6 RV Hacks That Make Your Camper 🚐 Feel Like a HOME 🏠

In the past, we've shown we'll go through virtually anything to make our RV feel like a home. We put a couch through our window, we added solar on the roof with some lithium batteries, and we painted everything white in our RV. Today we're not getting quite as extreme, but instead we're going to show you some DIY hacks that you can use to make everyday living Now DIY in this case, this actually stands for do it in a year I think for Nathan, so we had this in our Airstream and we've wanted this in our fifth wheel and I've just I have tried to get this installed. I'll explain all the problems I've had along the way. I didn't realize I was like quite a water snob. I can taste a huge difference in water and that was something I didn't know until we started traveling and I realized I wasn't drinking enough water because I didn't like the taste of it and every time you go to a new campground, a new city, a new state, the water is going to taste significantly different and I wanted a water filter or some way to purify water so we had clean drinking water that actually tastes good and so Nathan did a ton of research and something that was important to him because Nathan is not a water snob. He says he can't taste a difference in water, but he's like I want something that saves space that isn't going to sit on the counter and take a ton of counter space. I want something small compact that is just easy to use so that is where this comes in. So let me show you something outside first before we well we're talking about water this is more um the taste does matter but this I don't know what it is with the water here where we are with our home base in Tennessee. Let me show you something. So this is our outdoor spigot here at the site. I've talked to the water department they said oh it's not a big deal it's just clay. Look at that look at that look at the water that's coming that's coming out of our spigot here. So like first of all I cannot believe that's normal. This looks like fruit tea with a lot of sediment on the bottom. Maybe I'm not a water snob. You're being a water snobber. This is perfectly normal. Yeah that's what the water company tells us. But I've swapped this out twice I have no clue if that's rust or clay or what's going on. I have a replacement spigot over here that includes no bronze or something. I don't pay like three times as much for this thing. I haven't installed it yet. That's also in the DIY do in a year list. You might be wondering you've been drinking that? Our Solitude has a built-in water filtration system for the whole RV which is this bad boy right here. So every one to two weeks when I can tell the water filtration system is starting to clog up I go and these are like I don't know six bucks a piece eight bucks a piece. So this kind of adds up over time but while we're here in Tennessee I've been coming out here and replacing this. The water does not look like that when we get it in our sink but still not good. So if you have suggestions let us know. My plan is to swap. I'm hoping it's something to do with this spigot because Marissa's mom is also in the same water system and she says she never sees the water look like that. So the issue with the water filter is not really the water filter itself. It's what you encounter a lot when it comes to doing these projects where you want an RV to feel like a home while you're getting something residential and you're trying to install into something that's not residential. So we've talked about our lights. These are residential lights but in order for these residential lights to work we had to get these super expensive 12 volt bulbs. It's just like you're always having to kind of hack things in an RV. Basically there's all kinds of conversions going on all over this thing. So I thought I had everything I needed to do to install today and I realized yesterday oh my goodness I don't have this conversion from the weird metric spigot to go to a one quarter which is what I need to go into the water filter which then ties into the main water line. So I'm going to have a three-eighth hose come out of there. It's going to tie into the one quarter hose tying to the one quarter hose here. It's going to go through the water filter and then I have to put a split over here on the main line. Here's the acuva down here so you could there's just all kinds of conversions going on. All that to say if you have to buy a residential secondary spigot and it has a funky conversion the two main things that I had to get to make this work are number one on the main water line I had this piece which takes the half inch continues on to half inch but then gives you the option to shoot off to the one quarter to go to the water filter over here. The second thing I'm going to buy and then swap this out with is this adapter from the spigot to a one quarter. So this nothing against acuva this is just a this is one of those typical like RV residential conversion issues you run into when you have an RV. We're going to DIY this thing. I'm hoping to get this done today. I'm going to continue on with some other projects too but it's on the list because this is not good. We love our couches. We have two of these. Part of the issue is the the standard feet that come with these is like a piece of plastic and so these are like sliding all over the place. Now this back couch I've kind of like screwed it in with the floor and it's working okay but I thought man there's gotta be an easier way to do this without having to like screw the couch into the floor and so we're hoping to solve two problems with one stone. Is that the right word with this issue? So we love the couches but also we do love the workout and so what we run into and what you may run into if you get into an RV is that yes we can keep the workout equipment outside but we found out if we don't have the workout equipment close to us where we want it when we want it we just don't use it. We work