World Headquarters Transformation

The remodel was a total success. For official release: We are no longer referring to the WMR World Headquarters as a camper or trailer, but instead it has become our tiny home (and office).

Regular readers will remember our recent post covering our on-the-whim decision to give our 1984 Bigfoot trailer a remodel. That post included some frightening photos of our gutted trailer. Our primary goals included painting the interior white and installing a “wood” floor.

Remodels have a tendency to expand in scope and this renovation was no different. It continued to grow along with our excitement. When the paint dried and dust cleared we had painted the entire interior white with gray accents, installed a wood accent wall, vinyl faux-wood plank flooring, new cabinet hardware, LED lights, color matched t-molding, granitized counters, new cushion covers and throw pillows, and custom fit adorable sheets and duvet cover to accompany our brand new mattress. Plus a few accents like water-colored calligraphy art, a letterpressed illustration, barn wood key hooks, barn wood vase shelf, and even labels for the spice jars.

Our initial budget of $300 ended up ballooning to $800 (including a few aptly timed birthday gifts). But despite the expansion, we realized for 1% the price of a decked out Sprinter, we now feel like we have an extremely comfortable living space that’s on par and even more personalized.

The following post is primarily photos with short descriptions. If you are curious and want to know more details (price, methods, tips, etc), please feel free to ask any questions in the comments. We didn’t want to turn our climbing gear blog into a how-to-transform-your-camper blog but we’d love to satiate the curious.

The cabinets

were time intensive and waiting for paint to dry is not my specialty. We puttied the old hardware holes, sanded off the shiny top coat, primed and painted ’em white! My Mom was excited to help out with projects on all her free time. Dad was happy to produce all the tools we needed, deliver a mini-lesson of how to use them and then promptly disappear.

Painting white was…

a challenge. We borrowed an industrial sprayer from a friend (smaller air compressor attachments don’t spray thick primer). We later talked about this being the equivalent to using a machine gun to shoot squirrels. In the end, we figure we used an additional $200 of paint and primer that we would not have needed had we used rollers and brushes. The upside: Using the sprayer gave the cabinet faces and interior a perfectly smooth finish. Final colors: Toasted White and Stone Age grey.

Granitizing the countertops

(painting a faux granite finish) was my favorite project. Andreas was quite skeptical but was willing to let me experiment knowing that we could always update the counters with wood veneer in the future (not in the budget this time).

Gray cushions

that Andreas sewed (including homemade piping!) combined with the granitzed table means the office/dining room/guest bedroom is looking dapper. Upholstery fabric is expensive (our $15/yd fabric was considered cheap) and we used about 4 yards to cover the 4 cushions. Including youtube videos, finding the right fabric, and trips to the store, the cushions alone became a 4-day project. Not shown: An iPad case made of scrap and 2 throw pillows I sewed in the same fabric as our sheets.

The vinyl plank flooring

came from Overstock.com (Tivoli II Silver Spruce Peel ‘N’ Stick Vinyl Planks). We ordered 3 boxes of planks to cover 45 sq. ft of floor (~$60), and you can see the total scrap that remained after finishing the installation. This flooring is 2 millimeters thick with a peel-and-stick backing. Andreas said it was “very forgiving” to put in. Once the floor went in, it was difficult to recognize the camper our tiny home.

Final Accents

After the camper was beautifully clean and white, I started to second guess my wood wall accent idea wondering if we were just putting back what we had erased. But once it was up with a vase and vase shelf, we couldn’t stop smiling and staring at it.

We’re trying not to gush too much about the update but we are seriously stoked. Everyday we talk about how lucky we are to live on wheels as we travel the country. These updates took almost 3 weeks to complete – Andreas worked on it full time while I tried to keep WeighMyRack running along with mini-camper projects. The rain definitely slowed progress at times, but overall the time and energy we spent was completely worth it.

One surprising difference we noticed is that our parents are finally on-board with our plan to keep living on the road; they too appreciate our tiny home.