MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS - *M* is Mural, Mattress, MP3 and my Chair Cushions are Done.

I am going to start off the new year with posting some of our motorhome modifications, a few at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing.  I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.

Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter M now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 

STARTING WITH THE LETTER M

Mural on the back of the motorhome:

I have mentioned it before, but the Safari murals are hand painted and airbrushed on individually each personally by the Dame family out in Oregon.  And each one is different and interesting.   Here is a website with more information: 

  http://www.arcatapet.net/travel/murals.cfm

I am not a tiger fanatic, but it came that way to us, and it's kinda cool. Often they hide a small animal somewhere on the mural, here is out little mouse.  It makes a great conversation starter with folks, and little kids love to try to find ours.  Here, I will help you find it on ours with a big red circle. 

Memory Foam Mattress:
We upgraded our house mattress to a memory foam last year.  We really like sleeping on the gel filled memory foam, and Steve (who always insisted he needed rock hard for a bad back)  sleeps better than ever, and snores less too! 

Last month, we found a good clearance deal on another memory foam mattress the same as our first one, and we splurged on it.   We were able to haul it home on the trailer fully wrapped in the plastic plus a tarp to keep any road slush or snow off it.  Luckily, it was a nice day with dry pavement! 

Steve and I managed to move the old innerspring off the bed in the motorhome, through the doors of the bathroom and out into the living area of the motorhome.  

(this is the innerspring one going out and to our kids' house) 

We managed to get the memory foam one out into the rig....  we stood it on end and slid it back into the bedroom area. A king sized mattress is just about the height of our ceilings inside, so it barely fit under the bathroom pocket doorway ledges along the top of the ceiling. It was very floppy and awkward! 

See Steve back in there pulling it? 

 

We had to be careful along the sharp corner of the bed pedestal box (which contains our diesel engine) and had to bend the mattress around the corner to get it into the room.  Realizing the corner was sharp and could tear the mattress, I put a big plastic bowl on the corner to slide the mattress past it. Just as we were almost past that point, I heard a *CRACK* sound.  hahahha look what happened to our bowl! 

Glad we didn't wreck the mattress----

We got the mattress safely past that point and we flopped it into place!!! 

SUCCESS!!!

WHEW!!!!

MP3 player:

Okay, now the last one is pretty minor... but still I thought it was worth a mention.   A long time ago, I bought this little cord to be able to plug in a portable Walkman CD player to my home stereo to play through it's speakers.  It has a plug for headphone jack on one end and two RCA stereo plugs on the other side.  We have had the cord laying in a drawer now for years....    And I got to thinking.....

In our motorhome, we have a huge stereo home theater system that we never use.  It's hooked up to the TV with the DVD player. There is also the dash stereo with a 10 disc CD player. We never use that either. 

Because we never use that stuff, well, we never use the built in motorhome speakers.  There are FOURTEEN of them, I am not kidding!  They are mounted on the ceiling, in the cabinets, down on the floor in front (sub woofer stuff)  and we have not really ever used them at all.  If we do have the tv on, it plays through it's own speakers, and it's just for news in the background.  Not to listen to some heart-stopping thriller movie with great sound effects!  Not our style.   Too noisy in the campgrounds too. We had contemplated in the past to take the speakers down, but they would leave marks and holes and wires all over the ceilings.  So they just sit there, looking impressive.

But we do like this little tiny MP3 player I have.  It's a mere $20 gadget that plugs right into the USB port on my computer to load it up.  I know it's old school.  Often I plug it into some tiny speakers that are powered right from MP3 player and take it outside to set by my lawnchair.    

Many people use the music on their cell phone, but that wears down your phone battery.  If we are boondocking, we don't want to do that.

If we do use the MP3 player inside, we let it set by the table in the photo below.  I like to set it on "random" and let it play whatever it wants.  It's all good to me. 

