New Year, New Project!

While people are setting goals and making new years resolutions, I'm facing the new year with a new project that I hope is going to bring a year full of fun adventures.  The week after Christmas, we bought a 2001 Jayco Quest Pop Up Camper.  Its a great basic camper that has two full size beds, a sink and two burner stove and dinette seating area.  For our small family, it is the perfect camper! When folded up, this little camper is around 10 feet long and can be towed easily with our small SUV.

Before we had purchased our Pop Up, I had started a Pinterest Pop Up Camper Board and started planning our remodel.  I'll fully admit that it has become a slight obsession.  There could be worse obsessions to have.  

Our plans for this remodel are to:
  • Clean everything from top to bottom both inside and out
  • Paint the cabinets
  • Update the cabinet hardware
  • Make curtains throughout for privacy and decoration
  • Recover the cushions
  • Build a small table for a our seating area that will lower and make into a third bed using the seating cushions
  • Replace the cabinet trim
  • Repair a couple of tears in the canvas (a result of our first pop up to work on it and my ignorance about what we were doing!)
  • Replace the mattresses for the beds
  • Unstick the awning zipper for fully functioning capabilities
  • Outfit with the necessary supplies for camping
The floors have already been redone by the previous owner and the paint job is not terrible, but it has some wear.  We have some paint from a previous project at home that matches our color scheme .  We might as well just do it since we are doing everything else.  And, it is not really a very big space, so we can paint this in our sleep.
The two burner stove can be used indoors or out.  It connects to the propane line.  

The small kitchen area is complete with a fridge and sink.

The beds are located at each end.  New mattresses are going in here!
The seating area has two identical seats the a space in between for a table.  Since we don't have a table now, we are going to put together a small one for use here.
We aren't in a huge hurry to finish, and it is a good thing.  Winter weather isn't cooperating with us this week.  We were hoping to have all of the cleaning and possibly the painting done before going back to work after the holiday break.  But, it is raining today and was raining yesterday.  Rain is in the forecast on and off for the rest of the week.  

Yesterday morning, we ran out as soon as we got up to fold everything up to beat the rain.  Happily, we did this in about 10 minutes.  This gives me quite a bit of hope for what is to come.  Even though I know we will have a lot more going on when we are actually camping, it was easy enough that I feel good about our new purchase.  

In my quest for perfect pop up planning, I read about La's Totally Awesome All Purpose Concentrated Cleaner.


This stuff worked amazing to clean both the interior and exterior of the camper.  This is a great product even if you don't own a camper.  Its concentrated, so a little goes a long way.  My husband started this messy job and has done great!  I was amazed when I came home after running errands this week to see how much better the interior looked.

While he was at it, he removed the hardware on the cabinets and spray painted all of the pieces.  I'll add pictures on this after we start working on the cabinets.  

While dear hubby has been on cleaning detail, I've been sewing on the curtains for the interior.  I literally have 50 yards of fabric tied up in this part of the project, and I am super happy with the results so far!

The camping is my husband's end goal for this deal.  Camping in a cute pop up is more my goal.  With that in mind, I have a color scheme for this project.  Mint green, grey and coral are the colors to be exact.  My whole family is super excited about my decorating plans.  Well, let's just say, they are going along with this.  My husband is excited that he is listening to music with his new wireless Beats Headphones.  Whatever works for everyone!

While on hiatus from working on the actual physical camper due to weather, I'll keep sewing and the hubs in taking a break.

The mint and grey fabrics for the curtains are a mixture of prints, but will coordinate throughout.  I'm going to tie in the coral with the bedding and the seating cushions.

The curtains have taken over our dining room table, but are turning out nicely.
One thing that has been a great idea for this project is keeping a spreadsheet with expenses.  I'm tracking them in separate worksheets - one for the actual physical remodel and another for camping supplies.  This helps me to stay on budget and make better decisions about what we should do now and what we can wait on until later on.  Not everything is necessary in the immediate.  And that has been hard for this project because camping and remodeling even a small camper can be expensive.  My mother has compared this to fixing up our own little tiny house.  So true!

Aside from the physical work we are doing now, we do have an end goal in mind.  We are hoping to do a lot of camping in the new year.  A beach trip in our camper is on the agenda along with nice state parks with fall leaves much later in the year.  We are looking forward to campfires and hikes.  Its an opportunity for lots of memories.  We are all on board for that!

In the coming weeks, I'll be featuring our work as it goes on and hopefully revealing something great at the end.  Here's to 2017 and new camping adventures ahead with friends and family!  That is enough of a new year's goal and resolution for now.  It's going to be a great ride!

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4 comments

  1. Can't wait to see it and join you in the adventures!!!

    Christy

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    Replies
    1. Me either! Its going to be a great year ahead! Even better with fun friends!

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes! We completed our total renovation in 2018. And then we sold Peggy Sue in June of 2019 to a friend. She was a great camper, and we loved the process of renovating her. However, our family outgrew the pop up. So, we now have a small travel trailer. You can check out the work we did to our pop up on my Project page. Thanks for asking!

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