Glamping with Boys: cabinets

We took our first camping trip in the new popup about a week after we bought it. All we needed to do was load it with our goodies, and hit the road. And by goodies, I mean color coordinated decor so that it would feel like a cozy home away from home! Because my bedding hadn't arrived yet, I just grabbed the bedding from the boy's rooms (because they match! LOL). I bought a blue tablecloth to cover the brown warped table.

If you've ever been in a popup, the overhead lighting is functional. But awful. So I went to Target the night before the trip and grabbed these pretty grey burlap lamps on clearance for $15.00 ea. Great amount of light, and cute. Bonus: I have a cabinet that they fit perfectly in while traveling! I'm going to look at Hobby Lobby for a pretty florette accent that I saw last time I was there. Who knew they made lamp accessories?

In my hunt for new bedding, and all thing organizational for the camper, I found these soft tower bins at Garden Ridge. Best part? They fold completely flat for traveling. Even better? They were 50% off red-line. $12.50 ea. The boys have a tower, and Adam and I have a tower. No living out of a suit case. Underwear and socks and jammies in the top, shorts in the middle, shirts on the bottom.

I needed food storage containers. Critters come out when they smell food and goodies. I found these Better Homes and Gardens brand seal-tight containers at Wal-mart. They worked out GREAT on the first trip.

I enjoyed bringing my crock pot camping this time! Easy lunch! Next trip will be a little chillier, so a crock full of warm soup will be awesome! And no mess!

The camper was great when we bought it...

we just made it better!

Step #1 to renovating a popup camper: have a handy husband. Eventually, I have a goal of learning how to use a saw and drill and power tools, but until that happens, I'm thankful for a Handy Husband who supports my crazy ideas (case in point: renovating a camper).

Adam and I have always been do-it-yourself-ers. If there is something we can build, renovate, paint, tile, etc and save money, we do it. Unfortunately, we don't have as much time as we used to (our oldest plays select baseball year-round and to say we are a dedicated baseball family is an understatement!)

So although our list for renovating seemed LONG, we knew it was do-able. And frankly, we knew we could accomplish it quickly, if we had enough uninterrupted hours.

Just so happened that I turned 33 this year. Yup. I hate it. But it happened. And Adam made the day easy for me by surprising me by taking the day off work!! He had planned on taking me to lunch and shopping and a movie....but given the choice, I was anxious to get check marks on our popup renovation list!! An entire Tuesday to just work on our new PUP (slang for popup). Got the kids off to school, put on our painting clothes, called the Home Owner's Association (that's another story, and a blog post for another day), texted the neighbors to apologize for the monstrosity that would be in the driveway for a few days, and got busy prepping for the day!

Up first: priming the cabinets.

We removed hardware from all of the cabinets, the electrical outlets, the heater grill, the fire extinguisher, etc. Labeled red-solo cups (lol, it's all we had on hand) so that everything could go back to where it came from.

After doing some research, and knowing that our camper has particle board "cabinets", they are not waterproof. Most of the websites I found said to use oil-based primer to avoid swelling of the boards. I used Kiltz from Home Depot $8.99 a quart--and a quart was all we needed!

Opened up all the vinyl windows and went to work. If we had to do it all over again, I would have made SURE that we completely coated the entire surface evenly. Not that we were in a hurry, we just knew that we had only a certain number of hours and we didn't want to waste it watching paint dry.

But do not think for one second that we sat around watching paint dry. Oh no. We are multi-taskers! In the meantime, we chalk painted the door, measured and made cuts for flooring, and measured for a new table. Remember the list? Check Check Check....

Once done priming, we moved on to painting. When I was working on the Dinette Cushions at my mom's, noticed how our cushions matched her paint color upstairs. Hmmmm.

I wanted antique white cabinets.
I wanted paint that matched the cushions

Match made in heaven! The color is called Summertime by Monarch. They have a caulk that matches as well--which comes in to play later when we finish the floors. You'll see.