Stylish Fifth Wheel Remodel for a Family of Four

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Kimmie and Will Pitman travel full-time with their two young kids in a beautifully renovated fifth-wheel RV. Their journey as full-time RVers started after re-evaluating their life path and deciding to take a courageous yet untraditional new path. After about 18 months of planning, they bought a 2019 Forest River Impression 27MKS. Then the fifth wheel remodel began in order to make it a full-time home for their family!

“We purchased our rig for a good deal, and I proceeded to gut it and renovate it to fit our family,” Kimmie shared. “My husband and I share a passion for health and wellness and movement. So our entire rig is geared toward leading a healthy lifestyle.”

The Forest River Impression BEFORE the Renovation

As you can see from the photos, their Forest River fifth wheel was all brown and beige when they purchased it. It feels very dark and more like a rolling hotel room than a home. Just wait to see what the Pitmans did to make this space brighter and more functional!

The Pitmans not only changed the colors and overall vibe of their fifth wheel, they dramatically changed the living area by removing all the seating the RV came with. The bedroom also turned from one large bed to a bunk bed for the kids and an open floor area where their parents sleep.

Their Beautiful & Bold Fifth Wheel Remodel

We are loving this remodel of the Forest River Impression! It is a great example of what bold color choices and fun patterns can achieve. Bright paint, stencils, and minimalist decor with many plants come together to create a stylish and functional living space with lots of room to play!

Here are some of the other top changes the Pitmans made: “We removed the TV, table, couch, and chairs from the main living area and added a Berkey [water] station, a fold-out floor table (we sit on meditation cushions at the table and the table bi-folds up to maximize space when not in use), a floor/play couch, and a recycling/waste station and broom/utility closet).”

As part of their focus on health, the Pitmans painted their bedroom with EMF-blocking paint and grounded the floor with copper fabric. “We also sleep on cotton/wool minimalist mattresses (the kids on bunks, us on the floor), which benefits our bodies by increasing lymph flow and ‘rolling out’ our muscles each night.” (See more inspiration for RV bunk bed DIYs.)

About the Pitmans & Their RV Remodel

Here are some of the top questions you may be wondering about this fifth wheel remodel as well as about this sweet family. You can follow along with their story and reach out with any other questions on Instagram, @WildPitmans.

Q: Why did you decide to have a living area with floor seating?

A: The reason we ‘live’ on the floor is for health and mobility/joint strength. In Japan, this style of living is still common in more traditional villages. But in the USA and other first-world countries, we sit in chairs/on couches/in cars/at desks all day. 

Our hips and knees and ankles are constantly at 90-degree angles. Years of this posture make our joints weak and immobile leading to falls/broken hips/knee replacements in our older population. Our goal with living and raising our family this way is to keep our bodies strong and mobile into old age.

This couch also serves three purposes: 1. It’s low to the ground but still comfortable, 2. Doubles as extra sleeping space when you take the top cushions off, and 3. It’s a play couch! So on rainy days in the RV, the kids can use it to build forts and play structures.

Check out this RV Inspiration article for sofa replacement ideas!

Q: What do you do with all your plants on driving days?

A: I actually only move five plants into the shower on moving day – the rest stay put with heavy-duty Velcro!! Including the ones on the shelf above the doorway.

Q: Why did you start full-time RVing as a family?

A: We are really inspired by people striving to live lives authentic to who they are, no matter how unconventional it may seem, which has in turn given us the courage to take this journey.

My husband was a full-time physician. [He] went through 20+ years of school and training, got to the ‘dream’ part of attending physician, and found it incredibly stressful, unhealthy, and unfulfilling. And as his wife, I watched it slowly change him into someone he wasn’t. 

COVID hit, and it granted us time with him (physician hours were cut to half during lockdown). It made us realize time together as a family was the most important thing to us. It changed our life.

Over the course of the next 18-20 months, we refocused our life. We paid off all of our debt (with medical school loans, it was over a quarter of a million dollars), sold our home, bought our fifth wheel and truck, then hit the road full-time, and haven’t looked back! 

People typically just cannot understand why we would give up the “glamorous doctor life” to live in a trailer, but we aren’t typical people.

Q: How are you liking RV life in your fifth wheel remodel?

A: Our main overarching goal is to ‘live outside’ as much as possible – cook outside, school outside, play outside. The RV is basically there for sleep and protection from inclement weather. 

Our family is thriving from living tiny. I can easily say that I’ll never return to a ‘normal’ size house again. And I’m happy that we’re teaching our children that they don’t need the ‘American dream’ to be happy or fulfilled.

We are all about living healthy so we can feel good and enjoy nature with our kids while they’re still at home! We strive to live intentionally and love to help and encourage others along the way!

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