MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS- WILDERNESS RV MATTRESS - SEATCOVERS - NEW MIC SET

We belong to a Facebook group that has owners of the Winnebago View and also the Navion.  It's great to read various hints and tricks and tips on motorhome maintenance from other owners with the same models. 

One of the posters has the exact same model as ours with the rear bed slide. He had posted about a website that he ordered a custom-made RV mattress and he was quite pleased with the results.

https://wildernessrvmattress.com

After going to their website, I could see all the different RV type mattresses they could make. They can make the corners a certain way, they can make the sizes however you want, and they can also put a "hinge" into a two-piece mattress to make it fold up. That is exactly what we need for our back rear slide.

Our current mattress is only about 5 in thick. It is the original two-piece cushions from Winnebago. They are actually 10 years old, based on the fact that our rig was built in 2015, even though it's called a 2016 model. 

It is a queen size bed but the mattress is in two pieces. That's because before the slide comes in, you flip the top portion over on top of the bottom portion. I say it's "like a taco". 

The two pieces just butt up next to each other and you cover it with a bed sheet. We had also covered it with a 3-in memory foam pad and an electric mattress pad. It's been okay and pretty comfortable over the last 2 years. But then after reading about Troy's post of his good experience with the Wilderness RV Mattress Company, we decided to do an upgrade.

I even like their logo. How cute...

They make various types of innerspring, memory foam, and even bunk bed cushion mattresses.

We comfortably sleep on a 12-in memory foam in our house. So we decided to order with the 10-in memory foam on the website. Plus, it was on sale! 

We paid $733 and also got free shipping.

We put in all the numbers and all the measurements of what we needed. You can select the shapes of your corners, all of your dimensions, and exactly where you want the hinge to be placed. It happens that the top half of our mattress actually needs to be an inch thicker than the bottom half. Because of the slide configuration, there is a difference in height. So we were able to plug in those numbers for the height difference in each section. I had a bit of difficulty online, so I called them on the phone and they took care of getting the measurements logged in correctly and placing my order. 

Because it is custom-made, it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to get it. Two weeks on the dot we had gotten ours delivered to the house via FedEx. Free shipping! 

The video of our unboxing and releasing the plastic and letting it open up is on the YouTube link below at the end of this blog. It was quite funny. 

It took shape very quickly and was ready to sleep on in 15 minutes. There were no odors or off-gassing of the materials. We were quite pleased with the mattress and it seemed to be very well made.

In the flipped open position it is comfy and thick and very suitable for what we are looking for. The bed of course is twice as high as what it was before. But it works out perfectly.

You really can't tell much by this photo, but the top portion where our heads go is an inch thicker than the bottom portion of the mattress. It was made exactly to what we specified. The "Hinge" is the horizontal line across the mattress.

We put on our electric mattress pad heater, and then our sheets. The deep pocket sheets we had bought last spring fit the 10-in height perfectly. Before on our 5-in height they were a little loose.

Last, but not least, we topped it off with my beautiful quilt that I made for our trip to Alaska. The pattern is called "Winter Solstice" by Patty Carey. I named it our "North to Alaska" quilt. 

We topped it off with the two throw pillows that I made. Those are perfect for laying in bed and watching TV. My oh my, such decadence. Lol!

Mr. Nicholas had to try it out and give it his final four paws up note of approval. He does hop up on the bed for nap time, but at night time he sleeps on the floor on my side on his own little doggy bed.

It was a pretty hot and humid day when we were working on putting the mattress into place. We had turned on the air conditioning earlier in the day so the motorhome was actually quite comfortable. We decided to stretch on out, as Nicholas had invited us to take our nap out there. Yep, we took our nap right out in the driveway. And it was pretty darned relaxing!

(Incidentally, we put up the old mattress set on Facebook Marketplace for free and someone who was restoring a tear drop type trailer really, really needed it. The one that they had ordered was too big--- and this two-piece one would work much better for them. Much better than just their sleeping bags on hard plywood. They were so excited to get it!)

Since we got home, we have had some very very humid days. Most of our mornings start out with a misty fog across our back field. We are very close to the baywaters of Green Bay and it is quite humid. A big contrast to when we were out West and up North into Canada and Alaska.

