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TRAILER RENO – LIVING ON OUR LAND

Apr 17, 2017

Just to catch you up if you didn’t already know. A little recap of whats happened in the last 2 months for us. Here we go…

We bought land, sold our house, bought a trailer, renovated the trailer, sold most of our stuff, packed up the rest of our home and put it in storage, now living in the trailer on our land, while we build our dream home. I know its a lot. Let me tell you why we chose trailer living. We looked at apartments, smaller houses, and guest houses. Ultimately we wanted to save as much money as we could… traveling, being financially free, and just the experience of living in a trailer. We found a trailer on a used car lot, as soon as we walked inside, we knew it was the one. Perfect size at 31 ft long, a room for Dino and I, and three bunk beds for the kids. Its a 2003 Cougar Keystone. It was just the right amount of outdated and old, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. First things first, we tore out everything we didn’t want. Light fixtures, sleeper sofa, carpet, upper cabinets, wallpaper, kitchen table and built in chairs. Next, I set up all my guys. Anything I knew I could’t and wouldn’t be doing myself, I called my guys or “workers” and hired them for each job. I ordered new cabinet door faces right away because I knew that would take a while and I knew I wasn’t going to install the floors so I set that up as well. Now in normal circumstances, floors are one of the last steps… but we didn’t have a lot of time and they could come right away, so I booked them. By day 3, the floors were done!

I wanted to go with white paint and white cabinets. Its such a small space and we wanted to keep it light, bright, airy, and open. Which is exactly how it feels. I patched all the holes, primed most of the walls and cut out most of the trailer. By that point I was feeling overwhelmed and done! So I found some guys on Craigslist and they painted the rest of the trailer, including cabinets for $400. STEAL! And they did an amazing job. Keeping everything flowing in the same color tone was important to me. Every time I tried to bring something in that was a different color that stood out from the black/white/natural feel, it looked cluttered and out of place. Because you can see every room from anywhere in the trailer, it needed to flow in the same color scheme.

The fixtures and most of the decor needed updating. I found pendant lights for $44, a new kitchen sink faucet for $50, a bathroom faucet for $3o, and an awesome modern style sleeper sofa for $169… all on amazon. New kitchen table for $39, book shelf for the kids $10 and blinds for $39 each for the master bedroom… at IKEA. Target was a best friend of mine also. We added a perfect little book shelf in the entry. That we use for, a coffee bar, storage, and organization. That piece was $71 at Target. Baskets, a small rug, cute knobs and some other small features were also found at Target. Some of my favorite features we added to the trailer are, the chair rail we used to cover the remnants of the wallpaper trim we took down. This was NOT fun. It took Dino hours to take it down with a steamer and after all that it still didn’t fully remove. Hence, the chair-rail… which I happen to love love love now! It just adds a finishing touch to the whole trailer. My second favorite feature is the backsplash in the kitchen and bathroom. I was lucky enough to have wonderful friends who gave me beautiful designer tile. My mom and I measured and cut the tile for the backsplash in the kitchen. I used the black and white Cement Tile on one side and then did a classic subway tile with grey grout on the other side because… why not. What better time to experiment with different details, and design tricks then when renovating a trailer?! Lastly, my mom and I painted the slider doors and bathroom door a dark accent color (Black Jack by Dunn Edwards). Wow this made such a huge difference, it really just buttoned up the whole look, completing the fresh modern style.

I bought us all new towels at Target, one color for each of us. They all hang on the back of the bathroom door so we know whos is whos. Hooks were hung in the entry to utilize more storage as well as in the bedroom, I purchased an awesome leather mirror from Homegoods with hooks to hold my jewelry.

Every single thing I brought into the trailer, I walked in with it, made sure we had a use and a spot for it. If we didn’t, I took it back into the car and either donated it or put it in storage. Let me tell you how amazing it feels to just have what you need, its so freeing! Here are some before and afters to get you real excited…

Thanks for stopping by! XO Arrows and Bow

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