Our Lance truck camper remodel

This post was a long time coming. That's because a year ago I floated the idea of buying a van and turning into a camper by my husband and he vetoed it. And then COVID-19 happened and life changed. We didn't know how we would visit his family in the fall, clear across the country, if flying was not back to normal. So I brought up the idea again. And this time he bit.

In previous posts, I talked about how we landed in a used Lance truck camper. This post is dedicated to how we remodeled it so that it felt more open, clean, and more like us. Links to what we used will be included at the end of this post.

Happy campers

The day our camper was delivered we woke up excited. As soon as the workday ended we rode up to our storage space and started ripping out the carpet and the cornices and window treatments. And thank goodness we did because we discovered water damage over the headboard in the cab over bedroom. We had looked for delamination when we were looking it over before buying it, but we completely missed it. It wasn't until a month later when we were driving up to our storage spot to work on the rig that we noticed some delamination on the cab over--and that's because the sun was hitting it just right and we were almost level with that high part of the rig since we were driving up in our truck. More on that later.

The facelift

We're posting before and after photos on our Instagram and will group them all together into highlights. If you're interested in the things we used, scroll to the bottom for links.

So here is the slide-in truck camper we purchased in July. It's a 2004 Lance 1030.

We knew it was clean and in good condition. The most major change we planned for was to dump the existing generator and replace it with something newer, quieter and more powerful. But we still had a few ideas for giving her a facelift. And we had the time to do it because once the seller dropped her at our storage facility we had to wait more than three weeks for our Torklift system to be installed on the bed of our truck so that we could start carrying her around.

Getting started

The inside was beige. And to be honest, I am a little bit of a germophobe. So we (I) knew wiping it down and changing everything would make it feel cleaner.

While Will replaced the rotted out water damaged wall I sanitized every.single.surface from top to bottom and started painting. We used Behr Marquis One Coat in Cameo White and it took about three coats.

I also spent a few nights after work sewing window treatments. All of the camper windows were different sizes and we wanted blackout curtains, so whatever we did would need to be custom. I don't know my way around a sewing machine very well, but I got a head start by using blackout drapery panels I found at Target. I cut and hemmed them to fit each window. I may or may not have had to bring some back home a few times to rehem them because a few were too long. But hey, that's better than too short, right?! After discovering a water-damaged wall we weren't too keen on drilling more holes in the walls, so we used tension rods to hang all of the curtains.

We thought we wanted to replace the countertops with custom wood or sand them down and stain them, but we decided to try something we felt might be easier that would result in fewer mistakes. We covered them in marble contact paper. I'm not going to lie and say it was easy because the paper was extremely sticky, making it a little hard to work with. But we took it slow and are happy with how it turned out. Will also built a new dinette table from some pallet wood and it turned out beautiful.

I covered the dinette cushions in dropcloth. That was not a sewing project I wanted to tackle, so we bought some thin wood at Home Depot and I wrapped the cushions like a present and used a staple gun to staple the dropcloth to the wood.

The kitchen

Next, we tackled the kitchen backsplash and the floor. We used subway tile wallpaper, a vinyl plank flooring and some peel and stick tile for the bathroom. We may tackle updating the flooring right around the toilet in the future. We had just enough vinyl plank flooring left over to cover the step up into the bedroom and the wall leading into the bedroom. We added a fluffy rug to the step to make it feel a little bit more cozy.

The cab over bedroom

The final piece of our truck camper renovation was the bedroom. Once we discovered the water damage we got on a few forums and asked for advice on how to repair it. Some other truck camper owners suggested peeling off the exterior layer and repair from the outside, while others said fix it from the inside. Again, we went with what seemed easy--or less scary, to be honest. Will removed the wall from the inside, chipped out all of the rot, added new insulation and a new wall. To cover the imperfections we covered the new wall in a shiplap panel wallpaper. EDIT: After six months the wallpaper began to bubble up in a few places. We thought it might be a combination of humidity and the curve. So we pulled it down and replaced it with vinyl flooring.

From the beginning, I wanted a shelf over the bedroom window, and in the end, it became another useful piece to hide things like wires that busted out when we took the wall down. I added a fun quote to a piece of wood and we secured it to shelf with screws.

Original bedroom wall

New bedroom wall six months later

In the end, it took about five weekends to complete this project from start to finish. As I write this we're working on a few last-minute technical things that have nothing to do with how it looks as we prepare for our first outing.

Before and after gallery

Check out this video and the photos below to see the transformation.

Things we used for our truck camper makeover*

Paint: Behr Marquis One Coat in Cameo White

Living space floor: Vinyl plank flooring

Bathroom floor: Peel and stick bathroom tile

Dinette and headboard curtains: Blackout curtain panel modern stroke

Kitchen and bedroom curtains: Heathered thermal room darkening panel

Curtain rods: 28-48" spring tension rod

Curtain rods: 16-28" spring tension rod

Curtain rods: 43-72" shower curtain tension rod

Countertop contact paper: Granite look marble peel and stick

Bedroom wallpaper: Shiplap peel and stick wallpaper (After six months we replaced it with vinyl plank flooring)

Shower curtain: Herringbone print shower curtain

Shower curtain tie-back: Magnetic tie-backs

Area rug: Ivory/Grey area rug

Backsplash: White subway tile with grey grout

Cabinet pulls: Black modern cabinet hardware

Dinette cushion fabric: 8 oz. medium duty canvas drop cloth

Mug rail: Kitchen utensil holder

Cutting board: Bamboo cutting board

To hang artwork: Hook and loop fasteners

Sheets: Grey polka dots (they're regular queen-sized sheets, not RV queen)

Comforter: Crinkle texture comforter

Artwork: Camper Sweet Camper printable

Artwork: More adventure printable

Wall planter: Geometric wall planter (I bought the succulents on clearance at Michael's)

Bathroom and bedroom hooks: Black adhesive hooks

LED fixtures: Double light ceiling mount dome light

LED fixtures: Single light ceiling mount dome light

Outlet: 12 V power and USB ports

*We have only posted links to things we used in the remodel and still like. When you buy something we recommend, we may get an affiliate commission, but that doesn't affect what we post or your price. We donate all commission to our favorite autism charity. Our blog is built on a free platform and is purely for fun and to share our experience with others.