outside as as much as we can but there are some days I mean traveling it's just cold outside and we want to be inside or maybe you're at a really tight spot and you like to work out inside so everyone doesn't see you working out outside. We love these dumbbells. We've actually traveled with power blocks for years because it's an adjustable dumbbell. So Nathan and I obviously work out on different weights. I lift much heavier than he does so I need whatever and so it goes from what 50 is what it goes 50. I work out with the 50 and Nathan works out with the 10 and then these can even pop out and go even lighter down to five so this would be five and then you've got like your two and a half that you can sometimes when Nathan really wants to work his arms. So two issues really number one we had to find a weight and that's why we love this that's short enough that it goes underneath the couch and secondly we found out even though the measurements online said this was short enough it was actually not short enough because most people don't have the same problems our viewers do when it comes to fitting things in small places so you will read measurements you'll pay for the product which is super heavy you're like it doesn't fit like it's supposed to and then what are you supposed to do so you put on these rubber feet right here and I ordered like a whole pack for 10 bucks I'll link to it and replace the plastic foot that was under with this rubber foot and so raise the couch I don't know like not even half an inch it did not need much to come up high enough to lift to put the weight under it so that's that's like two birds with one stone we've got our weight that we can keep inside when it gets cold we don't want to work outside we get it stored here we can whip it out we need to and the couch stays in place better with the rubber feet I'd say that pretty good that's a win now another hack for this to feel like a home and this is actually another two for three for whatever you want to call it so in this I get it like this was not as big a deal for Marissa it was a big deal for me he's like can I put speakers on no hide it hide it and I'm fine with it that was her criteria so three things that we really wanted that we enjoy that make this feel like our space I don't know there's something about and we get up every morning I do it I actually have a command now I'm not going to say hey g-o-o-g-l-e because it might set your stuff off but at night I'll say that then I'll say bedtime and it starts playing plays hammer time it's what it plays right now but it's like a song and the kids start getting ready for bed in the morning I say good morning and it says like you know it'll say good morning here's the weather for the day here's your events something about that we just like it and then the kids will say they'll ask for animal noises we don't have a lot of flat space we already have this space up here this is all to do stuff we're working on but but we already have this space up here and yes the RV comes with speakers which they were back here this was speaker here and this is speaker here and honestly that's the norm for most RVs they have the speakers that are pointing down so I want speakers to go out so we want better sound and we want something that incorporates Google or Alexa or whatever so that we can do that and this was our solution it was not a cheap solution but it kind of did two birds with one stone and so we did it and so this is a Sonos sound bar I'll put a link I can't remember the exact model or whatever Nathan was so excited about this you know if you're having a movie night you want to sit on this couch because this is where like you get the rumble and what she means by rumble um so we could have just stopped at the soundbar but who wants to do that right so we wanted a movie theater experience when we had um family movie night in here so I was like we don't watch tv a lot of movies a lot when we watch it I want to do it right the heck I found I'll try to list these speakers these are actually Ikea Sonos speakers so it has to be Sonos to tie in with the system so I have two of these underneath here the other speaker which is hard to see it's farther back in there but that is the subwoofer so basically there's a there's a video I'll link to it but there's a video that shows how to take an Ikea speaker which is way cheaper than a dedicated Sonos subwoofer the Sonos subwoofer is like a lot of money so it's way cheaper to buy the Ikea speaker and then make it a subwoofer and then I've got this second speaker that kind of a little bit of surround sound to put you know some sound out and stuff too but so one of the things we love and grand design listens we gave them some feedback and I was like hey can we add this televator so now they've started adding this into their solitudes which is really cool because we get the window but when we want to bring the tv up they have put it in a televator which we absolutely love because like Nathan mentioned we don't watch movies or do tv a ton but when you do you want to you want to do it right what is that a quarter inch maybe a gap but it doesn't matter all we need and I'm happy with it because it's out of the way it looks good yeah it looks really good and if we're getting geeky while we're at it I've got an Nvidia shield down here that we use man that's dusty but we use that with the hard drive who doesn't clean under their tv so we've got this because sometimes we don't have internet and that's a little bit entertainment if we need it with the Nvidia shield it's just a fancy Roku it's almost like a mini computer this is actually a Roku tv but when you turn it on it automatically connects up with the shield and then we're good to go we can start navigating here's the night city now prepare to die there were just hundreds of snakes in this temple just waiting for us can you feel it is it rumbling it is wait for it delete delete i feel like i'm in a theater right now Nathan so this is