I Renovated My RV on a Budget Here s What Failed After 6 Years

Six years ago, I completely renovated this RV on a budget and new flooring, peel and stick backsplash, painted walls and cabinetry, all new furniture, pretty much everything. And that video has reached tens of thousands of people that all want to know, is a budget RV renovation worth it? So in today's video, I'm going to answer that question as honestly as I can. We've actually used this RV consistently over the last six years. So I'm going to walk you through the entire space room by room and show you what has held up, what has not, what I've had to change, and if I would do anything differently, if I was to do this project again. Okay. So let's walk into the space, the exterior. We didn't really do anything to it. You can see like all the decals are fading and everything. I don't know. We, Sean just cleaned it recently and I think it looks fine. I'm not interested in changing any of that anytime soon, but let's go inside. So when you first enter the RV, you immediately see this main area. So we have a slide out here. Let's talk about this flooring. Now we put this in, like I said, six years ago and I, instead of peel and stick, which is what it was, I actually took some PL construction glue and glued every single piece down and look at how nice it looks still. I think it still looks fantastic. I found a piece of trim from Home Depot and I put it on the edge there of the slide out still looks great. We don't have any issues with it wrecking any of the flooring. When the slide out comes in, I did a full dedicated video on that. So I'll make sure to link it in the description box below. So you can see exactly what I did. Originally we had a round table here and then we had the sofa bed here and I swapped the sofa bed to the other side and I replaced the round table with this gate leg table. And what I like about this is that we can keep it this square shape regularly, and then we can pull out this to make it bigger. And then we can just have somebody sitting on the couch here. And then we have a couple of folding chairs that we can just take out and put around the table. And that's worked really well. I like that better than the round table. It's just a much better use of the space. This is just our paddle board here. And we do put everything in the trailer and we make sure like everything is relatively secure. When we leave, this is bolted right to the floor of the table. The sofa isn't, but once the slide out comes in, everything is really secure. So we're never really worried about things flying around. Now I took out the original table and benches and the original coat, but I have seen people reupholster those and they look really nice. Instead, I bought this sofa bed that you can open up into a bed. Honestly, we've never really used this that much because we don't often have guests in here, but it's really easy to move out and fold. And this was originally from Structube. I don't think they have it anymore. I'm pretty sure it's been out of production for a few years now. But I'll link some similar sofa beds down in the description box below. It's more of a futon style and we really like it. It's nice and comfy. I also completely removed these original window coverings, which I thought were very dated. I simply used these FA rods from Home Depot and then some cheap Ikea curtains and I hemmed the bottom and those have been great. If I was to have more people sleeping in here more often, I probably would get some sort of blackout blinds for these, but we don't need them in here. I found these light fixtures on Amazon. I have a few of these in here and they've been fantastic. They've been really great. The trick with RV lighting is you can use whatever fixture you want. You just have to use the proper bulb for RV. I'll link mine in the description box below. Speaking of lighting, I redid these. This is kind of a fun little DIY where I took the original glass part of this fixture off and I did this fun little beaded thing and then I glued it with Gorilla Hot Glue to the This one's held up for six years from hot glue, which I think is pretty amazing. This one just fell down last year. So if I was to do this again, I probably wouldn't use Gorilla Hot Glue. I'd use some other sort of adhesive that was a bit stronger to hold this up. I'm going to figure out what I'm going to use here and get that fixed up before our next trip. If you turn around here from this main area, you see the coffee bar and I actually turned the original entertainment unit into the coffee bar because, as you can see, there's very limited counter space in here and I know we needed more. So I moved this down to counter height and I created like a coffee and drinks bar. This has been fantastic. This has been much better use of space than the original entertainment center and then we just hung a TV on the wall here. I added a shelf. The TV, honestly, we don't use that much because we're often camping without electricity. So, I mean, that's just kind of something that we use every once in a while. We mounted it with just some regular wood screws onto the wall and that's been very secure. I did use a peel and stick marble contact paper. You can see my application of this one wasn't that great, but honestly, it's still holding up pretty well. And then I also used a peel and stick backsplash or here and this I love. I also used it in the kitchen. It's held up great. I spray painted this Ikea rod and this was before Ikea actually had brass colored rods and I wanted brass. You can see originally this was black, but it did not hold up well at all. This is always moving as we're driving, so it's just all scratched off. So I wouldn't do that again. I wouldn't spray paint anything in a camper that has any sort of movement to it. These bins down here were originally from Walmart and we use these so much. I basically just throw everything and anything in here and then once the slide comes in, everything here is nice and secure. That's a nice safe space for me to keep things when we're driving. Now turning around here from the main area, we have the little kitchen. I painted the cabinets in here as well as the walls. So let's talk about that first. These have held up wonderfully. Like you can look and see how there's really no scratching, no chipping. It's really easy to wipe down. We have no scratching, no chipping down here. Everything has held up great over six years, which I think is actually really amazing. The key here is making sure that you prep the surface properly so you can sand it manually or you can use a liquid sander and then using a really nice sticky primer. I'll link to the one I used in the description box below as well as a proper cabinet and trim enamel. And with all of those steps, mine has held up perfectly and we're not very gentle with these. Like we've had bikes, you know, stuck up to these cabinets as we've been traveling. Camping is pretty dirty so you know I have to clean them