Welcome to the renovation post of “TAMMY” TRADEWINDS – our 36 ft. Class A motorhome [diesel pusher] manufactured by National RV in 1998. We picked up Tammy from a used RV lot in Temecula just a few weeks prior to our very first summer road trip in the summer of 2017. Two weeks prior to that we had picked up a Winnebago Adventurer, which was lovely. Unfortunately, we lost the Adventurer to a fire. Now THAT is a whole different post altogether… but it left us in a spot, scrambling a bit. With just a couple weeks till our planned trip up the coast from California to Washington, we had to find a suitable rig, fast!!
This selfie was taken at the used RV lot in Temecula… we had an insurance check in hand and were hot n ready to buy. I’ll have to admit, it wasnt love at first sight. Tammy was funky, inside and out. Decals were fading and coming off in a few spots. The inside was very…. BLUE. The carpet, the couch, the upholstery… everything. Not only that but Tammy had dark wood everywhere w/ gold trim. Very 90’s. A frosted mirror in the back and accent mood lights inside up top were so bad, they were good. So there was potential. With a little bit of work, she could be fabulous. We inspected the ins and outs and it wasn’t until the saleswoman asked if I wanted her to fire it up that I knew this was the one.
A twist of the key,
a rumble, and a shake… Tammy was roaring. She was a diesel!?! I had no idea… A pleasant surprise and only 50,000 miles on her. Air horn, air suspension, air brakes, a Freightliner chassis w/ Caterpillar 3126 engine. Tammy was built to haul loooong distances and she was ours. Our first trip was a success! Tammy was short trip and weekend warrior worthy… However, to live in her full time was another story. So the renovation began.
A fresh coat of paint does wonders
If you’ve ever moved into a new pad that just didn’t feel quite right perhaps you had a paint party to lighten the mood??
If so, then you know exactly what I am talking about… A fresh coat of paint does wonders for interiors. Or in this case about 6 coats… with sanding in between. It was supposed to be easy using chalk paint since you can just paint right on any surface without having to sand it down first. But to build it up thick required mulitple and slight sanding in between. Jess started by removing every cabinet door and giving them a fresh coat of light grey. Nothing too light, cant do white. We are camping, full time, annnnnd have a couple of kids with grubby paws. She spray painted the handles with fresh metallics to make em pop. Cue the first photo sequence.
Here ya can see a quick BEFORE of the bathroom.
Dark wood cabinets up top [she already started in with the lower cabinet]
And now the after –
fresh coat of paint and new wallpaper. In order to do it right, everything had to come out.
Looked pretty good, didn’t it!? If only it was that easy. After the walls were taken care of Jess decided that living for a year with carpet wasn’t going to work. Two kids and a dog meant it was going to get thrashed and be dirty constantly needing to be vacuumed. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. That carpet was NASTY already… besides, carpet around a toilet is just gnar to begin with… then age it almost 20 years. It had to go.
I came in to find her ripping out carpet and tearing things up! So it was on. We began removing carpet from every surface. It came out pretty easily. Notice the funky blue window covering/ trim in the pic below. That same pattern not only cased out the windows, it also ran all the way across the slide out and was used on the couch. So we ripped all that out too!
Renovation tip: Look before ya jump
Honestly tearing up the carpet was the easy part cause it comes right out. Sure, you have to remove pesky staples here n there but overall removal was no big deal. It wasnt until we got it all out that we realized we had a couple of problems on our hands.
The Slideout –
I know this is far from a tutorial so if you happen to be reading this prior to tearing out carpet in your RV and reflooring I would advise ya to consider your options when it comes to the slideout[s]. Fortunately, we just have one, however, it became obvious after ripping out almost all the carpet that National RV [manufacturer] assembled this in a way so that the carpet went in BEFORE completion of the slide. What I mean is the slide-out was assembled after and on top… making it impossible to get the carpet out from under. I rolled the slide back and cut it back as much as I could so as not to see BLUE carpet poking out but removing the carpet completely wasn’t going to work either due to a potentially sizable gap that’d be left underneath even if removed. Damned if ya do damned if ya dont.
Kitchen Floor-
So there’s a buncha busted up plywood in the pic above… and then filler laid down in the pics below. The funny part is [and this is always how it goes] but the most pain in the ass part of this whole renovation I didn’t even get a picture of. I was too damn busy working too damn hard to get a proper picture. However, as you see in the [before I smashed the s**t out of it] pic below there was 8 ft. of wood flooring already installed. Smart move, lotsa spills in the kitchen… they probably should’ve done it in the bathroom too. Thankfully, they didn’t… cause it was a bitch to remove and it tore chunks out of the wood it was glued to 20 ish years ago. I mean it was really on there and didn’t wanna come off. I think I have a vid someplace of how ridiculous the struggle was. Again look before ya leap. Had I known how hard it was going to be to get out I might’ve come up with another method. Once you’ve busted that first bit up though… you are committed and so it went.
Lay it down
Carpet out.
Measurements made.
Time for the floor to go in.
Measure twice, cut once… thats what my dad always said.
Lets party!
Amazing how time flies, isnt it!? An entire days worth of work just went by in the scroll of a dozen photos. Made that look A LOT easier than it was. Im not gonna lie this was my first time doing a floor and that shit wasnt easy. Tedious cuts to cover every little nook n cranny, up to and around vents and chairs. Baseboards to cover any and all mistakes ; ) Custom shapes clicked in together to cover the bathroom throne. Oh and how about the steps leading into the RV? ahhh good times. Shout out to my geometry teacher in highschool. Im drawing a blank on your name now that Im writing but I didnt draw a blank when it came to cutting all those angles.
Finishing touches –
Trim work.
A table.
Annnnnd Jess has recovered those window thingies with new brighter and happier floral patterns.
Table time –
Jess stripped off the old table top cause it was insanely heavy and ugly. Part of the 90’s dark wood theme that had to go. Her new top was lighter in both weight and color and had a much more natural look.
Plus, it was very inexpensive to make. Just a little gorilla glue, some sanding and many layers of varnish. A massive improvement from the old dark wood monstrosity that used to live in the RV that’s for sure. Go ahead and scroll through many hours of sanding and varnishing
Cant forget the clever use of space with the chalkboard door!
Out with the old in with the new –
got rid of granny’s floral pattern only to put another one in. lol I kid. I mean I guess it could be granny’s floral but its bright, colorful, happy and best of all NOT blue. I had nothing to do with this part so I couldn’t tell ya how hard it was. She smashed through it pretty quick and easy so I can’t imagine it was too hard. Scissors, nails and a staple gun allowed for some drastically amazing changes to the feel of the room. These were for the front “living room” and the geometric is what hangs in the bedroom.
Looking back on it now, its a pretty drastic difference. Funny how that works but after living in it for almost 2 years the way it is I almost forgot what it used to look like… till I went through and gathered ALL the pics for this post. Pretty damn proud of the way it turned out.
All in all I think it took us a couple weeks to do. We busted this whole thing out slowly, took our time and did it right. Thanks to my Dad for the help and knowledge. Without his tips n tricks [plus a few youtube vids] theres no way I coulda done this and had it turn out as clean as it did.
So now is the moment you’ve been waiting for… or at least I have. This post has gotten insanely long and its damn near midnight so I’d like to wrap it up in a pretty little bow.
The final BEFORE and AFTER photos:
MAIN ROOM
BEDROOM
BATHROOM
KITCHEN
DINING TABLE / COUCH
MAIN ROOM / KITCHEN
MAIN ROOM / KITCHEN
BEDROOM
