Years ago (right before Thriving in Tie Dye was born) Tim and I found a Toyota Motorhome on Craigstlist, only 4 hours away from our house in Connecticut. Almost immediately, we knew it was going to be ours.
Due to work schedules, we couldn't make it up to Maine fast enough - but, luckily Tim's parents are really cool... they drove to Maine, checked out the RV and drove it home to Connecticut that day!
We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into at this point - buying an RV was the start of a half-assed plan to quit our jobs and travel full time. The day our new RV came home to us was October 28th, 2017, which was coincidentally our 6th anniversary together. Quite serendipidous looking back. However, on the day that we bought the RV... not going to lie... I cried some tears of fear. Talking about buying and RV and quitting our jobs... and actually doing it... are two very. different. things. (Don't worrry - it's worked out GREAT for us so far!)
Our new-old RV is a 1985 Toyota Coachmen mini motorhome named Yoda. She's only 20 feet from bumper to bumper, and has a 4-cylinder engine. She's slow as hell, but always gets us where we need to go.
When we first got Yoda, she was partially renovated by the previous owner. We foolishly thought that meant that the RV was in good shape - but we were wrong. We ran into just as many issues as most people that buy 33-year-old campers. (that means a lot!) We spent about 6 months working on the renovations before we hit the road in June. We primed and painted all of the walls and cabinets and then added new knobs.
Tim re-framed the roof supports and replaced the ceiling. Then we covered the ceiling with tapestries, installed all new lights and roof vents.
We renovated our wet bath with a fun jungle theme.
Then we added tons of color with our furniture and new curtains! I reupholstered the couch with mexican blankets and covered the chairs in tapestries (Read more about that here!)
We also put in new floors, countertops, faucets, and a brand new Dometic fridge.
The list of projects we tackled on this build could go on forever - but thes eare the main things we did to turn an old 1985 Toyota motorhome into the adventuremobile of our dreams.
If you're thinking of buying an RV, van, bus, or any other cool adventure vehicle - I urge you to go for it! Yoda has carried us over 10,000 miles so far, and we've seen more in 3 months than in our entire previous lives.
If you're interested in this lifestyle, check out the wide variety of posts I've written about our transition to full-time RV travel. If you have any questions about Yoda, or RV living - please feel free to send me an email.
And if you want to know more about our story - check out this page!