Having an RV that I call a “home sweet roam” can be just as cozy as any stationary “sticks and bricks” home. So how do you got about making your RV feel like home? Whether you’re wanting a full-on renovation or just adding some homey touches to your RV, I’m your go-to girl for all of it! My kids say that I should host my own RV Renovation show including organizing. (Maybe one day!) In our five years of owning various RV’s, we have either renovated (painted first and second rig) or decorated with wallpaper (3^rd rig I didn’t want to paint again!) Each RV has it’s own homey vibe and all have felt like a vacation station to return home to. If you’re wanting to paint or just add a few décor touches, read on and join me in sharing what we did with each rig to make it feel cozy.



When we got our first RV, we were going to be full-time travelers and I wanted to make our house on wheels feel like home. I talked to a friend who does design work and she said to me, “Don’t be afraid about using white. It will brighten up the space and you can add in color in other ways including pillows, curtains, and more.” Taking her advice to heart, we picked out paint and went down the path to figure out how to prep the cabinets and walls for painting. In a mater of a few weeks, our RV interior went from brown cabinets and walls to what and I immediately felt the difference of lightness when we walked into it.

As we walked through the process of renovation with our first rig, I knew I wanted things to be minimalistic visually with a simple design. Since we were living in only a few hundred square feet, I knew visual calm was important for my family. I actually selected the bathroom wallpaper first and I chose the color palette for the whole rig design based on the airplane wallpaper! We went with a blue, white, and gray color palette. Blue tones are always my go-to color because it feels calming to me. In watching many design shows over the years, it’s important to have your home reflect you and things you enjoy. If you love the colors and decor, you’ll love your space!

We selected gray roller-shade curtains from Ikea were looked low-profile. We wanted blackout curtains on all the windows because light tends to wake us up easily. Since we knew we could be camping anywhere from the woods to a parking lot, this was a top priority for us.

We have three kiddos and we wanted them to each feel like they had their own space in the RV. We added curtains to each of their bunks and I cut and sewed the edges to make them custom fit for their space. We also discovered that to keep the curtain rods secured on a travel day, we found some circle holders that held the rods in place and prevented them from falling down every time we traveled. (I think they are called “closet pole sockets” or “brackets” and can be found at a hardware store in the closet section. We got the ones like shown below. This was a great and inexpensive find!) 

We opted to make the fourth bed a couch area in the bunk room. I selected pillows that matched the carpet colors and covered the mattress with a neutral gray fitted sheet. I love how the room turned out!

In the kitchen, we opted to use some peel and stick tiles from Amazon.

PRO TIP:
Go with a thick tile. The ones we initially used that looked like subway tiles were thin. As temperatures change, they can peel off and also long-term with the sun, they will yellow. Having used them in two rigs, we now have found a thicker peel and stick tile that should not yellow or peel off with changing temperatures.

As life changed for our family, so did our rigs! You might as well call me Reno Robin…as I painted our second rig as well! When we upgraded from a Travel Trailer to a Toy Hauler, I thought long and hard about not painting. However, when I walked into the new rig, I knew the brown felt too dark and I slowly worked on painting the rig, room by room, to make it light and bright and something we could all enjoy.

PRO TIP:
If you’re traveling full-time, plan each section of your rig out by project. I was doing some solo-parenting as my hubby traveled for work. I started with the couch slide out, finished that, then worked on one area at a time. We were stationary for a month near a friend who graciously offered to let me paint my cabinet doors in her garage, which helped tremendously! If that’s not an option for your situation, consider using an outdoor tent (Clam or Gazelle or similar) while painting.

Enjoy some before and after photos of the brown to white transformation of the inside of our rig.

We were in the second rig for two years and loved it! When we changed from our Toy Hauler to our 5^th wheel, I decided I did not want to paint again, since we are now part-time travelers and we would not be in the RV most of the time. I started thinking of ways to make the space feel like home, so we added wallpaper, swapped out some furniture, and we modified the master bedroom to fit our family needs.

Things we did in our third rig since I didn’t want to paint:

1. We took out the couch and the dinette.
   We have a family of five, so we wanted to have something that was more functional for our family. We like having a table to eat at and play games inside, so we definitely wanted a table. We bought our table at Ikea and it works great because it gets smaller if needed. We also bought chairs and didn’t put the backs on them, so we have them as stools. The bench we found in the outdoor patio section of a store and added baskets underneath it for extra storage.
2. Swapped the curtains for some that I enjoyed and went with the blue-khaki-boho theme I was going for.
3. Added peel and stick wallpaper (from Amazon) to the cabinet doors to give it a rattan boho-feel.
4. Installed blue wallpaper (from a local store) to the slide so we could have a splash of color, but not have to paint. (PRO TIP—make sure they all have the same batch number on the wallpaper…I had to redo this…oops! I didn’t have the same batch and the colors were off, so lesson learned!)
5. I added wallpaper to the full bathroom that was the same wallpaper as in the living room so the colors flowed naturally from space to space.

Master bedroom:

1. Added wallpaper to two walls of the master bedroom.
2. Pulled out the upper cabinets.
3. Installed a king-sized bed.
4. Used the same wallpaper in the half bath of the master bedroom.
5. Used the same tile from the kitchen in the master bathroom by the sink as backsplash.
6. Used the same curtains in the living room and master bedroom (I paid attention to the vertical lines to allow the same visual vertical alignment of shapes. I considered using different tiles in the kitchen, but I liked the ones I selected because it was similar to the vertical lines on the curtains I chose.)

You don’t have to be a designer or decorator to make your home look “Pinterest-Perfect.” If you allow yourself to figure out what colors you enjoy as well as what feeling you want to have in your RV, you can make any space feel homey. Tips to keep in mind:

1. Simplicity is key. You don’t have to paint to make a place look pretty.
2. Peel and stick wallpaper can absolutely level-up a space and help you feel cozy and comfortable, changing the look with minimal effort.
3. Pick a color palette and stick with it. Add items and colors that align with it. (I usually pick 3-4 colors. With the typical color tone in my home being blue, gray, white, maybe adding in a light brown like the rattan that I did in our third rig.)
4. Pillows can tie in a color palette and be easily be swapped out for a fresh look or for a holiday season.
5. Function can dictate the fashion of your home.
   While we loved the function of the original couch in our third rig (with storage in it from the previous owners), we wanted something that was bigger so our family could sit together and enjoy movie night. We swapped out the “2-butt” couch for one that at least four of us could sit on and add a camping chair in the living room for the fifth family member. The new couch we added has room underneath it for storage with slide out bins, so we can tuck things under the couch and use the space efficiently.

I hope this blog helps you think of a few ideas to help your “home sweet roam” feel cozy.



Signing off,
BG Barnstormer