A Top to Bottom Travel Trailer Remodel

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If you buy a used camper, a trailer remodel may be at the forefront of your mind. This full-time RVing couple decided to downsize from a fifth wheel to a travel trailer and renovate it from top to bottom. And they did it all for under $1500!

Meet Full-Time Travelers Brooke & Michael

Hi, I’m Booke. I’m a full-time RVer! I travel with my husband, Michael, and our two cats, Lola and Mazie.

After traveling in our fifth wheel for almost a year, we knew this was a lifestyle we loved and wanted to continue doing. But, we didn’t like the limitations our giant camper and huge diesel truck gave us. The truck was great for towing, but once we parked the camper, it was our only vehicle. Parking anywhere was always a hassle.

Call us crazy, but we also didn’t feel like we needed all of the space and storage that we had in our fifth wheel! We had a few empty or barely filled cabinets and were carrying around some items that we didn’t really use or need. 

So, while sipping some wine and watching a beautiful sunset at a super cute RV park in Texas, my husband and I decided to downsize our truck and camper. We then planned our route back to our home state of Iowa, where we would be able to find a new camper, remodel it, and sell our fifth wheel.

Switching from a Fiver to a Trailer

It didn’t take us long to find a camper that fit all our needs and was within budget. We bought a 2013 Forest River Wildwood Travel Trailer. Our requirements for the layout were:

• an enclosed full bathroom
• a bedroom that is separate from the living area
• and a living area where the TV would be directly across from the couch (which is weirdly hard to find!) 

Our fifth wheel was 35 feet long, had three slideouts, and weighed about 15,000 lbs. This travel trailer was 30 feet long with one slideout and only weighed about 7,500 lbs. This meant we could also get a much smaller truck! (And save on gas!)

The interior of this camper was brown on brown on brown.

Brown floors, brown cabinets, brown furniture, brown carpet, brown valances—everything brown! The only brown we intended to keep in the camper was the vinyl flooring and kitchen countertops.

The floor and countertop were in great condition, and replacing those would be pretty expensive, so we were fine with keeping them as is. 

But the rest needed to go.

Travel Trailer Remodel: Demo Day

This camper was pretty easy to demo compared to renovating our fifth wheel. We got rid of all the furniture and valances, and tore the carpet up from the slide out and the pass-thru storage in the bedroom. 

Step 1: Painting

Before we could paint the walls, we needed to remove the wallpaper borders in the kitchen and living area. This was not a fun task, but we found the easiest way to do it was to put a heat gun or hair dryer on it to loosen the glue and slowly pull it off.

Next, we lightly sanded the walls and ceiling, then put on one coat of primer. We then painted the walls and ceiling in Dutch Boy Crisped White. This made it so much brighter!

Read Next: The Best Paint to Use in Your RV (For Walls and Cabinets!)

Step 2: Replacing Slide Out Flooring

The sheet vinyl was in great condition, so the only floor we had to replace was the slide-out. I had a hard time deciding what to put here. I felt like putting another type of wood wouldn’t look good because it wouldn’t match exactly. Real tile would be way too heavy and such a pain to install, and we didn’t want carpet because we have 2 cats and wanted something with easy cleanup of pet hair and messes.

We ended up going with Mohawk Strike Meridian Stone sheet vinyl. This was a pretty easy install: We just measured the floor, cut the vinyl to size, and laid it down—no glue needed! We used quarter-round molding along the walls and a transition piece along the front to give it a more finished look.

Step 3: Lighting

We replaced all of the fluorescent lighting with new LEDs. Low ceilings meant we couldn’t do fun decorative fixtures in this camper. We needed the lights to be as flush as we could get them so we wouldn’t hit our heads on them.

DIY: How to Replace RV Light Fixtures Yourself

Renovating the Trailer Kitchen

We originally painted our cabinets in Dutch Boy Superhero, but we weren’t happy with how it turned out, so we repainted them in Dutch Boy Rain Shower Blue.

We also created 2 new storage spaces in the kitchen by knocking out a piece of wood next to the microwave that was covering up a perfectly good cabinet space and another piece under the stove.

If you look closely under the stove, you can see that we turned a cabinet door sideways to fit our new storage space! This was the perfect spot for our pots and pans.

To keep the kitchen looking more modern, we replaced the handles on all the cabinets and spray-painted the hinges to match. We also updated the faucet to match the new hardware color. All of the appliances still worked and were already black, so we didn’t need to do any updating there.

Creating The Office

We bought a small desk from IKEA that nicely held all of my work equipment. It fits perfectly between the TV and the kitchen counter. 

Remodeling the Bathroom

In the bathroom, we replaced the sink, countertop, and faucet on the vanity.

Product currently sold out.

For the countertop, we bought a piece of edge-glued board. I stained it and put four coats of polyurethane sealant on top. Knowing that it would get a lot of water on it, I wanted to make sure it was really resistant to moisture. (Two years later, it still holds up to all the water drops that get on it!)

However, the sealant did have a bit of a yellow tint, and after four coats of it, the end color was not what I was going for. We went with a vessel sink to give us the most counter space, and we replaced the faucet to match the rest of the hardware throughout the camper. 

We also put the litter box in the bathroom vanity, as you can see above. We added a cat door on the bathroom door so the kitties would always have access to their litter box. 

Read Next: 8 Ideas for Where to Store a Litter Box in an RV

The Bedroom

In the bedroom, we put the same vinyl on the pass-through shelf that we had in the living room. We also painted the cabinets and replaced the hardware to match the rest of the camper. 

Product currently sold out.

Transitioning from a fifth wheel to a travel trailer meant we lost a LOT of closet space in the bedroom, so we stacked up some plastic drawers to add some clothing storage. We also added a shelf in each closet, and have a shoe rack at the end of the bed. Now we have plenty of space to store our clothes.

Get More Space: 15+ Clothes Storage & RV Closet Organization Ideas

Living Room

I mentioned earlier that one of our criteria when looking for a camper was a TV across from the couch. We had to switch up the initial layout to make this work.

Originally, the TV was on the side of the slide out. We always hate this layout in campers, because you would have to turn your head completely to the left to watch TV. How uncomfortable!

So we removed the 2 recliners and a built-in side table and put our TV across from where we would be sitting. We also did not want to block the big window with our TV all the time, so my brother built us an amazing pop-up TV stand with additional storage! 

On the slide out, we got rid of the couch, table, and chairs that came with the camper and put recliners, a cat tree, and some additional storage. We already had all of these items, so this allowed us to save some money as well.

Where the TV used to be is now our knick-knack shelf. We took off the old countertop and replaced it with the same type of board that we used for the bathroom vanity. Now we have a dedicated space for treasures and souvenirs that we collect along our travels. 

Decor and Details

We kept the added decor at a minimum since anything we put up would need to be put away or secured when we traveled. The only new decor we purchased for this camper was a curtain for our big window. This added some warmth and made it feel more homey. The rest of the decor was all items that we already owned, which helped keep us on budget!

A Top to Bottom Trailer Remodel

Just like with our last camper reno, we were on a budget and determined to do this debt-free. We completed this reno for under $1500, with the biggest expense being the pop-up TV stand ($200 for the mechanism and around $150 for wood and hardware). 

We love traveling the country in our new, smaller set-up! Even though we lost some storage space and square footage compared to our fifth wheel, this camper feels more open and spacious and, more importantly, feels like home.

You can follow us along on our adventures on Instagram or TikTok at @the_path_we_take.