Our 1994 Class C Motorhome Renovation (for under $500!)

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If you can remember buying your first RV, you’ll understand the joy (and fear) we felt when we bought our 1994 Coachmen Leprechaun motorhome. We also instantly knew that the RV that was as old as us would need a major motorhome renovation to be road-worthy.

We knew we couldn’t afford a fancy, new motorhome. And the ready-to-drive used rigs at dealerships were out of our price range. Our only choice was a pre-owned fixer-upper from Craigslist. But we knew if we bought a used camper, we’d need to do a major motorhome renovation to make the rig feel like our first home together.

Before:

 

After:

 

Grand Plans for An RV Honeymoon

Newly married and ready to set out on our honeymoon, our goal was to hit all forty-eight contiguous states, film our adventure, and even write a book about our travels.

We did yet know that this RV would become our home for nearly two years, or that we would love it so much that we would become full-timers. But we did know that our motorhome would be our first home together, and we wanted it to be as comfortable as possible.

Our 20-year-old Class C would serve as a home, workspace, storage unit, and film studio. Using DoItYourselfRV.com, we scoured every article on class C motorhome renovations to spark some ideas for our remodel.

With a 29-foot rig and no slide-outs, we needed to choose colors and updates to make the motor home feel more spacious and homey.

We loved this Jayco redesign and used nearly all of their ideas – except for the lime green everywhere. That seemed like a little much to me. We wanted something a little more mellow.

Before this remodel, Heath had never painted a wall. But he was overly confident he could manage this whole remodel independently.

In the middle of wedding planning, mapping out our honeymoon road trip, and working, we gave ourselves exactly one week to complete our renovation. (You probably think that’s way too crazy, and we’d now agree with you!)

Here was our grand plan for the Coachmen Leprechaun:

A $500 Budget

We found all of our painting and flooring supplies easily at Lowe’s. Altogether, we spent about $500 to complete the motorhome renovation ourselves. The most expensive part was replacing the floors, but the old linoleum and dark blue carpet had to go!

Our other ideas included replacing all of our lights with LED bulbs and mounting a television, but then we looked at pricing and gave up on those dreams. $20 a lightbulb? No thanks.

If we had the budget, I would’ve replaced our drawer pulls and handles with something more modern, but we quickly and easily spray painted them with a silver finish. spraypainting hinges

Removing all of the furniture and cabinet doors was simple enough with the right power drills, but it took nearly a whole day.

As we primed, I threw out the idea of leaving the entire camper white. I loved how bright it looked! Heath fought me on it and won. (“We already bought the blue paint!”) Looking back, I still love the all-white look!!

Priming the RV took the two of us two full days. 🥵  Walls and cabinets primed
Look at all that white! The little spindles on what would become our spice shelf took forever! You don’t realize how many nooks and crannies are in your RV until you take a paintbrush to them.

The aqua chiffon blue brightened our new mobile home even better than we could’ve imagined. Contrasted with the white cabinets, our tiny living area felt much bigger and happier, or as my husband says, “It feels like a traveling beach house.”

inside-rv-full

We quickly found that the small details of the motorhome renovation were the most important. Spray-painting all of the hinges and all of the handles in silver wasn’t high on our priority list until we saw what 1994 shiny gold looked like…horrible.

After we finished painting all of the walls and cabinets, I needed to return to work, so I left the construction to my husband (in retrospect, obviously a bad idea).

All he needed to do was paint the table, put the cabinet doors back on, and lay the new laminate floor. I’d installed laminate before, so I knew it was easy enough for him to handle. We had already ripped out the carpet and planned to lay the boards directly over the linoleum that was in our living area.

While I worked, he continued to renovate. He found shower curtains that perfectly matched our walls. His mother lined and sewed them into curtains for our living area windows. She also found a tan slipcover to cover our hideous couch perfectly.

My husband decided to grand reveal the finished RV to me for dramatic effect. I didn’t mind—that meant I didn’t have to help finish the construction!

