Ben's WW2 Project

Pop-up Camper Remodel

About one month ago, we bought an old pop-up. It is a 1994 Jayco 1206. It is in great shape, but a bit dated on the inside. We found the camper on Craigslist for $2000 and were pleasantly surprised to find it a large one. It has a king size bed on one side and a queen on the other. With 5 kids, the large size was a huge blessing.

Inside there is a u-shaped seating area with a table and a booth with a table. It has quite a bit of counter space and cabinets. We were so pleased to find a camper in our price range (aka cheap) that also had lots of room. 

For the remodel, we were on a tight budget. To start, I dug through some old bedding I had in storage and found a color pallet I liked. The bedding had navy and red, so this was the basis for our color scheme. I then shopped JoAnn's and found a patterned cotton duck in similar colors. 

We decided to paint the cabinets RED to freshen them up. They first had to be painted with a primer. We used Zinsser primer. For some reason, the Handyman had a partially used gallon of Zinsser primer in the garage. We then painted the cabinets red. It was a bit of work but I had helpers. The Handyman also painted the underside of  the bed platforms just for weather proofing and he painted the top of the camper with a white roof coating.

My older daughters helped me remove all of the hardware from the cabinets and we painted them silver. The silver looks so much better than the old brass. We also covered the refrigerator with black chalkboard contact paper.

My wonderful mom made new covers for all of the cushions and she helped with new curtains. For the new curtains, we bought room darkening curtains, cut them in half and then added a few inches of the same material we used for the cushions. We then sewed on strips from the previous curtains.

I covered the main table with contact paper, rather than a tablecloth. I am hoping it will be easy to clean and replace when necessary. 

The cushions were a lot of work, but they look great. I am so thankful I have a mommy who helped out with the sewing. 

This is just a shot of some of the organization tools I am trying to have available. I am using a bedside caddy on the end of the bench seat. It has a place for tissues and space for my hubby to keep a few things. There's a mesh shower caddy hanging from the bar in the back in the bed area. I plan to use that for my glasses, Kindle, and other little things that I need to stash or keep safe from the other 6 bodies in the camper. I have another mesh shower caddy for the kids side. Counter space is at a premium, so hoping these little caddies help keep things off the counters.

Chicken Coop

We have chickens!! The coop turned out beautifully and the chickens are very happy. They are now even laying eggs. We are getting 6-8 eggs a day. We are getting ready to head to Fair for 4H and we are taking 9 chickens. It will be fun!

We made our chicken coop by adding a "porch" onto a shed. We put in a concrete stem wall so we could secure the hardware wire and keep critters and predators out.

The coop has hardware wire on three sides. We also used an old rod iron door that we spray painted black. The door seems a bit fancy for a chicken coop, but it was free. 

We put roosting cabinets and nesting boxes inside the coop. 

This roosting cabinet was made from an old outdoor kitchen cabinet. Behind the door is a nesting box. Right now about 5 chickens share that one nesting box.

This roosting cabinet and nesting box was made from an old armoire. 

Chickens!

We are getting ready for chickens. We need to have a pen ready in about 3 weeks, so the push is on. 
I repurposed an old wardrobe into a chicken coop. This will go inside our larger chicken pen. There's three nesting boxes behind the door. By opening the door we have easy access to the eggs. The other side is for roosting. I did the work myself, and learned how to use a jig saw, a pneumatic stapler and a chop saw. It was a good afternoon.

Problems

When watching Love it or List It or Property Brothers, every home renovation runs into problems. Well, we ran into ours (with more to come, I'm sure). When the Handyman went to replace the windows in our living room  and family room, we found some damage... termite damage. Thankfully, there were no little critters, but they had obviously found our walls to be yummy.

A large section of our walls had to be replaced. I am thankful the Handyman was able to clean up this mess and rebuild what the termites destroyed. 

Demolition

I watch a lot of HGTV, especially Property Brothers and Love It or List It. I also enjoyed Extreme Home Makeover. Demolition looks like so much fun on all of those shows but I have recently learned it is NOT as much fun as it looks.

1. Demo is NOT fun when you are living in the home.
2. Demo is NOT fun when you just spent lots of $$$ putting in new windows and a glass door. 
3. Despite my best efforts, my kick and punch are a bit pathetic against 1/2" drywall.
4. Demo is only fun if done the Extreme Home Makeover way, ie. bulldozer!

This is what I accomplished on my own last night...

Today, I have had a bit more experience and I'm rockin' this. And I like having my own little helpers.

Kitchen Remodel Phase 1 - Part 2

I had a holiday today, so it was a great chance to work a bit on the house. The Handyman helped me demo the rest of the wall. I love how open it is now and once we are finished we will have a great space for dining.

Now that the dining area is opened up, the Handyman decided to continue working and we have moved on to Phase 2 - the Island!! I think he is enjoying having the Foreman home and helping. And I am having fun working with him.