cool it's it's diy it's a little bit of a home kind of touch to it and then we can talk okay the spotify playlist called folk mix here you go our kids love this they love being able to talk to it and have it play music and they'll dance around it's just a really nice touch to make this feel like a home so this is a super simple hack that i'm doing to distract myself from having to finish the faucet one of our principles of living small organization the whole thing i'm the kids mid bunk right now and it's it's protect the flats one of the things we say so anytime you get something on the wall in an rv it's going to help protect the flat because there's not a lot of flat space in an rv i got these on amazon i'm gonna have two of these i've got one already put in here but i'm gonna have two of these set up here for the kids hensley's got paper that has not been used it versus paper that has creations on it so i'm going to separate these two but i in my office bedroom laundry room i've got two more of these that are that i use to separate my documents and things like that next to my desk where i work at so tons of uses for these they're really simple to put up and they really help with the space okay so nathan showed one of his favorite rv hacks and i'm gonna share one of mine what i'm about to show you is not just an rv hack it is a life hack no matter if you're in a house or an rv this has changed my life making the bed has always been like this huge nuisance of mine i do not enjoy making the bed especially in an rv because usually you're tucked in you don't have a lot of room on the side some you have no room you're all the way up on the sides especially with kids like making beds has been like this this dread of mine so we absolutely love this bedding called betty's betty's is zip up bedding so as you can tell it like looks super neat and tucked in so there is a zipper that's how you make your bed you zip it i literally make my bed in the bed in the morning i zip up nathan's side i roll over i zip up my side throw the pillows up there and the bed is made if you're worried like does the fabric like not cover me because it zips it's got this extra layer that just kind of tucks in when you zip it up so you always feel like you're covered up if you want to wash it this zips into two pieces so it zips all the way off so you've got like your flat sheet and then you've got your top sheet i love the minky it's super soft you can also get it just fabric without it so something that we have never done on youtube before but betty's has offered our let's jump more journey followers a 25 off for the 28th and 29th of august which is today and then ends at midnight tomorrow and we have never gotten that coupon code for our followers for youtube so i am so excited because this is significant and they don't offer that 25 off very often so if you're interested in this life hack and getting that 25 off you can head to betty's we'll put the link below and use the code ljnj for 25 off life hack i love this i love this so easy so i don't know if you've ever had this scenario happen before with rv living but i know i have got the oven going uh and then all of a sudden you look down and the propane oven is dead it's not doing anything well because you ran out of propane and maybe you had another propane tank or maybe that's all your propane in which case i guess we're eating out or you're taking a shower your wife's taking a shower and propane had died you didn't know it there's no heat to the tank there's no heat to the water she hops in and she is not happy we've had all that happened to us in rv life before but i want to show you guys a little hack or a little tool that lippert sent me that i think could be a really cool solution to these problems so lippert has sent us two of their lp tank sensors to test out now we have never had a tank sensor on any rv other than our airstream it was always nice on the airstream and it would be nice to have on the fifth wheel as far as like a hack and to make living easier is that everything ties into the one control app so if you have an rv with one control which is a ton of rvs at this point uh this ties into that system and then you can open up the app at any point once i have this installed and you can check your lp levels within the app all right let's see what this comes with for itself and here's looks like we have magnets on the back of it that are going to connect to the bottom of the propane tank i'm going to turn on the sensor connect it to the one control app pair it install these things it looks like on the bottom put a piece size amount of sonic grease which looks like is inside of this center this on the bottom of the tank then flip the tank over and wait at least five minutes so let's see what we got pressed it five times open the lippert app liquid propane sensor okay we got it pairs asking for the tank size 30 pound vertical tank number one took like three minutes so i know one of these tanks is totally empty and the other one i'll pick it up and fill it out i'm gonna guess this one is half to two-thirds i'll get the other installed in on this one put both tanks back the way they're supposed to be it said to wait five minutes i'll wait five or ten minutes and then we'll uh i don't know see what the sensors do okay so results are in on the tanks got them built into this app that's what's cool about the one control along with the leveling and the awning and the lights and so many things are starting to be built into one system in one place which is really cool so i love that i love that it's in the app i don't have to worry about a physical button or being one place i can whip up my phone at any time anytime that i'm within range of the one control app probably even driving on the road if i needed to and i can see the levels of the tanks it's showing that the one i'm pretty sure is close to empty or possibly empties at 20 percent and then it's showing the second tank which i was i said it was