When I walked in, I noticed our previously white overhead loft was suddenly dark grey.

img_6297

We had argued endlessly about whether or not to paint the loft, and finally had agreed NOT to – but he painted it anyway! This is what I get for leaving Heath alone with our house.

We kept our remodel simple. We were careful when picking an RV with no major system fixes. Just a little cosmetic lift, and our new home felt much bigger and more comfortable than when we picked it up! Simply painting the walls and replacing the floors made a difference. Our 20-year-old model, affectionately known as “Franklin the Turtle” for his speed, looks at least a decade younger.

11 Responses

  • Its fun to look back at where you two started! I love the before and after and how you did it on such a low budget, nice work! Keep up the good work! You are both so positive and inspirational to so many! God bless you both!

  • Hi Alyssa!

    So thrilled to have found your blog! My fiancé and I just put a deposit on our first RV this week (a 2001 Coachmen Catalina), and are planning to renovate the inside ourselves before moving into the rig full time at the start of next year. The work you did on Franklin has really inspired us. We’re hoping to yield similar results on a similar budget.

    I’m a little concerned about flooring though, and would be super grateful for any insight you could offer. It seems the more research I do about the available options, the more confused I get! I’ve read a lot of posts that discourage laminate in RVs, because of their suceptability to water damage and health risks from formaldehyde exposure. Then I’ve read other things that suggest luxury vinyl isn’t tolerant to particularly hot or cold temperatures, which is problematic if you’re traveling constantly like we will be. Almost everything I’m reading warns about buckling and separating for both types, with and without adhesive, because of motion and torque. So I’m basically left feeling like everything other than carpet (which is gross) is either going to get ruined or give me cancer.

    Did your laminate flooring hold up over time? Would you recommend it to another young couple who are probably about to get in way over their heads while renovating their first mobile home? Have you since learned about superior options from other folks you’ve met on the road? You didn’t get cancer from formaldehyde exposure, did you??? Kidding… Mostly 😬

    Thanks in advance for any and all advice you might have for us! Hope to cross paths with you somewhere down the road!

    • Hey Elli!

      I’ll let Alyssa chime in as well… but I know that after awhile our flooring did have some issues with both water damage (it was actually spilled toilet cleaner) and separating. It was actually a huge pain in the butt to deal with the separating floors and it really bothered me. However, we didn’t get sick from the flooring :).

      I would probably do laminate flooring again, but maybe do a bit more research from others who have also done the floor thing. I’d also probably find a way to glue or secure the floating floor… as last time I just locked them into place instead of securing them down with some kind of glue.

      Let us know what you find out!

      • Hi again! Thank you both so much for taking time to offer your input. Knowing that you did ultimately deal with some separation and water damage (and that you evaded cancer 😉) definitely helped us to narrow in on the right material and installation method for our project. We’ve decided to go with interlocking luxury vinyl planking plus a tile adhesive, directly on top of the subfloor. Waterproof, still cheap (coming in just over $100 for flooring and materials), and I think that the stability of interlocking planks combined with glue will keep everything where we need it. Plus it seems the intolerance to temperatures would mostly be a problem if the RV were stored in such a climate long term. Probably won’t be an issue for us since we’re living in it full time and traveling full time as well.

        Will be sure to let you know how it all turns out- not that I imagine you’ll be renovating an RV again anytime soon, but you know, knowledge and stuff! We’re also attempting to undertake the entire project in about a week over Christmas, which I’m already ever so slightly nervous about (apparently I’m only heeding part of your experiential advice). Keep your fingers crossed for us! Thanks again for all the information!

    • Agree with Heath on what he said!

      Except: Heath never finished installing our baseboards nor did he put down the metal piece to separate our wood floors from the linoleum in the bathroom. So I would say if you do those two things like you’re supposed to when you install it, you’ll be fine! The actually planks held up fine, just a little separation.

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