A few years ago I woke up and realized that I never saw the sunrise or the sunset anymore.
I know this may sound silly to some but I was lucky enough to grow up at a place where both were available to me daily. Several times I would wake up early enough just to see the sunrise. I would walk outside and sit with my dog in the field with the horses and ponies and watch the fog gather and spin around on the big pond and lift up into the sky until it just disappeared.
The house where where Jordan and I were living was beautiful and had been loving restored by women we admired so much. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave but we knew we didn’t belong there anymore. I think I’ve learned that leaving when God tells us to go often means we get to leave on good terms. So we made the decision to sell our house. One problem- where were we going to live?
We knew we wanted to be in the country but finding a house we could afford with the land we wanted wasn’t an option at that time. We looked into tiny houses but found that they could become extremely expensive and I didn’t want to pour our money into something that I really really hoped would be temporary. So eventually we settled on the idea of a camper.
I found a wonderfully community on instagram and YouTube of people all around the world renovating and living full time in campers and it was pretty amazing! We began our search in January and one of my biggest priorities was layout. It was just me and Jordan and the dogs so we didn’t need bunks and I really wanted something with a separate living and sleeping space. Jordan worked overnights at the time and having an area where he could sleep during the morning and mid afternoon was necessary. I also wanted to find something where the bathroom wasn’t a tiny little closet off the dining area.
We actually found a pretty perfect layout in our budget with a 1999 Coachman Prospera 5th wheel. Tons of storage and all the wallpaper was already torn down! Score! So we thought…
I wish I could say I had proper “before” photos but within an hour of delivery Jordan had already summoned this inner Chip Gaines Demo Man that I had no idea existed before and had demoed almost all the dining and living area. So the remodel of our 5th wheel began in February with a move in date set at May.
The first thing was to CLEAN EVERYTHING. The prior owners were smokers and the smell was heavy and also it had yellowed much of the paint.
We went back and painted everything a bright white and replaced all the old yellowed lights with bright LED camp lights. This alone made such a difference! We also took off all the old cabinet hardware and replaced them with modern gold hardware.
From there we took on the flooring. A project I still owe my husband for! I decided it would be fun to do herringbone framed pattern on the flooring for a dramatic look. This project was by far one of the hardest ones we’ve ever done! There’s still a little section that looks a little Picasso-ish by the sink we usually kept covered with a kitchen mat!
The borders around the living/dining slide out was a little too traditional for my taste so we grabbed some boards at lowes and I mixed our charcoal colored chalk paint with water to make a tinted stain and I absolutely fell in love with the outcome! We also added to the modern design with geometric gold pendants in the slide out area.
To tie everything together we needed curtains…and LOTS of them! Curtains typically don’t come in such small sizes and I was having a hard time finding fabric I liked and that was in my budget until I came across some better home and gardens SHOWER CURTAINS at Walmart! We cut and sewed them to fit and they were perfect!
The last on the main room list was the countertop and sink. I don’t know if you guys know this but camper sinks are SUPER small and shallow! I don’t know where it came from but we found a full size house sink in my parent’s garage wasting away so we replaced our little shallow camper sink with it and boy, are we thankful we did!
I really wanted butcher block counter tops but they were not in the budget and with the cut of the countertops I knew it would be another challenge to cut to fit so I set off looking for another solution.
The countertops were blue and didn’t match anything we had done. So instead I found a waterproof vinyl wrap on amazon in this ivory/blush pink marble and all we had to do was stick it on and it held up great!
The final detail in this area was our wallpaper. I fell in love with a removable wallpaper from Loomwell that I knew we had to incorporate somehow! This was my little splurge. Removeable wallpaper can be expensive and our budget only allowed for a small portion to be purchased. Our original plan was to wallpaper the small “accent” wall between the doors but we found we had quite a bit left over. Some of our cabinet doors had broken on one area and instead of fixing them we decided to leave it as open shelving and used the left over wallpaper to paste as a backdrop on the shelving but the biggest impact this wallpaper had was on the fridge! It fit perfectly and looked amazing on the fridge and was a focal piece in our living room! Who knew a fridge could be your favorite aesthetic!
Are you guys still reading? We’re almost done I promise! There’s not near as much detail in the next part of the camper.
The bathroom had already been upgraded with a new black vanity with white bowl but the silver faucet just wasn’t matching all the gold hardware we had replaced in the camper. So we went ahead and upgraded it with a gold faucet and matched any cabinet hardware with the same gold modern we had in the other areas. We also replaced the door with a vintage door we had lying in the basement of our old house. It was nice to bring along something from the house where we started our life together.
We painted the door and cabinets that same shade of chalk paint charcoal and replaced the flooring with a grey and white starburst tile.
We also spray painted the metal around the shower with black matte spray paint and used appliance spray paint to paint the yellow shower white (TIP: this DOES NOT hold up well).
We kept it simple in the bedroom focusing on adding local wallart and one good photo on rolled canvas of me and Jordan with our wedding vows printed on it with mid-century modern-esq dresser and light curtains mixed with a heavy green vintage ones.
Overall this place was home for a year and a half. Did it have it’s problems? YES. Was it all bad? NO. Did we ever regret living there or selling our 2,000 sq ft home? Never for a millisecond.
This place was a provision. It was where we learned a lot of basic things God knew we would need to know for the next step. It’s where we realized quality of life for us isn’t always wrapped up in square footage or easy finished packages.
I’m beyond happy to be in our little apartment in the barn now but I will forever hold a place in my heart for this camper and the life we cultivated there.
Portrait Photographs by Lindsey Morgan Photography