like 50 percent to two-thirds it says 65 percent so i think i think for what it is i don't know if you ever had like um you ever have monitors on any sort of tanks in an rv with a gray tank or black tank i did not expect 100 accuracy with this but it's enough to me on the first one that i know is really close to empty or totally empty um it even had like a little alert come up on the app you'll see there's like a little um like a little exclamation point saying you know hey heads up this tank it's it's getting low or it's about gone if you have the one control app open and you have notifications turned on you'll get a notification come up on your phone telling you when these tanks are low as a heads up i like it i think it's a keeper can't put it off long enough it's time for me to tackle this faucet again today's the day because we've we've got to do something about this i think it has settled my drink please you want this drink chocolate shake what about that drink my chocolate shake my chocolate shake you don't want this drink i want chocolate shake so here is where we're at as far as what i have installed here's the acuva down here so this is kind of the thing and this was our thinking on what how we were initially going to install this so initially my plan was we wanted this clean we didn't want the second faucet we wanted all the water coming through this main one to be ultra filtered because when we say filtered i'm not just talking about this filter doesn't just take care of taste because it will it takes care of bacteria i mean to the point that like if we needed to we could honestly drink out of our water tank we can drink water in other countries like it totally kills everything it's not just about taste problem is when you use this large faucet the water flow is so fast the acuva can't kill the bacteria in time it'll still filter it it'll still make it taste better but it's not actually killing everything so that water flow has to be slowed down using this but the problem is once you slow the flow down then your main faucet like the it's not enough water flow for washing dishes and things like that so really you're probably gonna need the second faucet here's where we are on the install which this is the filter the thing is you have to lower the flow of water before it comes in the filter but we wanted our main source of water to stay the same flow rate so over here is the magical piece this adapter that splits it takes it to a quarter inch it goes through the filter pre-filter through the acuva filter and then shoots out to the water spigot that doesn't make sense actually because wouldn't we need to slow down the water before it gets to the filter oh man i think this is supposed to go here let me look at the diagram again i'll get back to you nothing puts nathan more in a mood than doing so mad there's a special place in the afterlife where they're gonna make people be tying kids toddler shoes and putting them on and they're gonna be making them do plumbing in an rv plumbing is horrible enough plumbing in an rv like i can't even reach 75 of this i'm just like blindly holding my hand in here doing this i can't i can't see it let me check this diagram i'm pretty sure i got this wrong putting on toddler shoes is not that bad it is horrible it's not that bad horrible listen we need this water filter um no it slows it down after that doesn't even make sense it's real life nathan okay double check the manual i do have it right here's the picture on the manual so this one kills up to 99.9999 percent of bacteria and viruses but to do that it has to slow down the water flow and so my assumption was you'd want to slow down the water flow before it even makes it to the filter but apparently i don't understand water that well maybe apparently it doesn't matter they want the water flow to actually slow down before it gets to the faucet and you can use a normal faucet with this you don't have to do a secondary faucet but if you only go to one faucet you're gonna have a flow restrictor on it and it's gonna just let me show you the difference so this is a normal faucet this is why we split this this is a normal faucet flow and then here's the new one that's coming out this is the this is the flow of the new one because it has the restrictor on it which you know it's fine that's i want it to kill that's the whole point i don't want it to just taste good which marissa doesn't you want it to taste good too i guess we just we just don't want it to be we don't want it to be like this color of my dress which already wasn't you know i was already using the whole house pre-filter so now we have a whole house pre-filter and then it's coming through the pre-filter for the acuva and then it's slowed down enough that when it comes through the acuva it will also kill all right so drum roll we're gonna try this out it's gonna be worth the wait that's what people do right do you waft it you don't know what waft is oh wow you never took science class did you i'm curious how many people know wafting me all right comment below do you know the word waft or is nathan the only one well half the time when you say things it's not this is a waft like okay you're not just mispronouncing loft or no it's a waft like you get a little like a little smell like that's um for you really gonna drink it um i'm not drinking that you can see everything's i don't think there's much question on what's going on here so if you would like to see these rv hacks in person and you would like to come hang out with us our rig and us and the team journey ljmj community will be at our first ever event in november close to orlando we have just a few spots left these are going to be gone soon you go to teamjourneyhuddle.com we would love to connect with you there other journeyers that are already coming to the event would love to connect with you there grab a ticket we cannot wait to see you in november well that is our journey for today until next video we'll catch you guys later