Excited to make our RV our new home!

Had to share this quick update.

Daniel has attached the spare and the ladder.  And we have the wonderful shiny LED running lights.  There is a short somewhere in the right brake light bundle though as every time he uses the right turn signal, the running lights flash as well.  LOL!

Well, at least people can't misinterpret our intentions.  :-D

Still sewing cushions but the keyboard table has been built and installed as has one of the small bookcases.  Since we're musicians we'll be traveling with our instruments and will be able to record on the road.  We're looking forward to releasing an album once we're full-timing.    More pics to come on our blog.

Toilet is back ordered and now won't be here till this Tuesday.  A bummer as we wanted to be on the road this weekend.  Gives me more time with the sewing though so that's good.  Since we have the additional week here, I may go ahead and refinish the cabinets instead of waiting to do that later.  We have verified that our furnace is toast so that's a priority to replace.  We'll have to make do with space heaters till the new one is installed. 

Will post when I have more news.
Paula

watching with interest - major job - but sounds like you are all up to it

I love projects like this - will be following with interest'

Stephen

(1999 American Tradition)

Sounds like you guys are doing a great job. My wife and I are also in Spokane, and in the middle of a remodel project of our own with a 1989 Coachmen Classic 34' Class A. I'll be watching your thread - take care.

Hi All -

I've been without web access for some time so wanted to send a quick note now that I am finally online.  From my last posting, toilet is installed and working great!  I was laying the Allure flooring and miscalculated how much would be needed so we are short.  ARG!  The local Home Depot in Spokane shows the flooring so I thought they carried it on-site.  NOPE!  Special order only.  So, half of our floor looks great!  LOL - we've put the plastic stuff that the flooring comes with over the sticky part of the flooring and then used painting tape to cover and then covered it with some carpet until we are someplace long enough to receive more flooring.  I made cushions and they turned out pretty nice.  I still need to make curtains - I have the babies room curtains made but not the living space.

The new paint makes everything look fresh and clean which is awesome and I am obsessively vacuuming now that we are on the road.  Two dogs, a baby and two adults in 21' of space makes for a lot of dirt!  One of the dogs belongs to my daughter so we'll be delivering her later this week.  She's a dear dog but I'll be glad when it's just the family.

We've been in temps of about 19 and thank GOSH for the space heaters!  I cover all the windows and have hung fleece between the main space and the baby's room.  He's got a heater in there and we have one sitting on the piano table.

We had some fun with the toilet - Daniel accidentally hooked up the hot water to the tank.  We didn't catch it right away but once identified was quickly remedied.  Still no shower - Home Depot didn't have the wall stuff we needed (See blog for the correct term) so we had to roll with one shower wall and two raw walls.  There are a couple stores here in Sonora, CA though so hopefully we'll be complete soon. 

Still need to redo the existing cabinets with the refinish stuff.  Its pricey so I'll need to wait until we can afford before I redo everything.  And I'll be painting a mural in the baby's room.  Should be fun!  I painted one in his room of the home we lived in (Daniel painted over it when we left and the new tenants were disappointed - they had been hoping we'd keep it) so I'm going to keep the same theme but build on it now that he's old enough for detail stuff.

We have a new transmission.  On our maiden voyage a transmission seal broke and we trashed the transmission before we realized something was wrong.  There was no indication until we suddenly had no forward momentum.  We were able to get the rig off I-5 and a local OR Highway guy pushed the rig off the off-ramp and onto the side of the road.  Nightmare with AAA RV but we were finally able to get towed to Junction City to Guaranty RV.  Awesome place!  They were able to find a new transmission and put it in.  We have a nice parts and labor warranty now for the new transmission. 

So - to recap, at the point we have replaced the following:
*  Entire backend
*  Half of roof
*  New subfloor
*  New side
*  New sinks in kitchen and bath
*  New faucets in kitchen and bath
*  New flooring
*  Rebuilt cabinets
*  New bench seats
*  New cushions
*  Custom built bookcases and keyboard table
*  New front brakes
*  4 new tires in the back
*  New transmission
*  New toilet, flange, seal, etc...
*  New shower plumbing
*  New LED running lights & brake lights
*  Remade kitchen cabinet
*  New formica in bathroom and kitchen

From the original rig we have:
*  The AC
*  The stove
*  The cab is the same
*  Fridge
*  Windows
*  All tanks are original although Daniel moved the H20 to the front of the rig and moved the water pump to under the kitchen cabinet.

At this point we have invested over $12K
*purchase $5500
*tires/brakes/oil/system check $3000
*parts/construction material $6000
*new transmission $3700

Now considering we sold pretty much everything we own to buy this rig, and have used all of our funds to rebuild and make it our home the question could be asked, should we just have purchased one that was in better shape?  Well, if we had the $12K sitting around, sure.  That would have made more sense.  But we didn't.  We scraped, worked, sold to get the $5500 to buy it in the first place.  We are VERY fortunate that we have had friends and family where we have been able to park the rig when we were working on it.

Thats our news.  Hope to see you all around sometime and I'll get new pics posted soon of the interior.
Paula

I love this thread.  I'm super inpressed at the progress you have made.  I really enjoy reading about all the trials and triumphs!  The copper sink is so beautiful - wow.  Take pictures of the baby's room mural when you get it done - that should be so cool.  I just can't imagine taking on this much work.  I'd end up throwing my hands in the air and screaming.  I guess you really learn a lot when tearing apart half of a unit and rebuilding it.  Good job.
Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us. 

yes - you stuck at it and have done really well - and yes - we need more pictures 

Stephen

I am totally impressed!!!!!  BTW I love your website/blog. How refreshing to see young people with a lot of gumption.

Mariekie

When you had the back removed was it tempting to make it a toy hauler...I could not have resisted that. Looked like a perfect opportunity ;D

Thank you all for your wonderful comments.  I'll be posting before and after pics this week so you can really get an idea of the changes.  We'll be starting on the mural either today or tomorrow so will  post pics of that soon.  We are currently hanging out in Sonoroa, CA and enjoying the sun in the mountains.  Today we are going to explore a local railway town, or go visit a local lake.  I'll post when I've got the pictures up.

See you on the road!
Paula 

You are in one of our favorite areas!  We stayed up at Dardanelles this past summer and did some fishing.  Caught quite a few off the river that runs through Clarks Fork Campground.  I'm enjoying watching your renovation!  Have fun!  Mikie

Hi Everyone -

OK - the BEFORE and AFTER pictures are posted on our blog.  You can see the mess it was and what we have made it into.  Sorry this has taken me so long to get to.  We still have things to do, and I've been postponing till everything was perfect.  But, since then the pictures will NEVER get posted, I just did it. 

Click on my blog link below to see the images.

Thank you all for your support and ideas.  See you on the road!

Paula

Nice job - I like the counter tops - how hard wearing do you think they will be ?

Stephen

They should last pretty well.  It's standard formica, the same stuff you'd install in a kitchen in a house.  I am pretty OCD about wiping it down though. I don't like to see the water spots.    We were concerned about hos much it would give while the RV was moving - Daniel will have to get on here to tell you what he did to accommodate that.  He didn't seal it to the wall???  I dunno - I just found the prettys and handed them over to my husband to install.  ;-)