So welcome to our home on Wheels, a 2004 Fleetwood Discovery 39j motorhome! This
motorhome doesn't resemble anything like it did when we first bought it and that
is because we have made a ton of mods upgrades Renovations that you're gonna
love we got lots of tips and tricks for that but we've also done a few things that people
have told us or well kind of controversial in fact we recently received a comment asking if
this was even legal so you're going to want to stay tuned it's pretty unconventional let's go
so five years ago we decided we wanted to hit the road together as a family and so we bought
our first RV this wasn't it it was a different class a Motorhome we realized pretty quickly
that with a family of four living in that motor home well it wasn't really working for what we
needed so we sold it and got this instead and then after realizing that this wasn't exactly
working the best with our growing family not that we were having more kids but our kids were growing
we needed to do something different so in 2021 we started a series of Renovations and some of those
have been a little bit controversial foreign so we're going to start in the very back and work
our way towards the front for this tour but this is master bedroom as Ben would say this is where
the magic happens and that's all made possible because right here we have a washer and dryer
so if you have been following the channel you know our old one recently but the Dust
and so this was what we ended up going with which is a brand new Splendid all-in-one washer dryer so
can you say spin cycle so a couple of things that I like about this versus the old unit is that this
has a little bit of a bigger drum on the inside so you can actually fit more but you can also
actually like hit a pause button and pause it if you need to add something to the cycle or run just
a dry cycle so if I need to dry off our towels or something I can pop them in here for 10 minutes
where other one you really couldn't do that very easily so it's more user friendly I guess is what
I'm trying to say now I will say something about our old unit we found out that there is something
you need to do with these if you have one and we put that in our other video when we ended
up having to remove it so I'm going to link that right up here you definitely want to take a look
at that if you have one of these or considering getting one of these right here we used to have
a television it is no longer here and so what we did to make the best use of this space is we
actually installed this closet made shelf now we installed this upside down because with it being
upside down the things that are on it are not going to come off and so they're secure on travel
days plus this is like a huge space that literally served next to no purpose other than a big TV that
sat there and so I really find this more valuable than watching television so if that's what we did
there now the next thing that's pretty cool are these closet doors I absolutely love these closet
doors these actually used to be mirrors so can you say hello 1980 so we had some help renovating this
RV and the installer did this nice kind of like geometric art deco type pattern on the closet
doors and it just brightens the whole thing up now here's a little something we did recently
that is new guys have not seen this before never seen before footage right now but that is is that
Ben and I actually put up this peel and stick wallpaper kind of just at the head of the bed
because it was white like the rest of the walls are and we kind of wanted to give it a little
pop of color and then the other thing this was done before and now at the end of this video I
will link a whole series of videos on all of the renovations so you can see individual things if
you've got questions as you're watching this video you can definitely leave them in the comments but
chances are if you watch that whole renovation series of videos you'll probably have your
questions answered and we talk more about this but what we did is then we also installed another
roller shade here so we can close this off just to block out the light if we want to do that so
that's brand new versus what we had in here before the other thing that we've done um is replace all
of the slide trims one of the things we upgraded as part of our renovation was to replace the
Factory Mattress and we chose the Aurora Lux hybrid mattress from rvmattress.com it's been
great having a mattress that has all the Comforts of home because let's face it this RV actually is
our home now the process to have it shipped to us and then get it into the RV was super
simple because their mattresses come rolled up in a box and wrapped in plastic so when our mattress
arrived we just hoisted it into the RV unwrapped the plastic and it like literally poofed right
up but what if you're a part-time rver or maybe when you're not on the road one thing we realized
is when we were in our RV we were sleeping much better than when we were at our glamper Hideaway
which is our vacation rental so we went through brooklynbetting.com which is RV mattresses parent
company to get other mattresses for the glamper Hideaway and we upgraded all of the mattresses
there to the Brooklyn Bedding mattresses so when we are hosting our guests we know they're getting
a rest full night's sleep as well one of the things we love about RV mattress is they have
a factory in Arizona they ship for free and come with a 10-year warranty so we are set for a very
long time and because we do want this channel to be a resource for all of you in the RV Community
we've partnered with rvmattress.com for 25 off for our viewers you can learn more at rvmattress.com
forward slash grateful use the code grateful check the link in the description and a huge
