Pop Up Camper Remodel - Meet Cassie the Camper!

My Mother's Day present was this new-to-us cute little pop up made the same year as my high school diploma!  That's right...it's a 2001 Jayco Qwest.  And we've named her Casita or Cassie for short.

We've been tent camping for a few years.  This is our third season. Setting up our tent was easy for a tent, but it was still about an hour counting getting the tarp under it, putting the beds in, etc.  This little lady should take about 15 minutes.  When you have two active little guys, shaving off 75% of the time is huge!  Also, while our tent was water proof, it would collapse in a strong gust so we could really only go out if the weather was near perfect.

She's not quite old enough to call "vintage".  It's just old.  But she has good bones.  And she's ours.

 There's a table and a sofa.  Our bunk is a king size and the kids is a full.  The guy said it was a queen so I'm a little bit annoyed that it's smaller, but our kids are small so I think that it'll be okay.  Both the sofa and the table could be another bed so it's not like we are hurting for sleeping places...and they usually end up in our bed by the end of the night anyways, so having a king on our side was important.

But, other than the smaller bunk being a bit smaller than hoped for...overall I'm pretty happy and ready to get started renovating it.  Over the past 3 years I've been obsessively pouring over submissions on The Pop up Princess and following threads at The Pop Up Portal so I was already planning on making new cushions, curtains, flooring, painting the cabinets.

I've made a project plan, and my goal is to take her on her maiden voyage (with us anyways) in 5 weeks.  Unfortunately we've got 3 big projects going on right now...the spring garden planting.  It's almost time to get the veggies that are not cold hardy in the ground in our zone...Tomato's 5th birthday party prep and now this...that's not counting the work we need to do in the garage so that Cassie can fit and rig up our van so it can tow.  And my 4 day work trip to San Diego this week.

 The Good:

• There is no substantial water damage.  Subfloor is solid.
• I love the lay out of the huge wrap around sofa
• Comes with an oven that can be used inside or moved outside.
• It has heat and A/C.  It gets really hot in the summer and at the ends of the season it can get pretty cold.  And you never know what you are going to get.  We camped the last weekend of September two years in a row.  One year it had a high in the upper 90s with a "real feel" in the 100's.  The following year it was 45F at night with a high of 55F.  

The Stuff to Work on:

• The smell.  It's like bug spray and must.  Not good.
• Door is rotted on the bottom.
• Canvas is a little gross looking, has a few small rips and while it doesn't leak, the canvas doesn't bead the water, so it needs to be water proofed.
• There is carpet.  Ew.
• Cabinet top is chipped and has weird divets built in (for the oven).  I was hoping to just cover the top with something nice, but I think we'll need to rebuild it.
• Every moving part needs to be lubricated.
• Did I mention the smell.  I have a very poor sense of smell so I know that if I can smell it, it's got to be AWFUL.

So, let's just say that Pete and I are going to be busy over the next few months and are excited to have it all ready for some new memories!  I'm ready to get out there and make some memories with my guys!