The tiny trailer, part ii

Where were we? We were in the midst of renovating our tiny (16ft) trailer.

I’d scrolled through a lot of Instagram caravan / RV / trailer remodel photos; we’d already renovated a dollhouse and a real-life kitchen. This was going to be easy!

The trailer was in great shape when we picked it up – lightweight, small, but enough space for all four children (or at least, there will be once we’ve built an extra pull-out bunk). No damage, no mold, just a regular caravan in need of a gentle update.

Should we start off with a peek at how it was looking inside? These are photos from the ad:

The compulsory colours of caravanning: brown and blue.

Sadly the decorative window valances had to go.

And then we pulled everything out and it started to look a bit like we were committed to seeing this project out to the bitter end:

And when I say ‘we’, I think you know I am not talking about doing any hands-on labour myself.

Anyway ‘we’ got busy priming:

Goodbye beige plastic wall panels

And then ‘we’ removed all the cupboard doors to prime and paint:

I think this is what they mean about something having to get worse before it gets better.

But then things started to improve:

Definitely less horrifying, but still a long way to go:

And ‘we’ put some new flooring down – okay alright, my husband put the floor down.

Goodbye faux tile, hello faux wood.

And then I worked pretty hard – if by working hard you mean scrolling through Pinterest – on the kitchen, to come up with this:

Then my husband did something that involved a mitre saw. A miter saw? – I’m not sure whether this is harder than scrolling through Pinterest:

In any case it really satisfied my previously unfulfilled plywood kitchen desires:

Who needs a sink and a stove top anyway?

Some new covers for the brown and blue cushions, that used to look like this:

But that now look like this:

I didn’t make these cushions, despite reading a number of ‘easy sew cushion cover’ tutorials.

And we removed all the jazzy peeling decals from the outside, so that it looks a little bit like we have a film crew set up outside the house:

Yadda yadda yadda, some new kitchen appliances plus a plywood table later and, ta-da! Starting to take shape!

I hope you enjoy my wobbly-lined panorama image.

We might need some lighting but we do have a faux plant.

Bunk beds on the left.

Still a little work to do. Lights; plumbing; skirting/base boards and more importantly, about twelve La Redoute cushion covers that I sensibly had delivered to my sister in the UK – to avoid navigating the postage issues of Vancouver Island – but that has left her saddled with an unwieldy and likely irritatingly-expensive parcel to send across (sorry Sarah).

Part three to come soon but in the meantime, a quick before:during difference:

To…

And in case you didn’t read my previous post, this feels like an appropriate moment to remember my elderly neighbour’s sage advice: If you can’t marry a millionaire, marry someone handy. Thanks mr tMatM.