Being a nomad in the 21st century means that it would be hard to buy a new RV (or new to us), that had an interior design straight out of the 90’s, and not want to remodel it to make it feel more up-to-date. Remodeling the interior is one of the most exciting and challenging things you can do after buying an RV.

For some back story, we made this purchase from the standpoint of living in this vehicle full-time, and making it feel like home; which the old wood-stained cabinets and floral valences really weren’t doing for us. In hindsight, we should have started our renovation in May or earlier, when the summer heat hadn’t truly kicked in yet.

Unfortunately, the reality of it was we were going to be doing this renovation in the middle of June; when summer in Phoenix was in full motion. This meant that the days would get up to 110 degrees creating unworkable conditions in the RV in the middle of the day; therefore, we had to start our days bright and early at 5 a.m. if we wanted to get the renovation done within the 3 week frame we were shooting for.

So, let’s jump into the renovation!

Here is a before photo so you can see the old-fashioned style we were working with.

Walking into this, we knew there were two things that would make a HUGE difference when giving the interior an upgrade: repainting all the cabinets and walls. Luckily, Scott had a lot of leftover paint from remodeling his own home that we didn’t have to go out and buy a bunch of new paint (as that can get expensive). However, we did purchse some Killz primer and liquid sandpaper to help the paint stick to the real and fake plastic wood that is in the RV.

The first couple of days were spent painting everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Purchasing the Killz primer was extremely helpful when making sure everything was coated with a base layer…except for the bedroom, where we forgot to use it, which made a big difference. We were able to get a lot of coverage, with less paint, on the walls that recieved a layer of primer, compared to the bedroom that ended up needing about four layers of paint before you could no longer see the old, ugly wallpaper before it was completely covered.

When it came to painting all the wood, it took us several long hours of work because we wanted to make sure the paint would really stick; therefore, we had to strip, sand, and prime all the doors to prep them. It’s safe to say, I don’t even want to look at a paintbrush or gallon of paint again anytime soon!

After all the cabinets and walls were freshly painted and clean, we realized how awful the old, dirty carpet and linoleum floors looked. So what did we do next? Yep, you guessed it, tore up all the flooring. This was definitely the hardest part of the renovation. At this point, we realized that we may not have truly anticipated how much work it would be to remodel a 32ft RV.

We started pulling up the carpet first. For the most part, it was all stapled down and with a strong tug it came up fairly easily, until it came to pulling up the pieces that were under the slide. Let me preface this by saying, Scott has remodeled several houses, giving him lot of experience and knowledge about what steps need to be taken when diving into a remodel; but, believe it or not, Scott is not a contortionist and trying to fit his arms and hands into tiny crevices attempting to pull up stapled down carpet, was extremely challenging. Once all the carpet was removed it was time to take up the unattractive linoleum flooring. Initially, I thought that the linoleum flooring would be a piece of cake to pull up, but boy was I wrong. Every inch was glued down and it had no intention of coming off. After using all the strength I had, scraping and pulling with all my might; it became pretty clear, the floor wasn’t going to come up without a fight. Eventually, we decided to throw in the towel, the linoleum floor won and it was going to stay put. Even though the linoleum won the battle, we still came out on top and made the choice to place the new, vinyl wood plank flooring directly on top of it. After reading several reviews and other blogs, we decided that vinyl peel and stick flooring would be the way to go. Thankfully we can now write our own review and agree that the peel and stick flooring is light, easy to adhere, and looks great in the RV!

Next, was getting rid of the unsightly greenish-beige, floral couch and dinette cushions. We had considered sewing fabric around the cushions, but then realized our sewing skills aren’t that great, and it would be time consuming to try and figure out how to do it properly with the time we had. This is where online shopping from Walmart and Amazon Prime came in handy. I ordered a basic two piece couch cover for the sofa and ordered four love-seat cushion covers for the dinette cushions, all the pieces worked perfectly! The elastic design also allows for easy and quick laundering when needed.

The final steps we took to make our RV truly feel like home was adding in all our personal items and decor. Luckily, I already had a bedspread that matched and fit on the bed perfectly, saving us the headache of spending more money and time on picking out a new one. Ross, TJ Maxx, and Hobby Lobby were great spots to find little home knick-knacks and reasonably priced storage baskets to use for all the small items that we didn’t want flying all over the place when we were in motion. We used a lot of decors that we already had in our own houses, but it was definitely fun to add some new touches to our new little home!

Overall, it was a challenging process, but absolutely worth so we can bring the feeling of home with us everywhere we go! I may be biased, but I think our renovation turned out pretty spectacular. Check out these before and after photos and judge for yourself!