Now it was time for our next motorhome modification / upgrade. 

The front cockpit seats of the Winnebago View are part of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500 chassis.  The type of vinyl that is used on their seats is made to look like leather. But after 9 to 10 years, they start to flake and peel. Other Winnebago owners have complained of the same thing. They looked really nice two years ago when we first bought the rig. But after a lot of heavy use, they really are showing their wear and tear.

Again, through the advice and experience of other Winnebago owners, they have suggested that the best seat covers for the money that are custom-made come from this company: 

https://www.seatcoversunlimited.com/

We were able to choose from a wide variety of colors and different textures. You can get fabrics like canvas, similar to Carhartt outerwear. You can get neoprene type water resistant. You can get fabric like corduroy or velor. We chose to go with the vinyl. The other Winnebago folks said that it comes really heavy duty thick marine grade vinyl along with great stitching and fits like a glove. So we chose a rich deep charcoal color that matches with our interior dash and door trims. It will also match better with our dark gray loveseat in the living room area of the motorhome.

We paid $343 total to custom make the 2 seat covers that we needed. They took about 3 weeks and arrived just in time for us to put them in place before going camping. 

Again, the process of putting them on is on the video link down at the end of this blog if you want to watch it. 

Each seat comes in four different pieces. The bottom, the back, the headrest, and the armrest. 

The bottom seat sections went on perfectly and look great!  After this photo was taken, we pulled the bottom drawstrings tighter and attached the straps and clips underneath. It then smoothed out at the corners.

The back portion slid over just like a big sleeve and clip down underneath. The scary part is actually cutting two little tiny holes for the headrest brackets to snug into place. You will have to watch the video to see what I mean. When it's done it looks really great. But it's really scary to take a scissors to something you spent over $300 on. Lol!

Hint- Getting the headrest cover on was easier by leaving it in place on the top of the chair than trying to do it off the chair.

The armrest portion was the hardest. It took both Steve and I quite a bit of effort to get that last piece around the "elbow" of the armrest. We had watched a video on YouTube on how to install them, and they had a difficult time too. But, in all honesty, if it wasn't that tight, it wouldn't look that good when it was all done.

The back portion even has a pocket for putting in our roadmaps, just like the original seat did.

We worked hard on the one seat on the passenger side. When we were done, we decided that was enough for today. We would tackle the driver's seat the next day.

The driver seat went a little easier because we already knew what we were doing. But I would say it took approximately half an hour per seat to get it done correctly. If we hadn't watched the YouTube from the company, probably would have taken us two or three hours per seat!

So here they are, all done. They match nicely with the interior. I think much better than the cream colored ones did. 

Some people might think dark gray charcoal seat covers would be uncomfortable or hot. If we ever park in the sun, we have the little accordion retractable shades that pull out from the window frames. This can easily block off any unnecessary sun penetration.

I think the color goes perfectly with the reclining loveseat that we had installed back when we first bought the motorhome.

After the seat covers were stretched on in the rig for two or three days, they kind of form fitted to the seats and all of the wrinkles from shipping came out of the surfaces. I think they look really great!

One other little upgrade we did that really doesn't affect the blog itself, but it does affect the corresponding videos that I post on YouTube.  I was having such a difficult time during our trip with the audio portions. The wireless mics I had did not work properly with my GoPro 8. They kept giving me a lot of grief. I tried using a wired Purple Panda mic, but I think it has a broken or cracked wire inside. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. How frustrating to record hours of video and not have audio included!!!

TIME FOR NEW MICS 

I bought this set off Amazon with some good reviews. It works and plays well with the hookups on both of my GoPro 8s with the media mod device. Yippee! I finally have a set that will let us record and remove the offending engine or air conditioning noise while we are traveling.  In a way it's a modification, but it's also something that we needed to compliment our traveling videos on YouTube.

Speaking of that, here's the link to the video that goes with today's blog: 

So that's about it for today's modification post about things we've done to the motorhome. Stay tuned for the next one because we are going to replace the broken cables with D pull handles on the recliner loveseat as well as replace our automatic step motor on the entry door.

Also. I am posting this while we are on a week long camping trip to beautiful Door County, WI. Stay tuned for those upcoming blog posts too!