thanks to RV mattress for sponsoring this video and their continued support of our channel so now
the other thing that we've got going on kind of down in this area here now this actually there was
like a stereo here who the heck puts a stereo in the master bedroom of an RV and here we have all
of our displays for all of our solar stuff so we can look at what's going on with our whole entire
solar system see what's going on with the battery controllers all of that kind of stuff if I had a
dollar for every time that I got this question via email a comment on YouTube an Instagram message
I would be a very rich woman but people ask about our photos that we have hung throughout our RV so
these are all photos of all of our adventures that we have had and these are from a company called
mixed tiles not a sponsor no affiliate don't get paid a dime to tell you about this just a product
that we love and people ask about and it's super lightweight you can take it off the wall really
really easily it doesn't damage the walls and then you can put it right back up okay so in
the closet we have our charge controllers for the solar panels so I will put a link above if you'd
like to see more information about our solar setup what we have done with our particular solar system
just more information I'll have video right up here for you that I know you're going to find
super helpful when it comes to All Things solar so in the bathroom we have made several upgrades
in here so one of the things that we actually did was some paint and took down one of the cabinets
and upgraded the toilet so we got rid of the RV feeling toilet for something that was a little bit
more of a residential feel toilet if you could say a nicer feeling toilet which I know sounds
weird but seriously when you're in your RV full time you just sometimes need those little bit of
Creature Comforts the next thing we did was we installed one of these Max Air fans so this also
came from e-trailer in addition to the toilet and this is great because you can set it to actually
come on at a certain temperature if you want it's reversible so you can make it bring air in suck
air out just has more options than the old fan that we used to have in here we installed these
boxes from Hobby Lobby I just didn't like the cabinet I didn't like the look of it but it also
wasn't very functional and I can actually store just as much in these two boxes attached to the
wall and my Ikea rack as I could have stored in that cabinet and then we just installed a
nice mirror so you can still kind of have some mirror I don't know what do you call that some
mirror mirreness but I love Ikea and we've done a lot of videos I'm going to put one of them
right up here where we take you into Ikea and show you all things small living and RV so next
up we're going to talk about the kitchen now this is where one of the things that we've done people
have found controversial but there's something else that's probably our most controversial mod
Renault thing that's yet to come but one of the things that people have found controversial is the
removal of our propane stove and going completely propane free for cooking and using this induction
cooktop instead now I will tell you yes this is a little power hungry yes if you exclusively
Boondock this is something that you just have to be aware of is a little bit more of a power suck
but it's not that bad we've got a large enough battery Bank we've got enough solar this is not
a problem at all and it's less of a safety hazard when it comes to cooking because we have no Open
Flame plus the fact that when we have the propane stove here before there was like next to no
storage because it's the stove and so now we have all of this instead because we have no stove here
which gave us a ton more space now you'll have to let me know in the comments below I know a ton of
you have told me that you're actually just using your stove for storage anyway and not even using
it for cooking so we had the cabinets completely painted this was done professionally this was
not a DIY project we wanted to attempt because we wanted it to last but we did repurpose all of the
hardware so this Hardware that's on the cabinets is actually the original Hardware that came with
our RV the microwave convection oven that we have here so we can use the convection oven part if we
do need an oven this is the original one so this was here when we bought it it's still here works
great there's no need to replace it or do anything different when it still works just fine so now one
of the most probably intimidating diy things that Ben and I have done in this RV as of recently when
I say recently we're talking about like within the last six months was we actually converted
this also away from propane so do you kind of see the theme here where we're coming less and
less dependent on propane and using electricity is more of our main power source but we took out
the absorption style cooling unit that was on the back of this refrigerator installed one of
the Dutch air units from JC Refrigeration we did it all ourselves runs on 12 volt this thing stays
I ice cold now whereas before we always struggled with temp but the greatest thing that I think is
that we're repurposing what's here now one of the things that we really are passionate about
because we love being outdoors we love spending time Outdoors is we want to take care of our
environment as much as we can so anytime that we can repurpose something we can keep something
out of the landfill one of the upgrades we made when we renovated this was actually the dinette
now this dinette we actually just replaced for the second time this one is from Rec Pro we absolutely
love it and the reason that we love it is because this has kind of piano bench style storage so you
