Since the very beginning I knew I wanted to find some kind of easy (cheap!) option for cleaning up the kitchenette - making it a little brighter and a little more "me". While I am all about embracing vintage charm, there are a lot of little changes that can be made that maintain that charm, but also make you go, "yeah, this feels like home."

I went on a bit of an Amazon deep dive to find these peel-and-stick tiles and I ordered them WAY BACK at the start of April. As this was near the beginning of the horrid 2020 Pandemic madness, any order that Amazon didn't deem essential, was delayed 😭 - so I didn't see my order until mid-May.

Eventually they did arrive and I was able to get to work.

These were pretty easy to work with, though not without headaches. There aren't a lot of straight lines within the van so I had to make a lot of cuts. Thankfully, in The Time of the Pandemic [dun, dun, DUN!], I had lots of time on my hands to slow down and approach this carefully.

In an ideal world I would have removed the entire window frame, but our pretty lady has had her face out in the world since 1981, and let's be honest here: anyone (or thing) that's been stomping around that long has got a few wrinkles here and there. Pearl's happen to congregate around her screws. Let's call them her laugh lines. Some of her "laugh lines" are entirely fused to her structure. I have no idea how to remove them. We'd have to call in a plastic surgeon and replace her laugh lines with new screws and her crows feet with newborn windows and yeah, that's not in the budget this year.

So I removed the screws I was able to, and for the rest, I tried to manipulate the tiles underneath the frame with a flat-head screw driver as best as I could. You know, like the professionals do it.

Before I go too far, I want you to understand what I was working with. Here's a fancy before shot:

This is at the time of purchase WAAAAAY back in 2019.

You'll notice the sliding panel that once-upon-a-time could cover the kitchen window. It was quite warped and damaged from moisture coming in from outside - or from cooking - who knows. It was one of the first things I removed when we initially got her home and it immediately improved things - letting more light in and cleaning things up. This left us without a window covering, which only poses a problem if you're shy and using the toilet, or getting changed. The closet doors open up to create a little room, separating off the bed at the back and the traveling cab at the front - making a bathroom/change room. We've found that two of our little throw cushions fit nicely against the window and give the privacy we need when necessary, so we have no intention of replacing the slider.

The old propane stove is still there (I removed it when prepping for the walls because we never used it) and that GORGEOUS wood pattern wall covering that is/was EVERYWHERE was not in the best shape in the kitchen zone.

My original intention had been to cover all the kitchen walls with the tiles, but I didn't measure first and only bought one box, thinking 6 10"x10" squares would be enough. Ha! Joke was on me. So I decided to use it only on the backsplash.

My solution for the rest of the kitchen wall was to grab some decals from my local dollar store. They had these long white strips that were supposed to look like distressed painted wood, and while it's not what I originally wanted, I don't hate the outcome.

The white brightens everything up, the tiles can be easily wiped down, and it's just pretty!

The hooks you see in the photo above did not make it to the final reveal. These were peel-and-stick hooks. Stuck on peel-and-stick wall decals. DUH! Of course the weight of the hooks made the paper peel off. The idea of hooks was a good one, but I had to redo that wall. Maybe I'll find some screw hooks down the road.

All in all, I'd say this project was a win. I'm happy with the end result, a brighter, prettier kitchen is just more fun to cook in!

—this post contains Amazon associate links—

Pearl came blessed with her original 1981 orange shag carpet. We knew we couldn't keep it clean. Sure, the red sands of PEI would blend in perfectly and Michael Kelso would think it was EVERYTHING, but...just no.

While Liam worked on cutting out the door panels with the skill saw, the others pulled up the carpet and scraped down the floor. Then, while I worked on covering the panels, they laid the new floor.

Originally we thought we'd just purchase a roll of thin vinyl, use the carpet as a template, cut one big piece of flooring, and call it done. But. When we went into our local flooring store, the shop girl convinced us what a horrible idea that was and took us into the back storeroom where we found one box of plank vinyl that we really liked the colour of.

We took her out to the van and she helped us do a quick measurement. She assured us the one box would do the job. But it would take every single piece. And we could not make a mistake because they didn't have more of that colour in stock. 😬

She gave us a quick lesson in how to apply the glue and sent us on our way with fingers crossed.

Turns out she was right. We used every single piece in that box. 37.2 square feet to be exact. Thank goodness we'd decided to keep the shag up at the front (you know, just in case Michael Kelso does ever get to see this thing 😜) or else we would never have had enough.

