Tag: camper conversion

Why YouTube??

Our family isn’t exactly one to share tons of information with everyone. It’s safe to say three of the five of us are introverted and the other two have their moments! So why in the world would we want to start a YouTube Channel and share things with folks we don’t even know? I’m not really sure I have a clear answer for you..

I think it started way back when I was a kid. My parents purchased a giant camcorder to record our school functions. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Any chance I got, I was holding this monstrosity up on my shoulder and trying to film anything I could. I remember watching music videos on MTV and thinking that I could probably make my own. I do remember having a buddy over and trying to make a few. We thought they were great, but I’m pretty sure they were no where close to it.

If you know, you know.

Then there was the Gateway Desktop we had. I couldn’t tell you anything about Gateway now, but at the time, I thought it was as amazing as a new MacBook Pro is today. This beast had music editing software installed from the factory! My brother-in-law and I became obsessed with mixing music imediately. I’ve always loved music, but this changed the way I saw and heard it for the rest of my life. I could imagine the wave forms in every song I heard on the radio. I could pick out exactly where I would cut it and start another song. We learned to blend the transitions and we would sit there for hours listening to our masterpiece! I still get pumped up thinking about it.

During high school and college, I spent lots of time filming wakeboarding trips with my friends. At some point, I purchased my own desktop and found Window’s Movie Maker. It was the most basic editing software, but that didn’t stop me from editing our wakeboard footage and adding music. This led to posting videos from local tournaments on a forum called End of Rope Gang. It was always a challenge to make my videos better and more exciting to watch. Unfortunately, my desktop and End of Rope are no longer with us, so all of those videos are just a memory.

This brings us to present day. Many things have changed since I was making wakeboard videos! We carry video cameras in our pockets and there’s a magic app called YouTube. If only it were around when I was in school!

As I’m sure you’ve seen or read, we’ve been camping for years. Like many RVers, we enjoy watching full time families travel and see the country. As a family, we have always dreamed of traveling further and more often, but maybe not living full time in a camper. The time came when we got a crazy idea to build our own camper. That idea led to the idea of creating a channel to share our build. Once the channel began growing, it really gave us a way to express ourselves creatively.

Editing videos and sharing our adventure has been almost therapeutic for me. I get lost in the editing process and picking music just like I did back in the day on the old Gateway. It’s a lot of work outside our everyday work life and school events, but it’s absolutely worth it. I enjoy the freedom to post whatever we want and to create at our own pace. It has been a great place for inspiration for myself and my family, and I hope that you find it to be inspirational as well.

Big Red Update: New Tires!

How much can be said about tires? For most folks, not so much. However, If you are a member of a camping group or forum online, then you know the controversy surrounding them.

The tires that were on Big Red when we brought it home were the originals! They looked fantastic for nine-year-old tires, but that’s where tires will get you. Sitting out in the sun takes a toll on any tire. With the original owner only using the trailer for one season of racing and not so much after that, it just made sense to replace them.

After much thought on going back with 10-ply or upgrading to 12-ply, I did what any over thinker would do. We had Blacklion BF155ST 14-ply tires installed.

These tires are rated at 3,640 lbs. when used in a dual axle setup. They max out at 110 psi of air. That’s more than enough for our trailer and it sure gives me peace of mind when towing. The treads look like something off of a tractor trailer and the sidewalls appear to be made of titanium because I rarely see them flex. We’ve already put thousands of miles on these and they still look brand new!

Tires can be as controversial as what motor oil you are using. One thing I can tell you though, is that when maintained properly, they will normally last longer than you think. With all that said, you will be much more confident and comfortable towing with well maintainted equipment and that makes for a much more relaxing trip!

Big Red Update: Sliding Barn Door and Paint!

Once our kitchen was mostly ready, it was time to tackle another challenge. Our bathroom desperately needed a real door!! For our first few trips we used a curtain to cover the entrance, making it way too easy for the kids to bust in at any moment. Not an issue for a mom apparently, but for this dad, I was over it after my first bathroom visit!

We knew early on that we needed to come up with a compact option for our door. Ashley also knew early on that she wanted a sliding barn door for the bathroom!?!?

There were quite a few challenges with a barn door. First of all, it uses rollers that are only held down by gravity to keep the door in place. Knowing how much things move when traveling had me questioning if we would find a door smashed through our refrigerator when we got to our next campsite.

The second problem was figuring out how to fill the gap around the doorway but leave enough space to let the door slide freely. This would also keep nosy children from peeking through the gap!

But the problem that stood out the most for me was that I had never built a door! Like every other part of this build, I was going to wing it and hope for the best.

I jumped on Amazon and ordered this barn door kit, a floor guide and a handle. Then I went down to Lowe’s and picked up the lightest and cheapest trim boards that I thought could be strong enough to build a door. Luckily, we had collected a few free pallets for our build, so I decided I would use those to give our door a nice contrast to the white wood trim boards. With my trusty pocket hole kit and a miter saw, I got right to it.

I have to admit that when I started this build, I really didn’t care for woodworking. There’s something about sawdust that reminds me of beach sand. It gets everywhere and it drives me crazy when it gets in my sandals. 😆

Much like the beach, once I got over the sawdust, woodworking is actually pretty awesome. It’s a beautiful thing to take a few straight pieces of wood and create something functional. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m pretty happy with how our barn door turned out!

Like most other processes during our build, I learned something new, and I have so many ideas on how to build a better door if I ever need to. As for filling the gap between the wall and the door, well I just used standard trim around the doorway and spacers on the mount to adjust the slider out enough to keep the two from touching. It works like a charm!

While I was working on the barn door and also what seemed like weeks after, we were painting.. Probably the most boring and annoying process to me, but it had to be done. Ashley really took control of the painting and knocked most of it out while I was working on other parts of the trailer.

As with any paint project, the hard parts were the fine details and trim work. We are so lucky to live beside the best caulk installer there ever was. My dad came in and caulked all the trim and any other areas that needed it. What a difference that made! Overall, the paint really turned the look of our build around. Instead of looking like the inside of a cargo trailer, it was actually starting to look like a real living space.

Starting a build is a huge undertaking that can really make you question if you have lost your mind. When you get to certain points of your build that really change the look, it gives you a new level of confidence you need to keep going. It’s all about breaking a giant project down in to smaller pieces. Just remember that each small piece is part of a giant puzzle that has to work together. In other words, be sure the run all the wires before the walls are up..

Check out our barn door video by following this link.

Blog Update!!

It’s been nearly two years since our last post…. I would say it’s time to catch up on this blog!

We are obviously way behind on our cargo trailer build updates and all the other events that have taken place during that time. Our plan going forward is to post a mix of past and present day events. I want to fill you in on what it was like to build each part of our camper conversion and I also want to keep you up to date on what we are working on these days. This revival is going to be a team effort. I hope Ashley and I can offer different perspectives on our projects, travel and maybe thoughts about life in general.

Buckle up and hold on tight, because you have a lot of catching up to do! In the meantime, check out our YouTube page for updates on our projects. Also check out MomFeedsFive.com for Ashley’s awesome recipes and helpful tips on feeding our busy family.