RV Renovation for Under $6K | Before and After Tour

so wanted to do a final rv walkthrough it's been a been a long run to get to this point but uh it's nice to document where it's come to pretty much everything on the exterior looks different at this point framing everything is the same underneath but what i did was just completely take off all this paneling and fix all the rotten wood underneath and just like that the rv is gutted get in there a lot of stuff to to seal the outside make sure it was completely watertight because of course that was the issue before with the water damage and one thing that you know isn't super elegant but it works is after putting up the the siding running a tournament tape the rv repair tape and then painting it to match and also just caulking everything in there i also ran it along the seam on the top there's a rubber roof on top of the metal roof and then made triple sir to seal everything off and then also paint it i kind of wanted to do this nice custom color and i think that it worked well with all the old wood trim that we found to put on here it gives it a completely different look and to me more of like a house feel which i really like all the wiring stuff has had to be redone as well and so everything you see is pretty much brand new or reclaimed use the same door painted it white the outside i mean all the cutouts and everything are just the same but i painted it to match the kind of white theme then here this is a water heater and i had to extend the pipes i didn't have any metal so i took an old uh i think it was a spray can of avocado cooking oil took took the outside off cut it down the middle and then pipe clamped it onto this water heater so the exhaust can actually blow all the way out it did run into issues i mean there's certain parts are not pretty but in this rv there was a lot of penetrations from i don't know what people screwing in things to it but yeah we'll go inside and take a look in here too [Music] welcome inside it uh it's a completely different rv and that was pretty much the goal at the beginning of all this uh to start with kind of that i mean it's a 1970 trailer to start with that base of the the old the whole tired wood veneer um and just green carpet and whatever i wanted to bring it up into the modern age and have that nice white with wood kind of a scandinavian aesthetic pretty much over here first thing in this kind of living area how this was changed is built this custom wheel well um seat here and so the idea being is that you could have storage and put an extra extra chairs or whatever you need in there while still being functional as a bench for the table what i wanted to do is also keep that kind of wood aesthetic this is three quarter inch plywood and then finished the top and made a contraption on the bottom so you could fold it up uh and put it away and all the only thing you would have here protruding is just this bottom piece so you can have a a full bed come over this and then here in the kitchen this may be my favorite part of the whole rv is the the new wood countertops i think this really makes a difference for a space uh and it doesn't have to be expensive what i did was take framing lumber just two by six douglas firs and then put them all together with pocket pockets hole screws and then just give it this cover of many layers of polyurethane after you know buffing it out and then i use the original sink got a new amazon fixture for uh might have been 50 and for the total cost of 20 bucks for this for the framing lumber and the polyurethane and then the faucet here so you know under 100 and you get a completely new look i use led light strips that i just run under and it gives it when you step back and look at it it gives it that nice glow in that countertop lighting and again here you can dim these out which is cool peel and stick backsplash which i think adds a lot and is super cheap and easy to do all of these drawers were they they had no slides and they were stuck so i just used a half inch plywood and made all new drawer slides or drawers and that makes a big difference in your day-to-day actually being able to open and close these just fine over here this is the same propane stove top but it was a i think like a mustard yellow so painted it all black and gave it kind of a more modern look and then up here is the uh the old oven but we don't use that and use it as storage right now and any any space you can find you got to use that's for sure and then down here threw in a microwave uh super useful modern convenience as we all know and just made it so it sticks there in place and i did that by just putting a wood strip underneath and in the back to keep it firmly in place is that i hate when you're opening and closing your microwave and it starts moving around especially if it's an rv you want it to be secure so number one thing that changed i had a broken fridge uh and ideally you would you would go with a propane and electric fridge but since this rv is going to be standing our property mostly i just got you know a nice little mini fridge bought that off craigslist for 40 bucks under here is all the old furnace we're not using that right now just using electric heat but this is all the original piping and we'll keep that as it is and then something that made a huge upgrade to the whole space if you can see it in here is a new instant hot water heater you have instant hot water on demand as long as you really want it and this is the gerard one this may be the most expensive thing i added in here but it was well worth it i even blew a copper line at one point and had to take it all out and and reinstall it which is a pain but worth it in the end move on to the bedroom so this whole space is completely changed it used to be two it was almost like a sofa or a couch area on one side and couch area on the other and then you had a table that came down in the middle i just didn't like that setup and i didn't like having a permanent bed and so my idea for this was like let's make this a really cozy nook but still have a lot of that storage and so this is all custom built it's a queen full queen size bed but i made the frame so you could lift it and access everything that's underneath and so over there you still have your water tanks and i have my water pump and any and some electrical that i ran in there of course you need somewhere to put clothes and you need more storage and i feel like in the original rv build out uh it did not have that and so i thought okay what if the for me the best way to access clothes and the space i had was to build these long drawers and what you can do is just put all your clothes and so like you could have t-shirts socks whatever in there and access them easily it's still a useful space but i like the look and it feels really cozy and again this is super cheap easy to do all i did was took that half inch plywood and just filled the frame build the uh the