Summer 2024 Big-RV renovations

On the three-year trip, I modified our 5th wheel RV so that the rear bunkhouse had two separate rooms, which first involved adding a door from the living room into the rear bathroom.

We’ve been thinking about what to do with the floorplan in our post-children-travel era, so this summer we decided to put in a little work on the 5th wheel.

Here’s the “before” floorplan:

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We first removed the wall between the bedrooms:

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And we’re back to one big bunkhouse:

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We want a more open floorplan, so the wall between the main room and the bunkhouse needs to go:

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That’s better:

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Next, we transformed the rear bathroom into a home office space:

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Done:

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Next, we removed the bunkhouse cabinetry:

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Done:

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Pulled out the carpet:

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Removed the slide trim:

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Blank slate:

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Removed the main room’s slide carpet:

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I had previously replaced this section of floor due to water damage from the slide not sealing correctly, but the new section was a little taller than the original floor.  I pulled it out and cut down the joists to make the height correct.

I also removed more of the original flooring that was water damaged:

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Building out the replacement floor:

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Done:

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I de-carpeted the forward half of the RV, but the stairs were not usable sans carpet, so I removed them too:

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Carpet out of bedroom:

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We added shiplap to the back wall:

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We bought a sofa for one of the bunkhouse (which is now the living room) slides.  We’re waiting for the cushions to “inflate” after unpacking them.

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The other bunkhouse slide will become the garage.  Testing the fit:

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I drew up and 3D printed a fork mount for the mountain bike:

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Works well:

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Framing the garage door:

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Done:

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I removed the sink plumbing in the former second bathroom:

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I don’t have plywood of the right thickness to plug the sink supply line hole, so I drew and printed a disc to plug the hole:

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I capped the toilet plumbing and printed a plug for this hole as well:

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I installed gas shocks to allow the garage door to be held open:

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Building a new set of bedroom steps:

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Just for fun, I modified my home standing desk and built a tabletop out of the kids’ old RV bunk tables to test the feel of the “home office”:

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The main room slide seemed to leak, which I traced to the waterproofing tape that covers the screws that attach the slide wall to the slide roof.  The screw heads had worn through the waterproofing tape, allowing in water.  I re-taped all the slides:

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Back in the garage, I added rubber flooring:

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I built a locking mechanism for the garage door.  Looking up at the underside of the open garage door:

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Garage door closed and locked:

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Bikes in the garage:

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Road bike mounted with a fork mount I drew and printed:

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That’s it for now!