She's Crafty: RV Drawer and Cabinet Knobs

I'm a crafty person. I love to create, to add my personal touch to a space, to incorporate what is important to my family into spaces we live in. The cabinet knobs and drawer pulls in the RV were a heavy brass, and while they were durable and stylish for the old decor, they don't match what we're doing at all. Plus they were really heavy, and as much as possible, we have tried to remove anything heavy from the RV.

So I thought wooden pulls would be fun, because we could paint them with my son's favorite characters, adding color, fun and whimsy to the drawers. And the wood is really lightweight! Bonus!

So here is a collage of what I painted - the collaboration from my family was of which characters to do. I sort of took it over and did the rest. 

RV paint job

I thought that I'd just show you the painting my husband did in the RV all these months. I helped some, but he did the majority of the work. I painted all the cabinet doors and drawers, and did some of the blue in the bedroom. He did everything inside the RV.

My favourite green for a living room. We had this in our first house, and I have never stopped loving this colour. Notice all the white cabinets. Those were cherry wood before. We wanted everything light and bright.

Detail of the white laundry cabinet - again, was cherry wood. I know wood purists will be gobsmacked by this, especially given that it is REAL wood - in an RV - which is rare. But White really makes the space feel bigger, and if there is one thing I know about my family, it's that we do NOT do well in dark, cave-like spaces.

A lose-up of the blue in the bedroom that also shows the floors and trim. 

Blue bedroom. 

Purple bathroom vanity area. 

Purple toilet area. Same purple, the lighting is just a bit different. 

One sofa back in on the green wall. Not installed, just sitting there. 

detail of white cabinets. 

White kitchen cabinets. 

White overhead cabinets. No handles yet because I am still painting those. 

White kitchen.

Bathroom sink. 

Bedroom drawers. 

Bedroom overhead cabinets. 

All totally white. This took sooooooo long to do!

Bedside drawers. 

Bathroom mirrors. 

Front of the cab. That big box is still cherrywood. We left it because we're having it removed and replaced, so no point in bothering to paint it. 

we can haz floors!

We thought they would be done by Friday, and then by Wednesday, and in the end, they were done by Tuesday of the following week. But THEY ARE DONE!!! Which means we can move to the next step in getting the RV ready to be inhabited. 

The slide is in, so those rubber strips you see over the floors are to temporarily protect the floors from being marred by the rollers in the slide.

My husband will do the trim and reinstall the sofas this weekend. Hopefully he will even have time to install the curtain rods!

I better get to making those curtains.

Detail of the floor pattern. We used a "cheat" eco-friendly floor (we just could NOT afford bamboo, plus it was too thick). It's still better from an eco standpoint than stuff you might find at Home Depot, but not as good as bamboo, for example, as far as sustainability and renewability. We DID get it at a locally-owned, family run business called Rug Bug Eco Flooring, and the guy we ended up hiring to do the job was a flooring contractor they use and recommended (he also gave us the least expensive quote). 

The really good news is that even *I*, with my insanely sensitive sense of smell/sensitivities can stand inside the RV on those floors with no issues. Impressive for ANY sort of flooring/new materials, IMO. There is one building supply store in all the land I can actually tolerate being inside of without having a mast cell reaction, and it's The Green Depot in SE Portland - I've even commented to them how amazed I was that I didn't even need my mask to go in - that's nothing short of a miracle for somewhere that sells paints and varnishes and flooring and other building supplies. 

It goes all the way back into the bedroom. Having floors makes me so happy!

Look at this nook. Think about ALL the cuts they had to do to shape this floor, which was planks, into this space. No wonder it took three days (of actual work time).

Again with the nooks and crannies and cuts they had to make to fit them all. 

You can see into the front of the RV from here, and the planks that are left. My husband is using these to do the elevated bathroom floor himself. We were originally going to do something else but these are leftover, which makes it "free" material, so we might as well use what we already have. He'll do that this weekend. 

One step closer! Not too much longer now!

Finally, it feels like progress! Of course it will, it's spring!

it's coming apart - and together!

It's all becoming official. We have insurance for the RV. I am licensing it this week. The inside is torn apart - valances and blinds taken out, carpets taken out, smaller sofa taken out - so the floors can be done and painting can happen. Right now it looks like this inside:

I am trying hard to convince my husband that he wants to tear out that tile and replace the whole floor with hardwood, but he seems unconvinced. I told him we can even pay someone else to do it...there are some journeymen on Craigslist needing work that could probably do it easily. I just think that tile looks so ugly and boring, and hardwood everywhere would be so shiny.

It took a great deal of work getting that carpet up - two full days of the weekend! What a pain for my poor husband, doing it all himself. When an RV is built, it's from the ground up....so first they build the shell, then put in the flooring and wallpaper, then add cabinets, dashboard, etc. So the carpeting is all underneath everything, and in some places, impossible to get out. This is part of why I think he ought to pay someone - so much to do to get the house and the RV ready, and all at the same time - let's find relief where we can get it!