Making it home

Most travel trailers are decorated in the neutral colours of beige and brown. The lady parked beside us in Ridgeway called her couch: my plastic couch the colour of death. Actually our couch is not too bad except that it is fabric and it is a tweed-like brown which would show every white hair our dog sheds. So we keep it covered with throws in an off-white colour which we have to wash quite often (shows you how dirty even a little dog can be).

The first thing I did is remove the mini-blinds that adorned the kitchen's two small windows. In order to close or open these windows, you had to pass your hand through the blinds to reach the wheel we turn to operate the window. Needless to say that when we bought the unit, the mini-blinds were already bent out of shape in that area. Also, we couldn't raise them up as they were attached to the wall at the bottom. So out they went and I also removed the cornices with great difficulty (but nothing would have stopped me) and recovered them and then attached a single panel to the cornice's inside (please note that the panel is lined with insulating material to keep the heat or the cold at bay) that I roll up and attach with ribbons or let down. Easy, practical and cute.

This is what it looked like before.

I'm loving the splash of colour! Then the other cornices started to look out of place to me. Each window also had wooden panels that ran on both sides instead of drapes. Those panels were brown. So the panels came out first. It also gave better access to those wheels to open and close the windows. Then I was pondering what kind of fabric I should use to recover the rest of the cornices when I decided to paint them. I had heard of people painting fabric with chalk paint and I had the right colour chalk paint leftover from another project. What I did though is rub them with a damp cloth after painting them which let the existing pattern show through. Brilliant! It looks really good and cost me nothing. See for yourself:

Yes, that is MeMe looking devilish on the top of her "tree". So now that I have painted the cornices I am looking to find a good bargain in either ready made insulating drapes or fabric and liner. I think I will use an off-white colour to brighten the interior. Even though we have pleated blinds that work quite well, they don't really insulate that much and the windows are single panes which lets in heat and cold. My kitchen panels have made a tremendous difference in keeping the heat from the scorching sun out of that area so I expect the drapes to do the same to keep our heat in the trailer during the colder months. We are leaving for the south at the end of October but it can get pretty cold before that. Just getting ready for it!

Here I am painting a cornice:

You can see the difference in colour! Also note the pillow in the same fabric as the kitchen windows. Can you see Cheeka right there with me on the couch?

I love our tiny home! I plan to do a lot more decorating in the future but I have to take it easy for Glen as he's very reluctant to change anything! I do want to paint the walls in an off-white as the beige is quite depressing. But I'll wait a month or two...