Everyone wants to feel at home in their RV. Through the years we’ve watched many of our full-timing friends make a variety of interesting, beautiful and useful modifications to their rigs such as:
? Ripping out old carpet and replacing it with laminate flooring
? Building computer work stations
? Repainting cabinets and walls
? Recovering window treatments
? Installing low VOC eco-friendly countertops
? Adding bunk beds for the kids
? Building aquarium shelving
As each new dazzling project got shared in someone’s blog or on social media, I couldn’t help but be a little envious of their Martha Stewart-like design pizazz. And as much as I knew that I had what it takes to make similar modifications, I knew I couldn’t go there because when Jim and I bought our new Arctic Fox fifth wheel, we made a pact that we would try to keep it as new looking as possible in order to get the best resale value for it someday. Every time I was tempted to play interior designer, Jim reminded me that irreversible changes meant less money in our pocket.
Still, we had to make a few adjustments to make it feel like home. The biggest changes we made inside our rig were adding practical features such as:
? Mounting organization boards (and a few photo frames) to the walls
? Removing window valances and replacing them with curtains
? Replacing traditional lights with LEDs
? Adding wall hooks
Seven years have elapsed since we bought our 24′ RV and finally that “someday” I’ve been waiting for has arrived. Jim finally gave in to my gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) pestering that we need a slightly larger RV and by the time you read this, we will be the proud new owners of a Northwood Arctic Fox 27′ fifth wheel.
As we get ready to trade in our current rig, we came up with a laundry list of things that have to be done to get the most trade-in value from the dealer. In addition to cleaning up the interior, the biggest, most daunting clean-up task is looming just ahead: removing the bumper stickers and vinyl lettering we foolishly applied to the outside of our RV.
This is one of those “What were we thinking?!” turning points: through the years as we dreamed about our RV’s resale value, we didn’t really consider how much of a task we were setting ourselves up for when we proudly slapped vinyl lettering all over our RV in order to promote our business websites. As those famous last words go, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Lesson learned: we will be spending most of August getting closely acquainted with a product called “Ghost Off” which will supposedly make the RV’s fiberglass walls look brand new after we remove the vinyl lettering and bumper stickers from the rig. On top of that, we’ll need to wax the RV and then tackle the inside clean up job. If we can make all of this happen while managing our businesses and workamping for our current commitment, we should be able to get the resale value we’re expecting. If it doesn’t, it will serve as an expensive reminder not to do anything that stupid to our new RV.
Rene Agredano and her husband, Jim Nelson, became full-time RVers in 2007 and have been touring the country ever since. In her blog, Rene chronicles the ins and outs of the full-timing life and brings readers along to meet the fascinating people and amazing places they visit on the road. Her road trip adventures are chronicled in her blog at LiveWorkDream.com.
We don’t live our lives to maintain the market or trade-in value of our possessions. We live in, travel in and enjoy our motor home. We couldn’t do ant of those things if we were concerned with maintaining some pristine, sterile condition to maximize future value. Make the modifications and improvements you desire. Use good materials and and do or hire proper installation.
I’m with David, that is the worst thing I hate is all the *automatic* decor in them, and all the mirrors, the mirrors would be removed or painted, I couldna’t handle all that glare. Remove it, save it all in a box for when you do want to trade, hang the crappy stuff back up and wah’lah, just like NEW!
Great insight David and Toni, thank you! Well, we did spend almost the entire month getting our rig ready and just yesterday I put the icky automatic decor back in the rig. Thank DOG that Northwood used a high quality carpet in our rig, a deep cleaning brought it back to life again. Now, that rig is just as sterile and almost as shiny-new as when we got it, I’m confident we’ll get a fair price. Yay!
This is an interesting topic. A few months ago we bought a used class A Winnebago with the hopes of going full time. I would like to add stickers and a sign or two to the back end since there are no windows back there. I am a little leery of using the bare wall and have been thinking about using wood or Masonite cut to fit the back ladder. I could add the stickers to the ladder cover and not have to worry about cleaning them off later. I am worried about the wind pushing on the ladder cover and if it would damage the ladder or back wall.