Flooring: Twelve Oaks-Endure Collection "Driftwood"

Adhesive: Henry 640 Vinyl Lock

Transition Piece (for where the vinyl meets the shag)

Stair Nosing (for where the vinyl butts up to the door)

$55.80 — Flooring

$10.00 — Transition piece and stair nosing

$27.04 — Adhesive

$3.59 — Spreader

It wouldn't have been terrible to travel in the van as is. There is something charming about the original decor and as someone who is in love with the vintage aesthetic, I want to be sure anything we do is a compliment to that sentiment.

The door panels were in poor shape. The veneer covering was pealing in many places and it just looked shabby. We had a picture in our mind of turning them into something really fun and special and thought this would be one low-cost way to put our own touch on the van.

You can see where the veneer is pulling away and that the panel itself is a bit chipped up. Definitely time for an upgrade!

Our only real stipulation as we went searching for fabric was that it had to have some orange. We'd decided to keep some of the original orange shag carpet in the driving section, and the exterior of the van has an orange stripe. We wanted to match that, so we took a trip to the fabric store!

Stepping into Fabricland is like stepping into another dimension. There's a whole sewing culture that we're completely unfamiliar with and our strange project...well...the woman helping us had a hard time getting her brain around what we actually needed.

When we first started wandering through the hundreds of choices, the orange drapery caught our eye because it was staring at us from its roll on the rack. Literally. "It's got eyes," Scott said. We both liked the colours and the pattern, but because it was the first thing we noticed, we continued on. We eventually settled on an outdoor fabric because we thought it would be easier to keep clean. It was an orange and white zigzag and was kind of a safe choice. (Or as safe as you can get when orange is involved.) It turned out there wasn't enough for what we needed and it took us no time at all to agree: the eyeballs win!

Of course, there aren't actually eyeballs on our fabric — but once you see something it's hard to unsee it. (Like the bathroom paneling in my childhood home. There was one knot that looked like a woman holding a baby and no matter how I tried to not see it, they were always watching me when I went in there to do my business. 😳) So whether you see eyes or not, we feel really good about our choice. I'm so glad the zigzag didn't work out. It wasn't really what I'd envisioned and I know I'd have regretted it had we gone forward. But our final choice? Whew! So happy! (I couldn't find the same pattern we chose online, but I did link up a couple other hippie-inspired options by the same company, Mill Creek, at the bottom of this post.)

Confession: we were a little surprised by the cost of the fabric and quilt batting is certainly NOT cheap either. But was it worth it for the change it brought to the interior? OH YES!

How to update your van door panels (like we did)

You Need:

• 1/4" mahogany plywood sheet
• pencil
• skill saw
• drill
• sandpaper
• quilt batting
• fabric
• sewing scissors
• spray adhesive

1. We began by removing the existing panels and using them as templates to cut out new pieces from a sheet of 1/4 inch mahogany plywood. All edges were sanded smooth so there would be no catches when we wrapped them in fabric, and holes were drilled in the same spots they appeared on the original panels.

   Using the old panels as templates for the new ones

   
   

   Cutting out the new panels

   Drilling holes to make installation easier

    
2. We lay quilt batting flat on a table, lay a template on that, and then cut out around it, leaving about an inch excess for wrapping.
3. Using a spray adhesive, we attached the batting to the front side of the template, and wrapped the excess around to the back, again attaching with spray adhesive.

   A note about spray adhesive: wear gloves! My fingers were a wreck after this project - though I was able to get all the glue off using baby oil.

4. We followed the same procedure for the fabric. We were sure to line up the straight edge of the template with the straight/factory edge of the fabric to ensure our pattern stayed straight. Spray adhesive worked wonderfully here as well. We were sure to pull the fabric as tightly against the batting as we could to achieve a clean look with crisp edges.
    
   
   
   
5. We reattached the panels. We could feel the pre-drilled holes through the fabric and so we knew where to put each screw. It was a bit of a battle to re-attach to the doors because the thickness of the fabric - especially in the corners - was hard to push through. But it was definitely worth it in the end.
   

We are so happy with how it turned out and feel like that change along has had a huge impact on the hominess inside.



Next steps?

We're installing a new floor and recovering(ish) the back seats. Ish because I'm cheating and not doing a "proper" recover. One: because I don't really know how. And two: because we need it ready for our first trial camp next week! So excited to try sleeping in this thing!