Soooo back to that little cord.  If it could be hooked up between that little MP3 player and our speakers, it could use them for music playing through the speakers in the rig!   Sure 'nuff!!!!   Looking up in our front cabinet, on the big Hot Shotz amp unit, there is a pair of left and right RCA jacks!   Hook it up, flick the switch and it works~!

I know it will use some battery power to run, but we checked it out on the Trimetric gauge and it is very little.  The MP3 unit runs off one AAA battery, so no recharging is needed for that to run.   NOW WE WILL USE OUR BUILT IN MOTORHOME SPEAKERS! 

~~~~~~

This morning I cut into my prewashed fabric for the front porch chairs.  I was so happy to find this material, and it's just what I had in my mind's eye when I decided to cover the cushions. 

I sewed the cushion covers this morning, and by noon I had all four done for the chairs! I didn't do the ottoman cushion yet, I am waiting to make sure I have enough fabric for redoing the couch cushions as well. 

The people we bought the chairs from said they got them from some friends.  It was a couple who came from Taiwan, and the expensive bamboo chairs were brought over with they moved to the USA.  When I was done with the "makeover" I sent her pics and thanked her again.  She was happy to hear they would remain in our retirement home, probably for the rest of our lives. She was going to share that with the people whom they bought the chairs from in the first place. 

Steve got home from his trasnport,

in time to have some lunch out on the front porch! 

Our temps were in the 40's and 

the sun shining in warmed up the space. 

So here is the south end of our front porch, all spiffied up with the new chairs and I hung my summer quilted wall hanging on the wall by the door.  The chairs fit in well, and the front door still clears the edge of the chair to get in and out.  It seems to be a really relaxing spot, and we are looking forward to sipping coffee together there in the morning.

I can't wait until summer!  In the summer months, my clematis vines grow up all over those three windows and create a shade of green thick shady leaves..... and spray a bouquet of velvety purple flowers all across the windows!

 This is what the windows behind the chairs will look like about mid-summer! 

Next, I will be working on the cushions for the couch. I laid some of the fabric across, just to test it out.  YESSSSSS  I think it will look nice.  I want to wait till the other 2 yards gets here that is being shipped from the other fabric store.  Then I will start in on the couch.

 The weekend is here, and it's going to be warm and sunny.  We did get a little snow yesterday, but it's mostly melted again.  This has been the strangest winter!   Tonight it's down to 30, but we have a fire going in the fireplace, and I don't think the furnace has kicked in even once all day or night.

MOTORHOME MODIFICATION- Three little things to make life easier

Before I get into the new things we have done to the rig... I wanted to just say I had the most DELIGHTFUL phone call today!  My grandson, Jameson, told me for the first time, in his own words:

 "I WUV OOO, GRAMMA" !!!   

Made my heart melt! 

Now, on to the modifications---

This first one is kinda a "two parter"  ....  first off, let me explain that we use a tire pressure monitoring system for all 6 tires on the motorhome.  Recently, by adding the Tracker being towed behind, we put four more sensors on those tires too.  BUT--- the base unit for the monitoring system could not pick up the signals of the four Tracker tires when the base is setting up on the dash.  

We could invest another $100 into a signal repeater for this specific brand of tire monitoring system... but we are thinking there is another way to work around this. Plus, we are *cheap*! 

We first tried moving the base unit to the dining table that is in the middle of our coach,  after Steve installed a 12 volt cigarette lighter type outlet there... but..  now it could *see* the two back tires on the Tracker, but not the two front ones!   I figured the heavy lined metal box around the rear engine compartment under our bed was blocking the signal between the table and the front tires of the Tracker. 

So Steveio decided to install another 12 volt outlet in the bedroom closer to the back of the rig to see if we can pick up the signal from back there, above the engine box, making a clearer path to the Tracker.  Plus, the outlet can be used once we are parked in place for either charging up a cell phone or even plugging in my laptop (I have both AC and DC cords for my laptop)  

