Like many others when the pandemic hit, we were desperate to find a way to spend the summer with our family, while being safe at the same time. Growing up, I was always outdoors in the summer between fishing, camping, and boating, and I had always dreamt of doing the same with my little family. 2020 seemed like the perfect year to get into camping but trying to find a camper quickly became an impossible task. I searched high and low for a camper that our SUV could pull but the costs of any available used campers SKYROCKETED! Campers that used to sell for $1,000, were priced at $9000+. The demand put the cost truly through the roof and I gave up on the search before long.
But low and behold, not too long after I had called it quits, we got the greatest surprise when my mother and step-dad pulled into their driveway with this beautifully kept Jayco Qwest 12A for us to use at their seasonal camp for the summer! They got a great deal on this camper and it’s huge! It reaches 24′ when open and has the perfect amount of space for our family. The camper is basic in a good way; not a lot of bells and whistles but it makes it have long runs of counter-top space and empty storage that makes packing it up to use with twin 4-year-olds, two adults, and a small dog a breeze!
The camper was easy to get ready to use, as all it really needed was a light cleaning and we were off! We had an amazing summer of 2020 in our camper and it served us very well! After closing up the camp at the end of the fall, I fell down the Pinterest rabbit hole imagining what we could do to the camper to freshen it up. The camper still had some pretty unattractive original cushions and curtains, and though they were all in great shape, they just didn’t fit in my world of decor!
The first thing we did was remove all the cushions and curtains and give the camper and good scrubbing. I used OxyClean Laundry Spot Treatment Spray on the inside of the canvas to clean any spots, with a microfiber cloth for the less stubborn spots, and a scrub brush lightly for the more stubborn stains. You want to be careful to not compromise the waterproofing of your pop-up’s canvas by scrubbing too much; be conservative with the elbow grease.
The next item on the list was a good cleaning of the plastic windows in the camper. They are in excellent shape but I didn’t realize how dirty they actually were until I wiped them down with this plastic window cleaner. Game changer! The light in the camper was significantly increased by just a simple window cleaning. This was easy to do by spraying the cleaner and buffing in circular motions until clean with a microfiber cloth.
Next up was patching a couple tiny holes in the canvas that we had tried and failed a few times to patch in the previous camping season. I ordered this repair tape from Amazon to try something different and it worked so well! All you have to do with this is cut patches, round the edges, and apply. The holes I needed to repair were on the zip-out windows so I used the repair tape on both sides of the hole as the instructions suggested and it worked fantastic (our first camping trip of the 2021 season was a wash-out and truly tested the tape’s durability and it didn’t budge!). At under $5, I will always have this tape on hand in case on camper (or other!) emergencies!
The final step to prepare the pop-up for the big makeover, was to do a good clean of all the cabinets to prepare for paint. I cleaned them all very well with diluted TSP and we were ready for the next (and biggest) step-paint!
Part 2 of the makeover, including the painting process, cushion reupholstering and curtains to follow!
