Counter extension
Personally, I am someone who loves to cook big meals and living in a motor, has not always made that easy.
It took me a while to adapt to not having any counter space. I would usually just put my large cutting board over the sink and made that work, and when needed, I would take over the kitchen table. Derick and I often discussed making a pop up counter and now the time have finally come. ( Drumroll) Ladies and gentlemen, after 2 years of spilling, breaking and dropping things, I finally have a counter top !!
Now I know it seems like I’m making a big deal on nothing but if any of you have any experience in cooking in a older motorhome, you will understand my joy and excitement.
While making the counter we had in mind that we didn’t want it to interfere with the rest of our living space so making it a pop up was a must. We went with a 3/4”x16x24 pine board, sanded and coated it with a clear finishing spray. We used a 24” hinge to screw it to the side of our counter next to the sink. To keep it up and solid, we went with chains, going from the counter up to the ceiling ,making it easy to unhook and pop down.
Backsplash
I remember when we first bought our current motorhome, I thought the mirror as a backslash in the kitchen was absolutely gorgeous. After one year of having to clean it each time I cooked a meal, it was just on the verge of driving me nuts. Until one magical night, I was making dinner and my pan went just a tad to close. The mirror broke and I finally was able to convince Derick to rip it out and change it.
We took the ferry over to the main island and headed over to Home Depot. Purchased two boxes of 3×6 white ceramic tiles, a few tools, tile glue and grout. The next day, we got to work.
Now I remind you all that I have zero experience in working with tiles so this was all very new to me. Luckily, Derick watches a lot of Youtube videos and was able help me and give me some pointers along the way.
Finishing the Fire place
This summer Derick put in a fireplace in the Rv. When he installed it, we concentrated on installing it properly but never came around to making it look it’s best. I always wanted to try to do a mosaic project and this just happen to be my chance. Since we had so much left over ceramic cut offs and broken glass we decided to recycle it and use it for this project.
At first I broke everything in to small pieces using a manual tile cutter and painted some of the tile pieces black to make the outline of the design I wanted ( mountains in this case). Now this was a mistake considering I didn’t get the proper paint and it all came off during the process. We used the broken pieces of mirror to create the illusion of snow on the mountains and smaller pieces for stars in the sky. Waited 48 hours to grout and another 24hrs to repaint the mountain outlines.
Once the tiles were cleaned, contour had been caulked and mountains have been painted, the last step was to poor the epoxy for a long term protection. This step might have been my least favorite considering our Rv is slightly out of level and that we have 3 furry friends roaming around the house.
In the end, the renovations turned out satisfying. The fire place now keeps us warm and looks great, our kitchen is now more pleasant to cook in and our Rv is just that much more like home.
