diy – NOMADIC ADV

This was a question that echoed quite often in my mind as Chris and I were spending yet another weekend in the middle of what seemed like a war zone: Construction materials scattered all over the floor, cabinets and 1/8^th inch wall panels ripped off, and the occasional piece of scrap which we would trip over. And swearing… lots of swearing was heard.

A renovation project that started off innocently enough, yet was taking on unrealistic proportions at every turn because, why not?

To better understand how we got here, let’s rewind to the early months of 2025. Finding ourselves on yet another RV lot. At this point, all make, models and layouts are starting to look alike. Analysis paralysis has made its way in our minds and we are re-writing our list of must-have versus nice-to-have for the umpteenth time. What is the right choice at this point? Fifth wheel or tow-behind? Should we even pursue this? What’s wrong with buying a house and settling for a nice garden to grow veggies on?

But then! We heard about someone selling their toy-hauler. Bigger than we were looking at, we almost wrote it off. But at this point, why not check it out and ask some questions to people we know. The universe has a way of granting your wishes at the least expected times – “We’ll take it!” we exclaimed a few minutes after getting back to our apartment.¹

The universe also has a wicked sense of humor in order to keep us humble. Cue the typical Minnesota cold snap in early April, right as we began to renovate our new-to-us fifth wheel.

late snow fall in early spring in Minnesota

We decided that we wanted to update a few things in the camper. Literally, this was supposed to be a simple carpet removal and sprucing up of the place. No problem! Then, I started getting ideas… Lots of them. I made a creative mock-up of colors, themes, and overall layout improvements that I felt would make our stay in the bus more enjoyable.

“I mean, we are going to live in this thing full-time!” I said to Chris. “We might as well turn this space into something we enjoy, right? Besides, I don’t really like all this brown and beige.”

So the renovation project began. The carpet took multiple days to rip out, making sure all the staples were removed. I often tell the joke that the only thing that is well installed in a camper is the carpet with the obscene amount of staples used to secure it in place.

Chris lost the battle of wills with said carpet on the staircase and ended up ripping them off completely stating that “building new stairs wouldn’t be an issue.”

A cabinet was removed to make space for a desk area. Which then led to the decision to remove that wall panel in order to rewire the new radio that would fit properly in an adjacent & narrower, cabinet.

While we were buying new wall panels, we decided that one of the entrances to the bathroom was to be closed off. Seriously, though! Who needs two separate entrances to a corner bathroom? While on the subject of the bathroom, the sink and countertop were to be updated. Small sinks are not as common as one might think – so lucky for us, we found ours on clearance for $27.

Full disclosure: my role in the manual labor was very minimal compared to Chris. Most of my time was spent prepping the walls by sanding, spackling and washing them. Before even thinking of being able to paint the walls and cabinets, we had to tape off the floor, the ceiling, windows and anything that we weren’t going to repaint: adding another 3 days for that project alone. Thank goodness we borrowed my father-in law’s paint sprayer – I’m pretty sure we would still be in the process of painting to this day if it wasn’t for that thing!

Okay, now came my favorite part: DECORATING! We wanted a space that felt open and minimal and I loved looking for little details that would make this vision come to life. As we reached the end of the waves of boxes delivered from all your typical online stores, we could finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the renovation project was coming to an end.