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Ok. We’re just jumping right into the heavy blog renovations here because… well… thats kind of how Q and I do things in real life! I showed you guys all those lovely before pics in the tiny tour post and now Im going to show you the crazy mess we made. I promise there’s a good ending to this story (fantastic faux hard wood!) but lets start with the guts. Purging the fifth wheel carpet!
The majority of the fifth wheel was covered in this bland beige carpet. It was fine. It was also used. Which made my brain start thinking about how many spills, layers of dirt, pet funk, and other scary things happened in its short lifetime… the answer: too many! Besides, the germ factor with carpet is also not our style.
So I took to Pinterest and google and read as much as I could handle about ripping the stuff out. The basics were all the same. Get a utility blade, cut along the edges, use super strength to tear that sucker out! And to be honest, thats really what this part of the demo consisted of. Luckily, I had my Pops(with his 30 yrs of construction experience) and cousin(with teenage muscles and stamina) to help out since Q was gone for this portion.
There were only a few places we had to take special care. One was the edges of the slides. The corners are actually just small pieces of plastic that extend the visual line of the slide. They’re not strong enough to hold any weight but we wanted to floor to extend in the same fashion so we were careful to leave them in place. Getting around all the corners and tucked edges was not the easiest job! We found a pair of needle nose pliers and a nail puller worked wonders!
In addition to the carpet, we also took out all the tile print linoleum. This was only in a small part of the kitchen, hallway, and bathroom. Removing this was a cinch compared to the carpet! It came up in big sheets and was so easy to cut with the utility blade.
Once everything was out I removed about a billion staples and all the remnants I could get a hold of along the edges. This detail work took a lot longer than the initial demo. But the prep work here was so important it was a non-negotiable job!
Now to the fun stuff! New Floors! We read so many articles, reviews, and posts about which flooring to install. The two things we were most concerned with were weight and durability. Weight… well thats obvious. Nobody wants to add unnecessary weight to their trailer. Durability is a little more complicated. Whatever floor we put down needed to withstand the weight and wear of 2 huge slides rolling over it. Frequently! In the end we went with NuCore from Floor & Decor.
Its a floating floor that snaps together in planks. Its waterproof, has an anti-microbial finish, cork backing and can be cut with a simple utility blade. There are over 30 colors to choose from and TBH I think its really well priced! *And no, we are not affiliates!
16 boxes, 3 helpers, and several hours later our fifthwheel subfloor was completely covered! We were under a bit of a time crunch so we were happy so find how easily this came together.Just measure, cut, and snap in place. The fact we did the whole thing with just a utility blade ended up being a huge perk! The floor of the fifth wheel had so many odd angles and tight spaces I just cant imagine how crazy the cuts would have been on a saw. It was also great to skip nails/hardware all together on a project!
When it came to finishing out the slides we used 2 different trims. At first I wanted everything to match but as you can see the slides are very different so that wasn’t going to work.
The small area in front of the fireplace was a continuation of the kitchen which has a thick white base. After seeing both options in person it was clear white was best. This one is a small 90 degree pvc wall trim we found at Lowes.
For the living room slide we went with an unfinished oak stair trim from Home Depot. At first we thought we’d stain it to match but it turned out to be the same color as our furniture legs(more on that soon!) so its most likely going to be left as-is.
One tip we used(several times!) while putting this all together: test as you go. Throughout the whole process we pulled the slides in an out many times. Its better to make sure everything is going to work before you’ve laid the entire thing. We’d lay a chunk and then test a slide, lay & test, lay & test… you get the point! Our slides glide right over these without any problems. No buckling, shifting, or scratching. All of which we were worried about!
One major project DONE! We’ve been to a handful of places and temps and we couldn’t be happier with this flooring. It was a big project but we knew it was essential to this renovation.
So tell me about your fifthwheel, rv, tiny home, etc flooring. Do you love it? Hate it? Considered replacing it? You know Id love to hear all about it in the comments!
