This summer, my family and I are road tripping across Eastern Canada to see my dad's side of the family in Nova Scotia.
We are driving from Ontario to Nova Scotia in 2 days. All 3 of us in an SUV filled to the brim and hauling a tent trailer. Wish us luck!
But! Before we begin the adventure, we're renovating the tent trailer we'll be living in. Come along for the journey!
When starting this whole process, it took us a while to decide on which tent trailer we were going to buy. There were many we were considering, but ultimately, we decided on one with a built in washroom and built in outdoor canopy space.
It seemed to be perfect for us and our needs, however, this trailer needed some work before it was ready for travel.
Power wash exterior
Paint cabinets
Change counter tops
Change flooring
Wallpaper the walls
Fix ceiling
Reupholster the cushions
Sew new curtains
The very first thing I did when beginning the renovations was power wash the exterior of the trailer. It was covered in dirt and grim from sitting outdoors all winter.
I'm sure glad I did because, it's through the power washing that, I found out we have an exterior shower compartment. Before, it was impossible to read what was written on the opening.
With the power washing done, I got started changing on the esthetics of the camper. I really wanted to change it from what I call Grandma Chic, to a more modern feel. If you know me, you know that means grey and white!
The plan regarding the cabinets was the paint the them with a white cabinetry paint.
The painting went relatively smoothly, even without sanding them down first.
The only mildly annoying part was taking the hardware off the cabinets and covering the stickers before painting. Otherwise, painting was relatively simple.
Next was the counter tops. The plan here was to use grey-white marble contact paper to cover them.
I was able to get 2 of the smaller counters done quite easily, but the bigger counters were a struggle bus. I had to do them in pieces as one sheet wasn't big enough. However, it was impossible to blend the patterns given that it was marble, so it was very patchy.
After I finished covering all the counters, mom had a look at it and decided to change it to something more sturdy.
While I was away, she picked up some vinyl marble peel and stick and did one counter. When I came back, I finished the majority of the remaining counters.
This new vinyl peel and stick was definitely thicker and bigger, which was easier to work with and meant we had less cuts to make.
Most of the counters were pretty easy to do as a result. The odd one would have a screw that we had to cut around, but for the most part they weren't too bad.
The sink counter however, was a whole other beast.
I, initially, just wanted to use pieces to cover the edges around the stove and the sink. My mother however, wanted to make a stencil of the counter and cut out pieces to make a sheets that would fit on the counter and around the stove and sink.
We did end up doing my mom's way and it went decently well. But, we only did that for the stove side of the counter.
For the sink side of the counter, there were more tricky areas so we ended up doing that side in pieces. While there are more visible seems on that side, they were easy to hide since we were going to re-caulk around the sink and the faucet anyway.
As well, on that side of the counter, one of the corners was damaged (just how the camper came, it's second hand). It was raised and cracked, so we repaired it with some wood glue and sanding. We sealed it with some of the cabinetry paint, then put the contact paper over it.
Maybe not the most professional solution, but it works for now. We'll have to see how that holds up throughout the trip ahead.
The last thing for the counters was to caulk around the edges. This would help seal it from water as well as hide any of the rough cuts around the edges. The caulking really helped bring it together.
If I could advise anything if/when doing your own renovations, it would be to never use contact paper unless you want to rip all your hair out. It is by far one of the most tedious and time consuming tasks.
When it comes to the vinyl peel and stick material, my advice would be to peel off the entire paper backing if you're going to lay it the opposite way it was rolled. If you don't, you will end up with more wrinkling and ripping of the material.
Would I do it again? Yes. I like how the counters look now, but I won't lie, it was so frustrating to do them.
As annoying as the counters were however, the curtains were definitely the most frustrating part of the renovations.
It started simple by going to the thrift store to find some fabric that would go with the theme, but it was all down hill from there.
The original curtains were on these tracks with clips sewn into them. They were a real pain to take off the tracks since they didn't just slide off. More often than not, the curtains had been installer around the beams, so the beams were in the way.
We ended up having to use a flat head screw driver, wedged between the clip and the track, to pop them off, which, thankfully, worked!
