Van Go's weight, that is. Ha! Quite honestly, Van Go has had a little bit too much holiday fun!
Bentley, however, is looking none too happy about having his picture "took." Nevertheless, I wanted you to get a sense for the proportions of the space.
And seriously, it has all been a creative feast for me! I love adding the decorative finishing touches to Van Go! However, I do think Tim has been a bit dubious about my having chosen to use wallpaper for a number of Van Go's walls.
Fortunately for my hare, this tortoise has an extraordinary amount of patience...an absolute requirement for any wallpaper installation. Have I mentioned that RV walls are a particular challenge for renovators?
Yup. Patience is definitely required.
However, given the fact that I "mistakenly" chose quartz for the bath counter, the possibility of any heavier materials such as actual shiplap was out of the question.
And so wallpaper it is.
I couldn't wait to dive into the project. After all, I have long planned to give Van Go an appropriate Provence flair.
I began with the newly installed fireplace. Blue and white ceramic tile for the surround was the obvious choice. But I desperately need to keep Van Go's weight down.
Fortunately for me, my favorite wallpaper shop in southern Virginia had the perfect solution. Yes,
what you see on the fireplace surround is wallpaper. Isn't it wonderful? We added some decorative mouldings and voila! Instant French flair.
In addition, I'm thrilled that my new frames for the paintings in the primary living space finally arrived. Uh, huh. As everyone is, we are still working on COVID time.
I wanted to add a little texture to some of the walls in the main living area as well. We seriously considered plastering the wall behind the dining bench. However, with all the movement of the vehicle, I worried that the plaster would crack and flake.
Thus, I chose a wallpaper that offered a texture similar to that of traditional plaster. Here's a close up as well as a photo of the textured paper behind the dining bench.
You'll note in the above photo that we have also tackled the kitchen back splash... More about that in a minute.
I chose a textured bead board paper for the knee wall that separates the stairwell from the dining area. I really love the relaxed, country flair that it adds to the space.
You can also see here that we designed the wall to house our fire extinguisher as well as a floor panel that slips over the stairwell and provides additional floor space. Mostly, that slide in floor prevents Bentley from falling into the stairwell when we are driving.
So about that backsplash... But first, may I have a drumroll, please? We now have a kitchen faucet installed! Yay! I must say it was a bit of a challenge to wallpaper without a working faucet. And so I opted to use a bucket of water. It all probably would have been much easier had I waited for the faucet. Sigh. Lesson learned.
I thought we needed water for the backsplash project. But ultimately, we decided to experiment with some new products and materials. The backsplash is actually made of mother-of-pearl... comes from the inside of oyster and other mollusk shells. It is both lightweight and strong. And I'm hoping it will prove the perfect material for the RV backsplash.
Since it came in sheets in a chevron pattern, we did not need grout. It simply needed to be adhered to the wall. This provide us with the opportunity to experiment more. Since it is lightweight, we were able to use a peel and stick adhesive. We are hoping that this will prove more flexible and therefore, hold better under the strain of the movement of the vehicle.
We used an adhesive, that we purchased from Lowe's,named Abolos Instaset Peel and Stick Adhesive. It comes in a roll and is actually fairly simple to install. But we did discover that it important to leave the protective paper on the adhesive until ready to adhere the tile.
In other words, it's best to measure and trim the tile carefully before peeling back the protective covering. It remains stickier with the covering and thus, the tile adheres better.
We used a lovely almond colored caulking to finish the edges.
The bathroom wallpaper installation turned out to be really tricky since neither the cabinets nor walls are straight. However, I did my best with the paper (which unfortunately was not pre-pasted), and I'm very happy with the result.
So, there you have it. Just waiting now for the gas stove hook-up and the cabinet braces. Then, I'll be able to load the vehicle, add the final decorative touches and give you a grand "before and after" tour!
Stay tuned! I hope to be back soon with all of the details.
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