There is no one size fits all living in an RV, and each camper family will have different needs and priorities for the way they use their space. In this blog post, I’ll share with you the pre-departure modifications we made to our new unit to make everyday living fit our Snowbirding preferences, and why the “full steam ahead” approach to RV modifications doesn’t work for us based on our previous RVing experience.
Our regular blog readers know that we sold our beloved Irving (a 24’ Thor Vegas Class A Motorhome) over the summer and upsized just a bit into a Winnebago Vista 31 BE Class A Motorhome. Our new unit is about 7’ longer than Irving, giving us a bit more length. The magic is in a full side slide, which gives us a lot more width and translates to a whole lot more living space when we’re living our dream on the road.
Before we dive into the RV modifications we made to our new unit, here’s a quick update for my regular readers on the search for a name for our new motorhome. We’ve had lots of great recommendations, but we haven’t honed in on any one name yet. Comment below with your recommendations, and maybe we’ll pick yours!
One lucky contributor’s name will be drawn at random to win this pair of handcrafted earrings I made on our last Snowbirding trip to the Great Southwest. And if you’ve already put a suggestion in and have thought of another name, offer it up in the comments below for a second chance to win! But hurry … we will be pulling a name from the proverbial hat soon, on January 31, 2025!
Moving on to the RV Modifications! In my last blog post, I mentioned the dual retractable gate system we installed to foster harmony between our two dogs, Bandit and Oakley, who don’t always get along. We are now almost four weeks into our trip, and I’m pleased to report that this system has worked remarkably well! (Regular readers, please forgive me for the duplicate photos … since we haven’t retracted our slide since arriving, I had to re-use photos from my last blog post here.)
The first gate is one that spans the opening of the bottom bunk, where Oakley enjoys having a huge space for her comfy bed and I enjoy her having a safe space in which to travel.
Because we loved how this style of gate retracts and expands easily, we installed a second one that spans the shorter distance between the entry wall and kitchen counter. It effortlessly transitions from narrow to wide for both travel (or boondocking) days and for when we are parked and the slide goes out. The positioning felt logical because of the layout of the unit (I can still reach the bottom drawer in my kitchen “island” and the new door to the left of my refrigerator while inside the kitchen). Also, this location gives each dog a relatively equal space to move about when we are stationary and the slide is out.
I love this solution because it eliminates the possibility that our dogs will to get into a tussle when we’re not in the RV or (worse, maybe?) while we’re driving. And since we’re all used to living with a gate in our sticks and bricks home, this really is not a big change for any of us. We’ve even translated our at-home “Switcheroo” game to the new RV, although here it involves the bathroom rather than the basement entryway. Somehow Bandit seemed to sense that the shower lived in that room from the get-go, so it took him several days to trust that “Switcheroo” wasn’t a ploy for batch time. But now we can effortlessly (and single-handedly!) execute a “Switcheroo” from the comfort of our RV when it’s time to do the doggie swap.
When sleeping, traveling, or if we leave the dogs alone in the RV, we close both gates and engage the locking mechanisms to keep them taught. But during the day, the rear gate remains open so the dog in the back section of the RV has options, just as the dog in front can chill on the sofa or in the dog bed tucked under our dinette. Did I mention that our new unit has an actual, always-in-place dinette? I guess it’s not technically always in place because it does convert to a bed, but we haven’t had overnight guests in this RV … yet! (Subtle hint to our kiddos!).
The gate was an essential modification we needed to make before we could hit the road. Once we checked that off, it was time to move on to our RV Modifications Wish List!
I have to say that it was a total joy to pack into our new unit for our first extended trip. She offers so much space (most of which I managed to fill), and everything fit just perfectly in an organized fashion that makes sense for the way we live on the road. Honestly, it felt as if she were made just for us!
