Newly Domestic: remodel

Monday, September 21, 2015

The Donald Duck Truck: RV Remodel into a UO Tailgater

Fall is our favorite time of the year. We love crackle of dead leaves under our feet, we use the code word "PSL" when we head down to Starbucks for our annual Pumpkin Spice Latte, but most of all...we love NCAA football.

Our team, to no one's surprise, is the Oregon Ducks, and we spend many glorious fall afternoons tailgating at Autzen.

Many years ago, when I was just out of college, we spent our Saturdays tailgating in an old RV my brother bought for $500 and painted green and yellow.

We had so much fun playing beer pong, cornhole and meeting other Oregon Duck tailgaters, but many moves and two children later, we missed those carefree days.

So, right around the end of August, a simple text that said, "OK see what you can find" gave my husband and brother the green light to go RV hunting for a vintage RV we could restore into Version 2 of the Duck Truck.

The Original "Duck Truck"

We found a 1987 Southwind 34' RV sitting on some acreage outside of Portland shortly after. It was a bit over our original budget, but was a sound piece of metal, very clean, and most importantly--it smelled good. So, one long drive over the mountain and The Donal Duck Truck was a reality.

We spend the next month searching for fabric in the remnant piles of JoAnn's, reupholstering the seats, removing carpeting and spraying the entire inside white.

THE BEFORE

The Bedroom Before and After

RV Remodel Before and After

The Front Before and After

The whole RV was very clean but done in mauve furnishings with wood colored shelving. Made the entire space look very dark, drab and dated.

BEFORE: Sitting Area and Drivers Seat

BEFORE: Seating Area

BEFORE: BEDROOM

DURING THE REMODEL

The first thing to come out was the carpeting. After carpet was pulled and a good cleaning, we were ready to paint.

Once all the carpet and furniture was removed, we were able to paint it. Warning! My dad is a professional painter so we had access to a professional sprayer and all the right tools but this was a PAIN! We had to sand down all the surfaces, tape for nearly two days, and then put on two coats of Kilz (four gallons!) and four gallons of paint plus primer. Then it had to dry for nearly two weeks.

While the paint dried, we went searching for fabrics to do the curtains, couch, and valances. I scoured fabric stores for bargain fabric, most of which was between $1.35 and $5 a yard (for the vinyl runs).


Once the paint was dry, we cut and glued down a vinyl floor. The flooring was $15.71 a linear foot (12 feet wide).

THE AFTER: AN OREGON DUCK TAILGATER!

With the extra fabric, we recovered an old picture board. Everyone's favorite piece, however, is the battery-operated art deco light which was an impulse buy on clearance at Fred Meyer for $12.

After finishing the inside, everyone decided it was "too white and impersonal" so we fixed that by adding some pictures of ourselves at the Duck games to the cabinets. It was one of the most expensive parts of the decor, at $5.99/picture.

AFTER: The Bedroom. I found the comforters at Target for $25/piece (on clearance). The most expensive fabric was the Oregon Ducks printed fabric used to make curtains in the back.

AFTER: The dining area. To save money, we re-covered the dining table in diamond plate vinyl contact paper which I found online for $30/roll.

This green vinyl was a lucky find at only $5, but there was only two yards of it, so we had to use a green outdoor fabric on the back of the cushions and supplement the lack of fabric on the font with a green chevron outdoor fabric which we scotch-guarded. All and all though, it looks cool and is pretty stain-proof.

A simple fix to an ugly fridge? Cover it in stainless steel contact paper.

To save money and add something personal to the beds, we sewed pillowcases out of old Duck T-shirts.

Our one mistake was throwing out the old stained original mattresses and replacing them with standard twins, not knowing they were in fact extra long singles, not twins. So, we still have to build out the bed frames. Because the beds are wider than the originals, we had to replace the built in bedside table with a smaller one.

AFTER: The Kitchen. We didn't do much here, just covered the fridge and painted it white.

The kitchen

Pictures, pictures everywhere!

AFTER: The Backside.

AFTER: The left side. My husband sewed all the seat covers and upholstery. I think it looks amazing! We chose to do the couch in a brown fake leather, inspired by a football.

Still need to do the drivers seats which are currently just covered by UO seat covers. Notice the grey carpet in the front which we also replaced. Only $.50/yard at Lowes.

Check out the upholstery job on the chair!

I absolutely LOVE version 2 of the Duck Truck! Look for us at the games!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Red and Co-Ed: Creating a shared kid's room

When we moved into our house in 2010, we had two parents, and Auntie, a son, and a dog. Now, three years later, we have two parents, no Auntie, a son, and a daughter.

I think a house is really always a work in progress. A standing piece of work that reflects your place in life at that very time. Just think of how much a house says about a person. Is it neat and organized? Comfortable and loungy? Modern? Void of live things?

So when our daughter was born, we had to figure out just exactly where should would fit into our work-in-progress home.

Though large, our house is only a three bedroom, and the third bedroom is a second master which doesn't make much sense for a toddler. We had two other options: convert the loft to a livable bedroom, or have my son share his room. So, we asked our son where he thought she should go, and he was thrilled with the idea of having a roommate.

The only problem? Well, our son is ALL BOY, and we wanted this room...

To look like these rooms...

Here's where my mistakes have been made in the past: I always choose a theme that the kid's outgrow. For Noah, first we did the monster theme...

And then we did the Cars theme...

But this time, the theme was going to much simpler: RED. Yes, just a color.

So, here's how we turned a boy room, into a red co-ed shared room...

First, we had to make more room, so we turned the "L"-shaped bunk beds into stacked bunk beds. This freed up a lot of floor space - AND - bonus! after the conversion we were left with practically a whole other bed frame which we put into to the loft thanks to hubby's handiwork.

The beds had to be retrofitted to go from a "L" shape, to a stacked set of bunk beds

Once stacked, there was so much more room!

I really like older homes because they have so much character. That's so hard to find in a new home. I noticed that a lot of the rooms I liked so much had sort of a barn-like feeling from painted paneling, so I thought, "we can fake that!" I found sheets of plain paneling at Lowes for about $9 a panel and had my husband nail them to our bland drywall walls.

Paneling was $9/sheet. Perfectly cheap, but it did require sanding and a primer in order to get the paint to stick.

We cut the paneling 7' tall, and added wood trim to the top and seams to give that sort of barn/attic look. The wood trim was from the fencing department at Lowes, and only cost about $1.50 each.

Paneling and trim is up and ready for paint.

Great find! This corner shelf was at Goodwill for $7.00 and fit perfectly in the corner.

Once the walls were finished, we sanded, primed, and painted the paneling and trim to match the antique white satin trim that already exists in the room.

A red candy-cane-striped rug became the inspiration for the decor. I spotted it for $129 at Home Goods and couldn't resist.

I started placing items back in the room but noticed it still felt a little crowded. The configuration of the room does not allow for a bed without at least partially covering the window (and, incidentally, it's the best view in the house). I experimented with a few things...

By pushing the bed away from the window a couple feet, I found that there was a whole new open feeling. The room now gets more light, and the view is much less blocked.


Pushing the bed away from the window made a huge difference in the way the room felt and how much light comes in.

The final touch was adding the details. I bought some pre-cut wood letters in both a girly font (for Nicollette) and a boy-ish font (for Noah) and painted them red. Since Nicollette has 10 letters, this was a pretty spendy part of the makeover--almost $20 just for Nicollette's name.

I finished off the look with two Pottery Barn comforters I found on Ebay, some flannel holiday pillowcases, a festive throw pillow, and two lanterns from Lowes.