I am so excited to have our first guest post on our website! Thanks so much for the support. I can’t wait for you to hear from Trina @rvfixerupper. If you haven’t stumbled upon her Instagram you need to! How she transforms RVs is a work of art! Absolutely stunning! Without further ado here she is ->
Steve and I (Trina) have been together for 9 years and married for 7 years. We are both born and raised in Alaska and have lived in Phoenix for 5 years. Steve's background is in road construction and for the first 3 years we lived in Phoenix, we traveled back to Alaska for his job during the summers. The "season" runs from May until October and then shuts down for the year because of freeze up. That was the beginning of our journey of living tiny. We had a 32 ft. travel trailer that we lived in so Steve could be mobile with his job. I started to look at our RV so differently because for those months it was our "home." I slowly started removing things that felt like an RV (wallpaper border, ugly bedding, ugly pillows, etc.) and began adding things like lamps, art, and beautiful bedding. It was amazing the way it changed the entire feel of the trailer.
Rewind to last year...we love to camp and decided we wanted to buy another RV to camp in with our family. We knew we wanted a fifth wheel, as I love the high ceilings and Steve loves the maneuverability of them. We found one that had the perfect floor plan! The only problem was everything that was inside of it was awful! We gutted the whole thing and replaced everything with things I would put in a sticks and bricks home. There weren't many people out there that had done an RV renovation at this level, so there wasn't a lot of information on the internet or Instagram to draw from. Our background is in construction and design so we applied those skills to the RV and we were very happy with the result. We started showing people the RV and the response was incredible! We knew the only way to find out if there was a market for renovated RV's was to test the market, so we put our RV up for sale and it sold. We had several people contact us about wanting more information on the process of flipping them as they were also interested in flipping. In the last year, it has really exploded as more and more people are choosing to live tiny in RV's. I love answering people's questions and helping them through the renovation process as it usually ends up being a lot more work than people anticipate. RV's present challenges that sticks and bricks homes don't, that's probably why I love designing and renovating them so much! They start out so horrible (no matter what year they are) and end up being GORGEOUS!
One of the most difficult things for us in the renovation process is battling the Phoenix heat in the summer. Ideally, we hope to get to the point where we only renovate in the fall and winter and take the summer to explore the country in our own RV. My advice to anyone wanting to renovate an RV is hire out the painting! You'll be so glad you did.
We are excited to be a part of the tiny home community, it's a special group of people that look at life a little bit differently than mainstream America. Transforming these RV's into beautiful tiny homes that people can live in full time or camp in on the weekends is really special. I love showing people that you don't have to have a sticks and bricks house to be able to make it your own and make it a home you're really proud of to share with your friends and family.
Seriously, can you believe those are RV’s? If you aren’t already following along on Instagram & Facebook, I will link them below!
For Instagram click HERE | For facebook click HERE
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Zach & Colleen Cashio @steadystreamincashios