drawers and used pocket hole screws and and glue and then i put little roller wheels on the bottom so that way you have all the support and they slide out super easily up there is just storage this was the original setup where i think a child could sleep in there but honestly i would not put a kid up there i would just use it for storage and not even too much storage with that just using cheap lumber and refinishing it and making a really nice solid countertop space i learned this from a couple guys on youtube as everything i've done in here it's it's a tv that hides away and has a locking frame and over here is gonna be where the tv is and i've made this pull up tv that hides away which i think is really nice so in the night when you're watching a movie or whatever you can pull it out i made space in here if you wanted to throw an xbox or whatever you might want there's just a mechanism to unlock it and throw it back down in so this is all custom framing or custom build outs to match this bed and again i took any chance to add extra storage so kind of these mailbox style doors where you can see there's a bunch in there a bunch of storage in there and on this other side same thing blackout blinds so what it is is just reflectix and a blackout blind from from walmart i believe that i just cut to fit and i was feeling lazy so i didn't even sew it in i stapled in with your uh standard paper stapler i could have done something more official but this totally works for for my purposes and then what i ended up doing to be able to put it up to the window is i just staple these little velcro spots on it and i have corresponding velcro spots on the window frame and then you just take this thing and put it up just like that and there you have it it really effectively blocks out light and it gives all the privacy you need so i have one for every single window in the rv and then over here just some more storage got a little heater in there again that runs off electric because this is mainly a stationary rv let's take a look at the bathroom you have enough room to really fit in there and then do whatever you need to um and what we what i ended up doing with the shower is keeping all the same frame keeping the tub because it had been such a pain to find another one to put in but i just repainted it all with a like a topside boat fiberglass paint uh which turned out to be really solid and it gave it that that sheen that i wanted in that protection and then of course just caulked out everything with silicone made sure to keep it really watertight she's picked up a nice new shower head from amazon 15 bucks and there you have it i mean for pretty cheap you can do a lot to to change the space might have been a five dollar uh shower curtain but i think it adds the space as well then over here kept the same structure of the bathroom vanity and then kept the same wash bowl here because that would have been something hard to find and replace perfectly but you know you add a new fixture off amazon for just maybe 30 bucks put a brand new toilet in this is a nice dometic and i actually got it off craigslist for uh forty dollars so little things like that that you can really bring the cost of the build down the one thing that was hard in here is to run all new pex plumbing in these old trailers of course there's the the old i guess it would be copper piping and it had busted many leaks all throughout and so what i had to do is go in behind when i had the walls off and then run this new super easy to route uh pex piping for the hot and cold and that made a world of difference we'll cut new fans in this is a i decided just to get a cheap 30 one off amazon for the bathroom it works totally fine to give it a little pop i just had some old uh some some red cedar and then i just cut little strips and put them around here and then same thing over here for the windows this is just some sort of white wood and put that on what i did was buy this from home depot it was like a 30 little medicine cabinet and then to give it that nice warm glow i ran the led strips the peel and stick strips all around it and i think it gives it that really nice modern look and that soft glow one funny thing about this rv is that you can so you have storage you can also access it from here so you know if you're taking a poo someone might be able to come and scare you which is not great and then the the final couple things is just this fan here which is the the nicer fantastic fan super important just to be able to draw any cooking smells or whatever it may be out of here in the rv of course you need just all sorts of different things to make sure your safety's taken care of and having an old rv there weren't the modern i guess electrical conveniences that i wanted so i had to to rewire a lot and one really handy thing that i think is always good to think about is a battery monitor and this also doubles as a little usb charger this so this constantly tells me the voltage of my battery which is important to know so it's at 13.1 which is healthy right now it's being charged off the ac house power and you also have these uh usb inputs for charging your phone and this is the kind of thing that then you could use when you're not plugged into house power in this rv we we have just a few little battery lights that these are these are what you would use if you're not hooked up to the house power there's one over here and then we have this one and this again is just you know a little amazon purchase for maybe 12 bucks something super cheap but it makes a big difference you can also see that i i just put in a normal house fixture which if this rv was moving a lot i might have not done that but this runs off the ac voltage and this again was 35 dollars put some led bulbs and there you go there you have it that's pretty much that's pretty much everything i can think of right now this has been one long project i originally got this rv thinking i would turn around get this thing fixed and in two months uh in a year and a half later we're finally done so the rv was bought for 250 bucks which is super cheap and i should have known at that point that if i was getting it for 250 there was going to be extensive water damage or something but you know i was naive and i just jumped into it towed at home the u-haul over the mountainous passes of oregon which was kind of hard and nerve-wracking but we got it into the yard i just started taking it apart and realized that this was a huge job so in total it was 250 bucks for for the rv and then about six thousand dollars in total for the parts and then like i said countless hours of labor but here she is and uh i'm happy it's done and and i think it it turned out turned out all right yeah so thanks for taking a look

Channel: BRC Builds

Views: 27,223

Rating: 4.984252 out of 5

Keywords: rv remodel, rv renovation, rv life, before and after

Id: ReSwdk8-wdA

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020