The Big Idea

Sunlight broke over our house at about 6:45am, however it would be a while before I was finished wallering in the bed and finally got up. DH was up with the kids and I took my time sleeping in on my day off. I spend a lot of my time in the evening hours and into the early morning occasionally, scouring the internet resources for inspiration for how I wanted the camper to look. 

DH is not exactly on board all the time with my decor and remodeling ideas. My dad used to tell me that "women make the household work. Men don't care if the grass grows up around their asses and there's 14 junk cars in the yard, as long as there's cold beer and cable with a couch or chair, they'll be fine." And to think I used to think he didn't know what he was talking about. DH doesn't drink and he was in lawn care for years so he does make sure the grass gets *somewhat* tended to, but I could definitely see that home improvement projects were NOT on his list of top 10 worries. 

Possibly not even top 20.

I had definite plans for the interior of Big Bertha. As with all the 'remodel' projects we've done before, I knew I would probably ditch the carpet and linoleum-which would have to come up anyway if there was water damage that had to be repaired on the floor side. I was leaning towards LVP flooring, but honestly debated carpeting again because of the noise dampening qualities.

The first home we remodeled in 2010 I went for the earth tones with lots of beiges and browns, a Tuscan/wine look in the kitchen; for the next home in 2020 I did a lot of farmhouse chic with grieges, whites, natural wood, rough cut shiplap, tin signs, and white gloss 3x6 subway tile backsplash in the kitchen. Based on the type of remodel this would be plus my newfound love of log cabins, I decided this would be more of a hunting lodge meets farmhouse. DH bought me a metal picture at Tractor Supply a few months ago, and I thought it would be perfect as a basis for the design of the remodel. 

The color palette would be muted earth tones mixed with grays, more like this Boho selection.

I wanted the flooring throughout the RV to be beautiful but not eccentric, an underlying alluring trait that brings you back to do a double take, like hearing a deep voice with a charming Savannah drawl on a handsome gentleman. I'm a sucker for color, texture, depth of pattern, and realism with my LVP flooring, and it takes me a while to find the right color, size, appeal, and of course price point I'm looking for. I'm torn between these types of flooring but leaning more toward the brown weathered one. It seems warmer and would match better with the lodge-y style.

The kitchen cabinetry has been a bit more difficult for me. My ideas involve lots of rough-hewn reclaimed wood, brown leather, weathered wood, and rich colors. I believe that I want to go with the cabinets in this two-tone style with the lower being a deep green between olive and hunter, and the uppers being a creamy white. Cabinet hardware will be a matte black, with square cabinet pulls. 

This is the color I'm after

This style cabinet pulls

Two tone cabinets

The slides. Each room has at least one slide. I want to do the back walls of every slide in this wallpaper I found on Amazon. It limited me to only buying 4 rolls per household, so I know it's good stuff. The pattern is immaculate and even in the package looks like weathered shiplap, the crude review photos are what sold me on the product for sure because I know most people can't or won't doctor their review photos. It's truly gorgeous. 

Review photo on Amazon

The side walls of the slides will be done in 'Soft Secret' by Behr. I have this color in my living room and I love it, depending on the time of day it looks grey or greenish, and it's very light but is a stark contrast next to the brilliant white trim in the house. 

My kitchen with Soft Secret on the walls

The living room at night, difference in the shade of light, same color

The ceiling I will simply repaint white. I have about 3 gallons of leftover white ceiling paint from the house remodel, so I'll just use that. The plastics on the ceiling I will spray paint white (say it with Krylon, baby!) to help them blend into the ceiling/background. No need for there to be an eyesore of yellowed RV plastic on a freshly painted ceiling.

I'll start from the back end of the camper with the rest of the ideas and move forward.

The back wall cabinetry will be painted the dark green of the lower cabinets in the kitchen because I don't want it to be a focal point. The gold fixtures will be removed. I will scrape the gold flowered glass stickers off the six upper cabinets and replace with this privacy glass film instead for a sleeker old timey look.

I will install a fold down TV mount on the left side and mount a decent sized (32"?) television for the living area. ALL of the RV curtains will be removed, and I will either sew or buy new curtains and install regular curtain rods. The back wall will be painted a cream white to contrast from the slide out. I will place this or a similar two-seat bar top dining table with seat storage underneath on the back wall as centered as I can. 

The living room slide existing couch and recliner will be removed. The couch will be replaced with this full-sized futon.

The chair will be replaced with a chair similar to these. My stipulations are it has to be a comfortable recliner, real leather, worn, with rivets on the arms. It needs to be functional and relaxing as well as aesthetically pleasing. 

