When I bought my 2002 13-ft Scamp last summer, I took it home, knowing I would tinker around with it. Family trait. Because I'm traveling solo, with two cats, and I'm a writer who needs a functional horizontal space, I had some specific needs. Now it's done, it's absolutely perfect, and now that I'm home from a five day trip, I can say that it all works spectacularly.

The dinette was fun to do--I had no idea fiberglass stunk that much when you're taking a saw to it. The first attempt at getting the new floor in there was not exactly successful, since I used the top of the fiberglass as a pattern and it was much too big. And then in the midst of cutting it down, the battery in the jigsaw died with eight inches to go. Just had to laugh at that. I put down vinyl (easy to clean, with cats) and I think next summer I'll take out the carpet and put the rest of the flooring down. I was able to take the fabric from the old couch cushions to the upholsterer and he used that to cover the new dinette cushions (though I've covered that). The back cushions are temporary--they're $11 bed pillows from Walmart, but they're doing the job for now. The table is from Camping World and I was going to build something, but this is absolutely perfect (and collapsible!) The space underneath the kitchenette side seat is for the kitty litter and I built a spacer in there so it fits the litter box perfectly, so there's no way for the cats to make extra mess as they dig. The door-side seat holds the porta potty and my one-horse shop vac.

So here's the pics of the dinette (hopefully they'll post and in the right order...):

The drawer was pretty easy. I just made a frame and bottom of wood and attached it to the existing bed/dinette seats with 24' drawer slides. I use rubber door stoppers to keep it from sliding out during transit. Currently it holds a plastic bin (which doesn't have much in it right now), my suitcase of clothes, and while in transit, the other space is my Brita--while we're stationary, it's a place for one of the cats to hide.

Here's the drawer pics.

When I got the Scamp last summer, the shelves were wire and rickety--not surprising when you try to screw anything into quarter-inch fiberglass. So I decided not to attach anything to the fiberglass and so that resulted in a PVC ladder-type frame with plywood shelves sitting on the T-joints. I have three shelves visible there, but underneath the first shelf, if I lift up the shelf, I have another storage space down below that. I stapled non-skid stuff to it and so far the shelves are more amazing than I could have imagined.

Here are the closet pics:

And last but not least, I painted the fake wood grain white and put on new hardware.

Looks very nice Karen. Neat, clean and tidy too. Isn't it fun making a trailer uniquely your own, with ideas that work best for you and may work well for others. Thanks for sharing with all of us

Beautiful Job Karen!

Saws and drills and screw gun batteries always die at 8 inches more to go or a 1/4 inch more hole or three more turns of the screw. It has to do with some guy named Murphy.

We just bought that same table but we set up as a couch with the table perpendicular to the couch so it sort of goes in under the seat a few inches.

Enjoy, looks like a really nice trailer.

Looks great! I am not handy with tools and I love seeing what other handy people can do.
You did well! Thanks for sharing.

the front dinette mod is so useful. You did a good job! You really like it, as you have already found out. It is nice to just plop into bed without fussing, taint it?

Nice job, Karen! Looks great and I can see how you would be enjoying using it.

Those drawer guides work pretty good and are not too hard to install ?

How did you cut the large, curved wood pieces? Did you have templates of the originals?

Fran
74 Compact II restore in progress

I owe everything to those who have gone before me on this website--thank you, all. Gina, it's so amazing to not have to mess with making the bed every time (though I've never set the table up)--though I'll say I really love that one of the cats much prefers sleeping on one of the dinette seats, rather than with me on the bed.

Francene, the drawer slides were really easy to install. I just bolted one half of them to the fiberglass (as opposed to just using screws) and the other was screwed into the drawer. There was a little bit of tricky-ness to making a spacer that fit under the fuse box thing on the right hand side of the dinette seat, but otherwise, no problems. Unless you count stripping out a few screws in the process. Why do I always think I can get away without making pilot holes?

As for the large, curved wood pieces, do you mean the floor or the front dinette seats? For the floor, I just traced the curved part of the fiberglass couch I took out of the camper--which made the floor piece four inches too wide. As for the seats, I used cardboard and made a template. Even then, it took a belt sander and the jigsaw to make them work right. But it's the fun kind of trial and error.

-k

Karen, You have answered my question about how to (easily) install shelves into my closet without punching holes through the fiberglass walls - Pvc piping is so versatile ! Did you glue the piping or just dry fit it together?

I just love projects that don't involve large saws. GOOD JOB!

I didn't glue it--I thought about it, but decided not to, just to make it easier to remove if I ever decided to change it, so they're just dry fitted. Even so, they're not going anywhere because it's tight to the walls and held in place with the shelves, which also aren't in there permanently. I really liked working with PVC. It's super cheap, light, flexible, and you get to use a PVC cutter. It's almost as good as the power tools.

-k

Just wondering what size PVC pipe you used in your closet, the wife seen that and said she had to have it, so I would like to try to duplicate your fine efforts.

Steve

Steve-

It was one-inch Schedule 40 PVC and now I'm having a brain fart--I can't remember how much we used, but I think I remember carrying 40 feet out of Menards, although I can't remember how much we had left over. I don't think I was too concerned, because it was so cheap.

Can't wait to see how yours turns out!

-k