These clips were sewn to the elastic on the original curtains, so they would've been quite the hassle to take off the other curtains one by one, then sew them onto the new fabric.
Instead, since we weren't going to re-use the old curtain fabric, we decided to simply cut off the elastic with the clips still attached and sew that to the new curtains.
The idea was to use this as a template for the new curtains, but it did not go as planned. Mom did the first iteration of the curtains and honestly, did a fantastic job. But, they needed some fine tuning as they were too long and drooping.
The second iteration of the curtains involved remeasuring, cutting, and sewing the curtains again. That was my job. Thankfully, since the curtains were too long, so we had lot of excess fabric to make changes with.
During this processes, mom tried to teach me how to use a sewing machine, but no matter what I tried, I just couldn't figure it out. I would try sewing and think everything was going well, but then there was no seam. I would try again and would break the needle (I broke it twice).
I'd have much rather hand sewed everything, but it would've taken me forever if I did that. That said, I did end up hand sewing a few elements of the curtains.
By the end of the modifications, some of the curtains had been sewed, but I was so fed up with sewing that some had been fabric glued or velcro-ed to the tracks. They are definitely far from perfect, but that comes with DIY-ing.
When taking down the curtains, we could very easily seem some molds spots. It's through this process that we found that the ceiling was the source of this mold. The previous owners had had some leaks that were poorly patched over the years. The water leaked into the ceiling and left us with a moldy mess to clean up.
While I was away, mom decided to open up the ceiling. A lot of the wood that was up there was moldy still wet. So, she took out the wood, but only on one side as only one side was moldy. (If you look closely, you can tell which side)
From there, she glued back up the ceiling and covered it with white vinyl peel and stick. However, that didn't stick as well as we had hoped. Pretty soon after putting it up, it began to peel off the ceiling.
Our next approach was to use white ceiling tape. It looked questionable, but it seemed to be working. However, the next day, the tape was also peeling off, so we had to find another solution.
Mom decided to use construction glue on the new ceiling and it seemed to work.
However, it wasn't till later on in the renos that we discovered, by not replacing the wood that was removed, the camper had no barrier between the ceiling and the roof. This meant that condensation would build up on one side of the ceiling in the mornings as it warmed up from the cool nights.
Maybe this seems like an obvious oversight on our part, but this is DIY. We have never renovated a camper before, so this was very much a learning opportunities for both of us.
This is something that will be fixed in the future, but since we are short on time, it is being skipped for now. Will this decision come back to bite us? We'll have to wait and see.
The flooring was changed to a faux wood peel and stick flooring. Each piece was stagger and stuck by my mom. I helped cut some of the pieces, but really all the work was completed by her.
It definitely wasn't an easy process, but she did a great job! The flooring really made quite the difference to the camper's overall esthetic.
It was honestly the one piece I was fine leaving for now, but I'm glad we changed it.
Once the flooring was all laid, I caulked around the edges with white caulking. It helped cover up some of the rougher cuts or any small spaces, as well as seal it from water. We'll have to see how it holds up going forward.
The wallpaper was thankfully very easy.
We had so much excess white vinyl peel and stick from the ceiling that we used to cover the walls too. This material gave me very little trouble when applying it thankfully. It stuck great, wrinkled and bubbled very little, and looks awesome!
I'm not quite sure where mom got this from, but it is a 10/10!
Reupholstering the cushions was pretty simple on my end. When we went shopping for the fabric for the curtains, we also picked up fabric for the cushions. Mom sewed the fabric for the backs and stapled it to the cushions.
I did the bottom half with my partner. We wrapped the inner foam in plastic to seal it from any spills, then wrapped the whole thing in this grey fabric. From there, all that needed to be done was to screw the bottom pegs back on. These were keeping the bottom half from sliding off the frame.
Once all that was done, we had new cushions!
A few of the finishing touches involved buying some pillows, pillowcases, bed sheets, a tablecloth, etc. After that, all that was left to do was to pack it with everything we'll need for our trip across Canada.
Nova Scotia here we come!
I'll be taking you with us, so stay tuned for all the road trip adventures to come!
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