#VanLife is all the rage. Who wouldn’t want to trade all their worldly possessions for a life of nature and freedom?! I totally get it. But the RV designs, especially the dated ones, are pretty boring. Black and tan and gray, oh my.

My friend found this trailer on FB marketplace for a good deal, but it needed a lot of TLC.

I know this client wanted to get the best bang for their buck, so I set out to design a space that would look very different but still be affordable.

I hoped to create a gender-neutral space that was still modern and felt cozy + playful. Here’s one of my very early mood boards.

And here’s what we did.

RV RENOVATION:

PAINT - The goal was to make the space seem as large as possible, so the idea was to do white upper cabinets/ceilings and dark charcoal lowers. We used “SHERWIN WILLIAM’S IRON ORE’ on the bottom and matched the existing white with a warm white paint. It required several coats with dry time in between. We hired out for this.
BACKSPLASH - You can’t have a kitchenette without a great backsplash! I found these gel sheets on Wayfair, and they were on sale! The client installed these.
BUTCHER BLOCK - This is literally $7. Completely faux, this contact paper is so affordable! Also stick-on, the client installed this too.
CUSHIONS - I’m going to detail these in a separate blog post. I actually re-used the existing foam, seam-ripped, and recovered with a playful-patterned upholstery fabric. No tricky zippers required, but still removable!
TABLE INSTALL - Client came up with this idea, and it was smart! A lot of more modern RV’s have built in tables, so he had a metal piece installed and table built that collapses and goes underneath the dinette set when you need to turn it into a bed. He covered this in the butcher block contact paper as well.
REMOVABLE FAUX HANGING PLANTS - We didn’t want to drill into the shell, so I found these sticky hooks, and we got faux plants in plastic containers.
MUG HANGER - To add more detail, storage, and coziness, this screwed on underneath the cabinet. We tricked it out with camping-safe enamel mugs.
PILLOWS AND THROWS - The ultimate way to make a space cozy is adding in some textiles. We opted for bleach-able white (as the client plans to rent this one), with some other neutral accent colors.