Demo Day for Abby the RV!

I told you a few days ago that we were finally able to have a multi-year dream come true and we purchased a little RV! If you want to see the whole story - you can read about it here. It goes into why we chose to invest in an RV at this time and how we hope to use it while we're working in this job!

In order to fit this purchase into our budget, we had to get an older one, which was no problem to us at all. In fact, it gives us a chance to put our own little stamp on it, and you know we love to do that. Abby has good bones, but she's a little outdated in her appearance, so she needs a little freshening up inside. And during our weekend last week, we were able to spend a day making everything look so much worse so it can eventually look better!

Demo day was a gorgeous (though slightly chilly) day for us. We cranked up the music and got busy working! 

My first job was to learn to use the power screwdriver to remove all the hardware from the doors and drawers. We were going to spray paint it all, but we actually found some new door pulls at an extremely low price at the ReStore, so we just decided to replace them. 

Meanwhile, Ryan got busy removing the chair so we can work. (Unless we have a plot twist, we plan to put the chair back in. It's comfortable and seems to be in good shape. And it's just plain gray, so it doesn't create any design issues.) 

Next up? Removing the sofa. It has to go. Originally we planned to slipcover it, for cost effectiveness, but dear Miss Abby had a pretty strong aroma of cleaners/fresheners, and we were fairly certain much of that was embedded in the sofa materials. Slipcovering it would update the look but not take care of that issue, so then we were going to have it taken apart and reupholstered. Alas, that costs as much, if not more, than just replacing it entirely. So Ryan found a good deal on a replacement, and we decided to just take out the old and put in the new. This sofa was very thoroughly installed - and all the screws had been stripped when it was put in, so getting it out took some time. As you know, Ryan is a rock star, so he powered through!

We took down all the cornice boards and factory-installed curtains, and those won't be coming back in. Ryan also took down the blinds, which we will bring back, but we wanted to remove them during our work to protect them.

And then he got to the big project: the carpet. While he worked on that, I worked on cleaning all the cabinets so we can prep them for painting:

The carpet (which only covered half the floor space) was original and spanned about four different colors throughout its run. Pretty sure it had been cleaned and bleached so many times that it just kept changing colors. It was old, full of who-knows-what, and had to go. We masked up for part of that adventure, because we weren't sure what was sailing around the air.

The carpet was as well-installed as the sofa, so it took a long time and a LOT of elbow grease to get that out entirely. Again - Ryan's perseverance for the win!

And now it's in the stage where it looks worse before it looks better!

Up next? Pulling about four million staples out of the floor so we can continue. And painting!!! :)