often, but I am so happy with how this held up. And all the products I used were from Behr, so they were relatively affordable. I also used Behr paint on the walls and I used the scuff defense paint, which has also held up really well. And I painted right over that vinyl wallpaper that was originally in the camper and I'm just so happy with how that looks. Now if you go from this main area here into the bunk room, you can see how this has held up. And I have three daughters, so that's why we went with the pink because they really like pink. I did not use the same paint in here as I used in the main area and I wish I did. I simply used some chalk style paint in here and I wish I hadn't because it's been so hard to clean. Any little scuffs on here has been just a nightmare. I wish I would have sealed it with something after I painted it. Even so, I just wish I would have gone with the cabinet and trim it out by Behr that I used on the rest. It's just been so hard. Like this is after washing and you can see that it still has marks, so I definitely wouldn't do that again. On the walls, I did use the Behr scuff defense and that looks great. These are decals from I believe the company is called Rocky Mountain Decal Company and those have held up really well. I love that I was able to use the original curtains in here and they're blackout so that's perfect for when the girls want to sleep and how the decal ties in the green and pink I think looks really nice. Now moving from this main area, you can see all the paint has held up nicely from the cabinetry here. Moving up to here, some of my hardware is falling down. Honestly, only because I used the wrong size of screws, so I just have to fix that. This still looks good. All the walls look nice here and this is the main bedroom here with the sink. Just used a little strip of this same backsplash that I used in the kitchen and the coffee nut. Decided not to cover the countertop just because it, I don't know, I kind of liked how it tied in with the green of the cabinetry I used in here. Again, used that same Behr primer cabinet and trim that's held up great. I replaced the faucet completely in here and that looks really nice I think. And then into the bedroom area, this I think has held up really well. My husband likes to flip this light up because he keeps whacking his head on there, but those are the same Amazon light fixtures that I used in the main area and I think this looks great. Same Ikea hack that I did in the main area where I just took some Ikea curtains, chopped them, and then used the Home Depot curtain rod. Again, just using regular wood screws, nice short ones, to mount the curtain rod and all of the hooks in here, which we use a lot of. And yes, I use white bedding when I camp and yeah, it gets dirty, but so does dark bedding. I mean, dark bedding and light bedding are going to get dirty the same. That's one thing that people always comment on, like why do you have so much white in your camper? Doesn't your trailer get dirty the same amount? No matter if you use white or if you use dark, I just clean it like everybody else does at the end. So coming around here from the main bedroom, we have this tiny little bathroom and this genuinely was a nightmare to renovate because it's just so tiny. The flooring in here was tricky, but that still looks nice. This curtain rod falls down every single time we travel and I've tried so many different ways to mount it. So if you have any tricks to get that to stay, let me know. The wallpaper here has held up pretty good. There was some lifting though on the bottom, but this was just Amazon budget-friendly wallpaper. So I mean, for what I paid for it, I'm pretty happy with how it's lasted. One trick when you are wallpapering an RV is to use some primer behind. The wallpaper let that cure for several days and then do the wallpaper and it seems to help it last a little bit longer. So we talked about the backsplash and the contact paper in the coffee bar area, but let me show you in the kitchen area how it's held up. It's held up great. I'm so happy about it. I did a video recently on peel and stick and this is one of my favorite peel and stick products. You can see how the caulking here on the edge has lifted a little bit and that is really easy to redo. So I'll probably just peel that up one day and just re-caulk that. Love that the backsplash here too has held up really well. And this is an Amazon product, but I mean, it's one of my favorite ones. It's held up perfectly. Don't forget that we see anywhere from minus 40 to plus 35 here in Alberta. So we have a wide range of temperatures and the RV just stayed outside and this has held up really nicely. I did originally spray paint the original faucet in here and it just, I mean, it stopped working, which I don't think was related, but it also started chipping. So we just replaced the faucet with an inexpensive Amazon piece and that looks really nice. That's held up well. So here's my honest overall takeaway after using this RV for six years. The things that are actually worth every single penny are replacing the flooring. Ours still looks fantastic. It's been so easy to clean. Doing the peel and stick backsplash, as long as you prep your surfaces, this is a fantastic option. And painting the entire camper. Same thing, the surface prep is absolutely important for this The three things that I would not do again, I would not paint my faucet or my cup rail with spray paint again. Everything moves around too much and it's eventually just all going to wear off. I also wouldn't use hot glue for my light fixtures, even the Gorilla Glue. I mean, it did last for a good five years, but I would use something stronger to begin with. And thirdly, I wouldn't use chalk style paint anywhere in the RV. The paint I used in the main area was the best combination. The chalk style paint in the bunk room is so hard to clean. One thing that nobody tells you about renovating an RV is just how long it takes. I mean, it's pretty simple and mostly just painting, but you are having to squish in these tiny little spaces to get things painted, like the bathroom, the bunks. You're going to get absolutely dirty, but to me, it's all worth it. We've made so many amazing memories in this RV together as a family. My favorite one was going all the way down to California from here in the Edmonton, Alberta area. We've made countless camping trips and I am so happy we bought this and that we renovated it. So if you own an RV and if you've renovated it, I would love to hear down in those comments below how it's held up. Would you have done anything differently in your own makeover? And if you're considering or just starting an RV renovation, make sure to watch my makeover video from start to finish. I'll leave it down in that description box below, and I'll also leave it right here for you to watch next. And you can see exactly what I did from start to finish. Thanks so much for watching this video and I'll see you in the next one.