get way more storage in here but it's also more comfortable because of the springs that are in the
cushions you feel like you're sitting on an actual couch and not like on a piece of foam that's on
a board like the old style dinette was but now a little hack that I use because we do travel with
pets and kids one thing that I do to keep these cushions nice and clean and neat and stain free
is I actually use crib sheets to cover them so I have a crib sheet that I've put over the bottom
cushion it helps to protect it from things like stains and food spills and also little animals
claws here's another upgrade we made that some people have found slightly controversial but
the most controversial one is still yet to come but we removed a couch and we built bunks yes
we put bunks in the living room because this was the best spot for them to go and we didn't want
to put them in the closet and then have a bunk house in the closet with our children literally
sleeping right next to us we needed some degree of separation so here they are and they work out
great so we actually found this plan on a website called Rogue engineer it's mainly made with two
by fours super simple we just made it to fit the space and then we got some mattresses that fit in
here some nice twin size mattresses and it works great the best thing that I like about it is the
underneath where we have all of the storage that is underneath where we can still put all
the kids stuff so now this is something that we haven't done anything with yet and you're gonna
have to let us know what you think we should do we're toying around some different ideas but this
couch is the original couch that the RV came with now here's kind of our little like glitch in The
Matrix so to speak is the slide that this is on is a more narrow slide all of the measurements we
have found for RV specific couches Furniture things like that are not quite gonna fit or
unless we get something super small right we don't want to like replace this within something really
tiny we want something that is somewhat similar and the other thing is is the duct work for the
heaters underneath it so you have to think about that as well so one idea we've toyed around is
having somebody kind of build us some sort of custom kind of like a day bed where we could
put a mattress on top some pillows in the back you have to let us know what do you suggest we do to
upgrade this area what now I'm going to show you kind of our Command Center but this is also where
our most controversial upgrade seriously somebody asked us if this was even legal this is what it is
so up here we have what I like to call our Command Center so here when we first got our RV this whole
thing actually protruded down about another foot because it had the big old tube Style TV in it so
we removed that and it left a big gaping box that actually impeded this wonderful view you have out
of a Class A windshield all of that so we had all of this kind of custom built got rid of the TV and
that's the most controversial thing because we have no TVs in our RV none zip but there's no
lack of screens we have phones we have tablets we have laptops like if we need to watch something
on a screen it's not that hard but the command center we have our whole blazing fast internet set
up here have a video above and below if you want to know all of the details on that because it's
pretty involved it's pretty cool you definitely want to check that out up here we've got kind of
our whole system status thing so we could check the status of the tanks and just what's going on
energy and electricity wise the thermostat which is another smart thermostat this RV we've gotten
it so smart even though it's nearly 20 years old and then up here we've got miscellaneous areas
where Ben can charge all of the batteries and things like that for all of our camera equipment
so that all sits right up in this area and then we just recently got this Mount from flagpole buddy
for our starlink so that's going to get mounted in here and a little bit more permanent fashion
very very shortly now we could not end this video yet before we show you our most expensive upgrade
that we have made and that is the solar system that we recently installed now down here we
have our victron inverter we have six battleborn batteries 100 amp hour batteries so here is where
all of the more power comes from but really where it comes from this is just the storage part is
our solar panels up on the roof now because we have a Class A motorhome weight is not an issue
and we got a lot of roof space we were actually able to get residential solar panels which really
have made a huge difference in being able to harness the power of the sun now this particular
setup this is not a cheap setup but we are absolutely loving the freedom that it is giving
us for those overnight stays those boondocking things situations like that where we can just
be a little bit more off-grid if we want but we're still glamping and we have all of the Comforts of
home that's like so I don't know 2004. it had its a 2004. it had an AM FM it did not have a
um what do they call it no eight track it did not have an agent it had a cassette though laughs
moving right along you could see I don't know what's out I'll explain
that you want a mirror in the bathroom to like check your face that's a whole you can
reflect I can't tell you how many times that we've told our children to check their face
I'm Gonna Leave a playlist right up here with our full Renault Series so if you'd
like to see motorhomes start to finish how everything went and
we had some fails in there you're going to want to check that out right up here if we
don't see you out on the road or around the campground we'll see you in the next video