge at the wall. We have plenty more little things to do but it was good enough for the first trip of the season: Maryland Sheep & Wool.

Camper Remodel

Here is another installment of our ongoing project to remodel our travel trailer.

My last post showed the built out bed boxes we created to replace the queen-size bed. Last week, we took an hour after dinner to install the hinges, and covers for each mattress. We opened up one of the mattresses (this is the cheapest foam mattress available from IKEA) to make sure my calculations were close enough. Overall, I'm really pleased with this part of the project. 

Last weekend we moved on to fixing this section of ceiling. The ceiling had been patched in response to water damage prior to us purchasing the camper. My other half pulled out all the damaged ceiling bits to find almost no insulation remaining after that repair. 

We picked up some foam board panels from the home improvement warehouse and cut and pieced them to fit. 

This part wasn't difficult, but it did take almost all the duct tape in the house (both Duck and Scotch brands) piecing and sealing the gaps. I don't know how this compares with the original insulation, but compared to the non-existent insulation after that previous repair job it is a definite improvement.

After that, we attempted to wrestle the 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of ceiling into place. That caused some cursing and tired people but not a finished ceiling. We pulled it back down and took it out. We cut that piece into two pieces and then installation was a breeze, at least when compared to our first attempt. We'll need another piece of trim to cover that join, but it will be worth the extra $5 or so it is going to cost.

Tools for this project:

• Hitachi staple gun and air compressor
• Black & Decker Jigsaw, and cordless drill
• Simple hand tools one might need (such as needle-nose pliers to pull out old staples or nails, a hammer to pound in staples that can't be pulled out, a Sharpie for marking, a carpenter's square for marking and cutting straight).