RV Restoration Project: Introduction

This is gonna be such a great project, this being a 1997 Salem Forest River, 23 years old. And the bones of this thing are in good shape. The idea here is to do some upgrades, some renovation and pull this camper, see what I did there? Into the 2020s. What kind of upgrades can we do? Lots of possibilities. Let's have a look. The good news is the bones are good. Maybe the bad news is there are some signs that this is 23 years old and also some stuff you just got to kind of question the design decisions. The deal with this area is that this is also the main bed. This is the big bed. So if you're here as a couple with your, I dunno you're a couple, you're gonna take this table down every night and make this into a bed. Then in the morning, when you get up take the bed apart turn, this back into a table. If somebody has an early riser and somebody isn't and you wanna sit someplace and drink coffee that can be an issue. A two bowl sink when the countertop is so limited doesn't make sense to me. Such limited real estate for countertop but we have a double sink. So I don't know unless somebody convinces me otherwise I see changing this to a single bowl so that there's more space, more countertop space here. They've got a little bit of resolution to that here with this flip-up thing. But when this flip up thing is flipped up, how do you get in and out the door? So I don't really care for that as a solution. Back here, there are three bunk beds and there's some mechanicals back here. So the inverter is here. The water heater is here. We got to keep that in mind. But what I would like to do is take out all of these bunk beds, what I'm gonna do and there's just about room right here for a queen size bed. Might have to be some changes to the cabinet over here and with the queen platform, the mechanicals, the inverter and the water heater would still fit under that. And then we'd have that set here so you wouldn't always have to do that table to bed conversion at the front. This camper is set up for five sleepers and it's a pretty small camper. So I think we can bring this down to where it's set up for a couple back here, a queen size bed and then another maybe a twin or a full that's gonna get set up as needed where the kitchen table is. The bathroom isn't bad Shed, a little light on it. All right, gotta replace the ball. It's not that bad, it's just 23 years old. So this would be worth having a look just probably a new vanity bowl here, a new toilet, just to get more modern stuff in here. Again, not 'cause it doesn't work, but just to get it into the 2020s. And then the other thing I think is potentially cool where this countertop is right there, potable water is under that. But maybe when this all gets reworked, this could become a little workstation here or mini bar that also has some possibilities. And this thing that's, this whole thing has got to go. It's an ugly color. The mirror thing is ugly and then these little, these houses on the end there's nobody home behind there, that's blank space. So to me, it would make more sense for it to be door, door, door, door, door so you can actually get to that. And of course, gallery rails, gallery spindles that inherently dates the camper as do the lovely stuffed valances. All of this is subject to change, don't hold me to any of this 'cause ideas are going to ebb and flow. As things come out, things go in, get to change my mind like I change my socks. One thing I know we got to work on is the awning. From the previous owner, what I learned is there's an electric motor on there and that's what operates it. The electric motor is currently kaput. He wasn't sure if it was the motor or the leads coming into the motor. So he was operating the whole thing manually. So no matter what, we wanna get that right for the next person and get it back to where the motor is doing what it's supposed to do. One thing I think is pretty cool a little add on somebody did. The yellow light, that's really standard on campers everybody's got one of those. But then up tucked under that awning there's also a strip of LEDs and I can see where, a warm summer evening, the awning's open, you have your subtle little led strip on make for a really nice little mood under the awning there. One of the best parts of camping is getting a fire going, I'm gonna cook over the fire and then get the bed ready inside the camper. I'm really glad I did this night in the camper, a little shakedown cruise 'cause I learned a couple of things. Pick out the beds more. The bed, it's crappy. I'm not that tall and I don't fit head to foot on that bed. And the other thing is just the use of space in here isn't that great. It really needs a little better distribution of storage and countertop space, all that kind of stuff. Good news is the bones are good, the mechanicals are good, the furnace worked. I think this could really be a nice trailer for two people. And I'm really excited for the next step which is gonna be start tearing out old stuff and working on upgrades with new stuff.