My remodel

[TheBreu]

This is our first camper, bought last April and used the bejeesus out of it and love it. We are not new to camping by any means, did all tent camping up until now including 2 weeks out in Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons etc. Posting for others as inspiration for a complete remodel. Plans are to paint all cabinets and woodwork, new vinyl flooring, new carpet, new upholstery and adding a rotating TV wall like in the new campers. When looking for our camper we had a wish list: slide, bunk house, good foundation to start with and we must be able to pay cash. Even though there are 2 of us currently, we wanted a larger camper to hopefully someday have kids and grow into it. We settled on a 33' Fleetwood Mallard, sleeps 9 (ish, because of the small dinette and one smaller rear bunk). We have had as many as 6 in there comfortably for a couple weekends.

Living in S.E. Michigan doesn't allow you to work on it throughout the winter so we took advantage of one of the first nicer day of the year to pull it out of storage and strip the wall paper boarder and start taping off for paint.


The day we looked at it














Rustic reclaimed oak vinyl plank flooring


Sample of the new upholstery. Bottom is a "Greige" (grayish-beige)
top is the floral that has yellows, oranges, grays and white.


Looks cleaner without the boarder already!


Smaller rectangle is the TV size, Larger is the "frame" around the TV that will be trimmed out after the hole is put in the wall

[TheBreu]

Graycat wrote:
Where did you get the composite panels? They look really nice. Great tv work too.

I work at a sign shop and we use this stuff all the time. I'm not sure you can source retail, you will probably have to go to a sign shop and have them order it for you. It comes in a 4x8 sheet. It has multiple names varying by manufacturer, usually called Dibond, Maxmetal, or alupanel.

Here is a detail description of it:

Alupanel is an internationally recognised product providing pioneering solutions to the Sign, Advertising and Construction markets. In a highly crowded business environment it is vital to get noticed. From eye-catching signage, innovative point of sale displays to highly effective way finding solutions, there is only one all round solution – Alupanel.

Alupanel is a premium quality composite panel made from aluminium composite materials featuring two 0.30mm aluminium sheets, sandwiching a polyethylene core. Available in one of the widest colour ranges on the market, all standard PE colours come with a 5 year external guarantee.*

(*Brushed and mirror finishes have a 5 year guarantee for INTERNAL application only.)

[Lenny_K]

Really nice. You should be really proud of all the work you have done so far.

[Graycat]

TheBreu wrote:
I added a composite material in place of the panels on my fridge. The new panels are plastic with a thin aluminum overlay that is brushed. It gives the fridge the look of a stainless one.

Where did you get the composite panels? They look really nice. Great tv work too.

[Traveler7]

Looks good, very nice!

[TheBreu]

I decided to change our flip down bunk in the back into a cabinet for bulky items. I have a screen tent that spends it's time on the lower bunk along with a few other items. I want a cabinet to hide these things, so I decided to build a wall for the front of the bunk with a door. I will skin both sides with luan and add brackets to the trailer wall to hold the cabinet face. If it doesn't work out, or I want it removed in the future, it'll just be a handful of screws to remove.

[TheBreu]

I added a composite material in place of the panels on my fridge. The new panels are plastic with a thin aluminum overlay that is brushed. It gives the fridge the look of a stainless one.

[Firelime]

Very nice work.

[TheBreu]

Vvvv1010 wrote:
What brand or paint type is the black gallon used on the trailer tongue? Amazing work!

Thanks! The paint is just some good old fashion Rustoleum that was brushed on.

[SteveB]

Nice work.

[Vvvv1010]

What brand or paint type is the black gallon used on the trailer tongue? Amazing work!

[TheBreu]

westend wrote:
Nicely done.
Evidently, the previous owner had limited carpentry skills. Your arrangement seems much better.

What the heck is that old circular saw? Some of the old worm drive saws are impossible to kill, looks like you have one.

It is a old worm gear saw. It was my grandpa's that I claimed when he passed years ago. Sometimes you can't beat old technology

[westend]

Nicely done.
Evidently, the previous owner had limited carpentry skills. Your arrangement seems much better.

What the heck is that old circular saw? Some of the old worm drive saws are impossible to kill, looks like you have one.

[TheBreu]

Pulled the camper out to take advantage of the weather here this weekend and complete a couple more projects. I took the old cobbled together shelves that the previous owner put in our pantry and built new that are more suited to us.

Old stuff


We used it this way for a couple years, but it just didn't work.






I like this setup better already and we haven't even used it. Next is to put a light in there to see better for grabbing midnight snacks.

I also put a storage compartment under one of the bunks in the back. It is about 2 ft cubed made to fit above the water heater.






Made the cut out and framed it to drop in like the dinette storage

[TheBreu]

I cleaned all the cabinets and walls and then primed with Zinsser bulls eye 123 sold at Home Depot. Surprisingly it only took a gallon to coat everything. I have camped in it 10 weekends so far without issue. Reading a lot of blogs and other remodel hints pointed to using this primer first so I went with it

Zinsser