It’s amazing what a coat of paint and some care can do for a camper. A fresh pop up camper before and after can even help you make money when you sell!
We are no longer pop up camper owners, and actually never finished all the decor plans we had for our beloved pop up. However, that didn’t stop us from making a pretty profit when we went to sell three years later!
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I find it sad to say we’re not pop up camper owners any more. Fortunately, I can say that we still have pop out beds in our hybrid, and now have a full-size bathroom and easier setup – which I’m really excited about.
After all the pop up camper love, and the improvements we made, we were actually able to turn a profit on our pop up camper! In fact, we were able to sell that camper and upgrade to our hybrid camper with only a few hundred dollars out of pocket. So, that’s pretty amazing. If we didn’t have so many other things going on, I would totally like to flip a pop up camper someday.
So, we’ve posted a bit about our camper all along the way, but let me refresh your memory.
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We bought a pop up camper!
It all started with the day I finally convinced my husband that we need a pop up camper. We had started to have an annual camping trip for Watercross and had stayed in the garage of a friend’s fifth wheel. I was obsessively checking ads for pop ups for a couple of reasons. 1. It’s always nice to have your own space. 2. We had a pop up when I was young and it brings back great memories. 3. They are more manageable for towing and storage – especially since I didn’t know how often we would use it.
Finding the deal
So, I had decided that this was going to happen! I had been looking for quite a while. I really wanted a pop up with a toilet and a/c, but they were so hard to find! I think at the time, I kept seeing those for $3,000 and up. Finally, one showed up on Craigslist for something like $2,500. Unlike the others, it wasn’t snatched up so quickly we couldn’t even look at it, and I think that was due to bad photos. Lucky us!
The family we bought it from were so nice. The camper was dirty and smelly, but they came down on the price and it had so many extras that made it a great value. We were sold!
Getting the Smell Out
One of the first and most important things we did was work on getting the smell out. We removed all the cushions, tore up the nasty carpet, tore down the curtains, and gave everything a good cleaning. We added air fresheners all over, and that started to do the trick.
Our smelly camper secret weapon!
We ended up keeping the curtains, mattresses, and covers so we were lucky that the smell seemed to come out. Fortunately, the rest of our renovations also seemed to help with the smell.
See how we took out one of those mattress and set up one pop up bunk for our two kiddos.
New Paint and Flooring
Next up to really transform and freshen up the look of our pop up was the painting and new flooring. The light paint and flooring really made the biggest impact in our pop up camper before and after. This is one of those things that also really helped freshen up the old camper smell as well.
Fortunately, my husband used to do flooring, so we have a professional to handle the job. However, it’s a small project and I would say most people can handle it. We removed almost all the cabinets, and he went to work. In the meantime we also painted everything white for a fresh look.
New camper cushions!
This is one of my favorite things! I love our fabric choice for the cushions. It made a huge difference from the super outdated covers that came with the camper. I was also thrilled with how well sewing the camper cushion covers went. The method we used to sew the corners went just as easy as I pictured it in my head, so that’s a win!
We got enough fabric to also do new curtains and maybe hang a new straight valance around the top of the camper to replace the ruffled one. However, we decided to embrace the color of the counters and thought our newly cleaned curtains looked just fine. It was one of those things that was always on the list, but never happened before we sold.
Pop Up Camper Replacement Parts and where to find them!
Pop Up Camper Before and After
We made some other repairs to the camper that I never covered in blog posts. My husband had to do some work on the water lines and pump. He also reinforced the lid for the front storage compartment. There were some other random repairs, and the biggest one that I should have shared was that his mom help us repair the canvas and the plastic window shades that had torn from the zipper. That is probably something I should still post if I can find old photos!
After all was said and done, our baby was in pretty good shape. Right about that time that just the minor improvements were left, we got particularly fed up with the setup and take down of the camper and all our gear in the hot July sun. So, the look for a hybrid was really on and our love of the last few years was listed on Facebook marketplace.
Pop Up Camper Must-Haves – some of our favorite things!
Selling our Pop Up
As I expected from watching the sale of other campers, we got a ton of messages the minute our pop up went up for sale. The demand made me so happy as the first person set up a meeting to look. I knew we wouldn’t have haggling because I had 7 other people in line by the next morning.
The family had grown children and wanted to be able to camp with their friends or have a place for guests to stay. They didn’t want the work of a remodeling a pop up and weren’t willing to spend the money on a new one before they knew they’d use it. So, we made a full-price deal pretty fast. In fact, the husband asked us the price and stated a price that was almost $1000 more than we were asking – so, if we weren’t so honest, we could have really made some money!
Camper Must Haves – Investments that pay off big time!
In the end, we sold our baby and our project of the past few years for $3,500. We used her for 3 years, and put a lot of work into her. In the end, with our pop up camper before and after, we came out ahead by $1,500 – which isn’t too shabby!
Best of all are the memories we made in that little pop up camper! I hope we’ll have many more in our new hybrid.
Pop Up Camper Before and After
A part of me wishes I would have made the time to stage her up nice and pretty and get all the cute photos. Unfortunately, she’s gone now and this is what I have. We got back from our last camping trip and listed her the next day, and by the next she was already gone. So, I’m left with these hurried pictures from when we sold her.
It just goes to show you, a little paint, cleaning, and care is all it takes to drastically improve an old pop up camper.
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Thank you so much for sharing this. This is just definitely what I needed. Anyways, great post!
Thank you so much, John! Are you remodeling a camper?