The wood and fabric framing around all of the slides will be removed and replaced with dark reclaimed-looking roughhewn wood, similar to this idea.

Courtesy of Mountain Modern Life

The kitchen cabinets will be painted as I previously explained. A metal shelf will be installed over the range and a convection microwave (air fryer microwave combo) will be installed on the shelf. The backsplash behind the range will be the same wallpaper shiplap as the other slides. 

I will leave the countertop alone as I think (read *hope*) the pinks will tone out of it when I put some cooler colors around it. I'll be changing the faucet to something of this nature and ditching the old one.

The ceiling fan will be removed and this one will take its place.

The front wall is the kicker. The television extension stand will be removed off of its tracks. An electric fireplace insert will be placed in the television 'hole'. The lower cabinets will be painted as the lower cabinets in the kitchen, then starting at the fireplace I will install realistic stone-look wallpaper to simulate a stone fireplace chimney. This one may take the longest because a bit of woodwork is involved, but I feel it utilizes the space, makes it cozier, and will also assist with heating the RV if needed. 

The toilet room will get a generous coat of paint and painted cabinets. The towel rack will be removed and either painted or replaced. 

The cabinets in the washer/dryer closet as well as the walls will be painted. 

The vanity will be painted. The sink will stay, but the faucet will be replaced with one like this.

The vanity mirror housing will be repainted. The mirror will be kept, as will the vanity light. The vanity light will be painted flat black and different (round) bulbs will be added. 

The shower will be thoroughly cleaned, and I will try to find an agent that can be used to brighten the plastics (I've read a lot about using strong peroxide). I do not care for the gold trim, but I cannot think of an idea to allow me to paint it without brush strokes that doesn't involve removing the entire enclosure, which I'm not willing to add to the list of to-do's. The knobs and shower head will be removed and replaced with something of this nature. I will add an over the door shower shelf to aid with the storage situation in the shower. 

The slide-doors in between the room/bathroom/living room will all be removed and redone. I'm on the fence about what exactly I want to do but am leaning towards barn-style doors. I'm gathering inspo on how to do that without adding a lot of weight or width at this point though. 

The master bedroom.

We will leave the queen bed and cover it with an egg-crate foam topper and a washable mattress cover. As I said before, the slide wall will be shiplap wallpaper. The sliding door mirrors will be covered with something like this privacy film made to look like the Smokey Mountains.

Once again, I'm not a huge fan of the gold trim, however these may need to be removed for the removal of carpet and installation of LVP, so I may be able to tape them off quickly, rough them up with sandpaper, and spray paint them with flat black. 

The cabinetry will be painted the dark green color to not draw the eye immediately. Another fold down TV stand will be mounted under the top cabinets at the foot of the bed and will hold a slightly smaller television. The mirrors on the cabinet doors will be removed and covered with the diamond shaped film used previously on the back cabinets, however the mirrors will be left in place and not replaced with plain glass.

The cubbyhole where the TV sat previously will now be used as space for our weather station clock, which will show the temp, moon phase, date, time, and other information pertinent to country living. 

I have not decided on bedding yet, however I have noticed it's difficult to find what I'm looking for with the word 'lodge' in the search. I am not a fan of geometric patterns and those cartoonish silhouettes of moose and bears. We don't even have moose here in Florida so that seems asinine. I do love a good buffalo check pattern, but don't feel like that would be a good fit. I have found this though, a faux whitetail deer throw which I thought was excellent.

I don't want Realtree bedding, don't be hideous. Plaid is okay but seems Christmas-y to me. A lot of woods scenes have a giant whitetail deer on them and seem...I don't know, like one of those paper-framed glass photos you'd get from the county fair as a prize, printed into a blanket. Not really what I'm looking for either. 

I hate to just go with a plain color comforter, but my picky butt may have to. I wonder if a quilt would look okay? Maybe a plain comforter with a quilt at the bottom of the bed and some camp-style throw pillows. 

As far as light fixtures go, in the RV now there are the simple 12V slide switch flush mount lights. They're very....1980s truck dome light-ish. So I decided to do some shopping and found Amazon has a pretty big selection of 12V RV farmhouse style lighting through a company called Maichis. I am NOT a fan of the weird LED bulbs that look like they have square zits all over them, but if that's the only worry I have I'm doing okay. 

The floor vents are the last thing to be replaced. I found some online and thought they were nice, we'll see what the flooring looks like before deciding on a specific color. 

And that's pretty much it, she said breezily like it wasn't going to take her two months or more to complete! Definitely looking forward to getting this show on the road and getting our vacation hotspot set up!