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have some ideas for modifications. One that I’m particularly excited about is converting one of the basement compartments into a dedicated studio space for my work in clay. I curbed my enthusiasm on that one to see how things progress on our maiden voyage. You see, we’ve learned from our experience living on the road in Irving that priorities shift, packing plans require flexibility, and one doesn’t always use a space as initially anticipated. We spent a lot of time making modifications on Irving before spending extended periods of time in him, and later we found ourselves swapping some of those changes out or removing them altogether. This time around, we knew it was wiser to spend a few months in the new unit before going whole hog on our wish list. So, aside from the aforementioned gates, we reigned in our ambitions for RV mods and decided on just a few essentials (for now 😉).
The first was to install this SUNNERSTA kitchen wall system I found at IKEA. It’s lightweight, customizable, right-sized for an RV, and mounts with a tension rod system so it doesn’t require any screws. It is still in place after our 1,100+ mile journey to Alabama, so I’m really pleased with it. The individual components are inexpensive; because it’s customizable and each component is sold separately, it wasn’t practical to list all the options with all the prices, but you can find this information easily on the IKEA website and price out a system that works for the way you live in your RV.
Another kitchen organization hack that I carried over from Irving was to secure some sturdy plastic bins in the abyss behind the stove using heavy duty velcro. My containers hold my go-to spices, cooking oils, salt and pepper, and my kombucha brew and bottles (yes, I make my own kombucha even on the road). These bins keep items secure for transport, and the heavy duty velcro makes it easy to pull them off to wipe up the occasional spill and then easily fasten them back in place.
On our stovetop you may notice our induction cooktop (also from IKEA), which - combined with our Ninja Foodi Grill and our Ninja Pressure Cooker - is what we use mostly for food prep. Occasionally, we need more than one burner, and we’ve got three in this new unit as well as an honest-to-goodness oven that makes a fabulous, RV-sized loaf of my favorite Turmeric Fennel Sourdough bread.
The designated pantry space in our new RV is ample, but it is narrow and 25” deep, a place where small items can easily go to hide until the unloading. In this space, I am storing my bread baking supplies, beans, legumes, rices, pulses, grains and pasta in stackable, air-tight containers in a variety of sizes that I can stack and configure to fit neatly in the space. I can stack columns of canned goods 8 cans deep in this space also, and I brace those stacks of canned goods with the taller air-tight containers in the middle on one shelf so they won’t move on travel days.
As you can see, we carry quite a bit of food! Whether at home or traveling, we enjoy (and our budget supports) wholesome, home-cooked (and often homegrown) meals. Since we don’t tow a vehicle, we normally only stop at the grocery store when we’re switching campgrounds.
Even though these shelves are relatively organized, I still find myself pulling out multiple containers from a shelf to get into the back. I envisioned this as a potential inconvenience, so I brought my label maker and will affix labels to the inside of the doors to remind me what’s on each shelf if I choose to keep this cabinet as is. (For me, a label maker is an essential item! It’s so easy to forget where you initially stashed something, or after you flip flop things around when reorganizing; a friendly, legible reminder is a beautiful thing!)
So another RV Modification project we knew we wanted to tackle to support our Snowbirding existence was to create a space for the smaller food items that could so easily get lost on the deep shelves of the primary pantry. Almost immediately, I eyed up this coat closet located on the left side of the refrigerator in the entryway to the RV for this purpose.
For us, using this space as a coat closet didn’t suit the way we travel and live on the road. So we removed the hooks and now hang our jackets on an over-the-door hook on the outside of the bathroom door. (You can see it in the photo showing the expanded gate above.)
We wanted to make this modification without putting unnecessary holes in the unit and risking hitting any wires that might be hiding behind the wall in this area, since many of the unit’s controls are located just to the right. We were lucky to find a wood laminated board in IKEA’s “As Is” bin ($7.50) that we used to create the false back that was essential for my plan to work. The cabinet is taller and wider than the opening, so we cut the board to size and then in half from top to bottom so we could get it into the cabinet in two pieces. We used several long strips of heavy duty velcro to attach the two pieces to the back wall of the existing wardrobe, and then we cut another piece from the same board to fit in front of those boards on the floor of the cabinet, essentially anchoring our new back wall in place.