The valances in our bedroom, we have 12 volt fluorescent lights running the length of them, hidden inside, that are original to the rig.  So the wiring is already there to tap into, and no holes needed to be drilled after Steveio located the best spot for the outlet.

He snugged an outlet up in the corner of the valance, hidden out of sight, and ran the wires along the inside over to the wiring for the light. A few wire clips and wire nuts, it was Easy Peasy and no holes drilled!~  

Next was *where* to locate the base unit for the monitor?  Well, the entire back of our motorhome above the headboard is one huge mirror.  Ain't gonna be drilling any holes in that!   Sooooo  my idea... a suction cup and an eyeglass cord!   

By locating it up and center over the bed, the cord can reach the outlet, and from my passenger seat up front, I can glance back and see the green light to the left, meaning all is fine.   If we have low pressure, the red lights goes on and a very loud beeping ensues.  Easily heard from up front. 

And yes, it now monitors all 4 tires on the Tracker and all 6 on the motorhome.  Mission Accomplished!

Next up on the list...  

This is something we saw in a rig owned by our Safari Friends:  Mel and Snap Snap Snap Paula    (that snapping is Steveio trying to remember her name)   LOL   They had mounted a nice towel bar on the side of the kitchen cabinet, next to the stove.  Previously, we had been hanging towels through the handles of the drawers, which just seem to get in the way of the cabinets below. 

Now, of course, we could just go BUY a towel bar, right?   But we are *Cheap* and like to reuse, recycle or make something work.  Last year we had removed the stair cover (in the photo below) because it gets in the way of our heater.  We never used it anyway. It's made to flap down over the stair well, and the handle is a grab bar for entering and leaving the rig.  It really was just in the way, so we took it out.  We still had it laying in the garage.  Are you thinking what we were thinking?  See that nice grab bar on the side of the stair cover? 

Yup.  We pulled it off and attached it to the side of the kitchen cabinet... nice low profile, doesn't stick out too far, and the wood matches our cabinetry PERFECTLY!   LOL 

Okay, now the last one is pretty minor... but still I thought it was worth a mention.   A long time ago, I bought this little cord to be able to plug in a portable Walkman CD player to my home stereo to play through it's speakers.  It has a plug for headphone jack on one end and two RCA stereo plugs on the other side.  We have had the cord laying in a drawer now for years....    And I got to thinking.....

In our motorhome, we have a huge stereo home theater system that we never use.  It's hooked up to the TV with the DVD player.. and also the dash stereo with a 10 disc CD player.  We never use those speakers.  There are FOURTEEN of them, I am not kidding!  They are mounted on the ceiling, in the cabinets, down on the floor in front (sub woofer stuff)  and we have not really ever used them at all.  If we do have the tv on, it plays through it's own speakers, and it's just for news in the background.  Not to listen to some heart-stopping thriller movie with great sound effects!  Not our style.   We had contemplated in the past to take the speakers down, but they would leave marks and holes and wires all over the ceilings.  So they just sit there, looking impressive.

But we do like this little tiny MP3 player I have.  It's a mere $20 gadget that plugs right into the USB port on my computer to load it up.  Often I plug it into some tiny speakers  that are powered right from MP3 player and take it outside to set by my lawnchair.  Or if we do use them inside, we let them set by the table in the photo below.  I like to set it on Random and let it play whatever it wants.  It's all good to me. 

Soooo back to that little cord.  If it could be hooked up between that little MP3 player and our speakers, it could use them for music playing in the rig!   Sure 'nuff!!!!   Looking up in our front cabinet, on the big Hot Shotz amp unit, there is a pair of left and right RCA jacks!   Hook it up, flick the switch and it works~!

I know it will use some battery power to run, but we checked it out on the Trimetric gauge and it is very little.  The MP3 unit runs off one AAA battery, so no recharging is needed for that to run. 

So that is it for our three little modifications.  

Nothing earth shaking.  

But just enough to make things even more comfortable in our 

Home Away From Home!