We could then safely screw a hanging wall/door shelving system (Amazon, approx $35) into the new back wall. And while we felt pretty confident our system would stay in place, as an extra precaution we added five short tension rods front to back at various points on the door frame (Amazon, $6). Knowing that this cabinet faced forward, and haunted by memories of the failed “spice storage solution” we installed in Irving, I had envisioned contents flying out into the entryway and potentially hitting Bandit on the couch should we be forced to brake really hard. To ease my anxiety, we also place longer tension rods (Amazon, $15, not pictured) across the door opening for travel days. We went over 1,100 miles to arrive here, and had no issues whatsoever. And in the last few weeks, I’ve counted at least a dozen times I was so glad we made this modification before we hit the road!
The last modification we made was to access the 12v wiring system from the outdoor television compartment and bring it to the basement compartment below so “Bogie” (our powered Bodega combo refrigerator/freezer) could ride here rather than in our living space as he did in Irving. Bogie’s dedicated compartment also has a new, covered port for an extension cord to pass through from underneath the RV, where we plug it into shore power while at a campground so we don’t drain our house batteries.
We used Bogie non-stop for Snowbird Seasons 1 and 2, and he has never failed us, so we highly recommend this brand! For the way we live on the road, he’s an essential traveling companion. I can bring more frozen foods from home, which means we can enjoy produce from our CSA and backyard garden well into the winter. By the time those stores deplete, it will be time to stock up on fresh fish and seafood that I can freeze before we leave the Gulf area and head inland. When we eat our way through that, we can easily convert the freezer section of Bogie to a refrigerator, providing ample room for fresh, local produce as it starts coming into season en route home. Bogie gives us so many options for those wholesome meals we like to cook during our typical 10-14 day stays at a campground.
Are there other modifications on our wish list? Sure, a few! At this point, we agree on a range hood with an exhaust feature for those times when we need to cook inside, a few light dimming switches and some USB outlet conversions, and some sort of table to fit over the “dog house” area in the cab (perhaps one that will double as a beverage station for our coffeemaker and electric teapot). Oh, and let’s not forget about that dedicated studio space in the basement compartment — unless we realize this space needs to be used in another way. We know from experience that we’ll probably add to (and then change) the list as we live on the road with our new unit, but that’s all part of the journey!
Speaking of our journey, we’re still parked at the beautiful Gulf State Park. On days when the weather cooperates, we’re taking advantage of the park’s many outdoor amenities. The pups are enjoying long walks, we have used the park’s free bike share program twice already to explore more than half of the 28 miles of trails in this 6,000+ acre park. We’ve made some new friends, including fellow musicians Steve will be playing with as part of an upcoming live music program. And I learned how to make a pine needle basket, something I’ve always wanted to do.
For those back home, know that we haven’t completely escaped the cold of Pennsylvania’s winters. It’s been an unseasonably cold January in Foley, AL, and there’s even a possibility of significant snow on Tuesday - something our locally born-and-raised tram driver told us hasn’t happened here for at least 20 years. Thankfully, when the weather is less than cooperative, we are able to spread out and camp in comfort in our spacious new (to us) RV. We feel very blessed on so many levels!
We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with photos of our time spent at Gulf State Park, and future blog posts will include in-depth review of the campground, details about Steve’s Internet solution that has made our RV life easier without breaking the bank, and more magical memories from Snowbird Season Three! Stay tuned, and if you haven’t already, subscribe to get the blog updates sent directly to your inbox.
As always, thank you for joining us on our journey … we love having you along for the ride!
Steve & Susan
I can't believe the two of you have be on the road a month already.njoy the Gulf of Mexico before the name change.
As always, love reading about you and your travels!!😂
Very nice report of your new RV adventures. Trish