I stole the title of today’s blog from our dear friends Ron and Brenda Speidel, who presented an excellent seminar by the same name at our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rallies this year and last. One of the most popular seminars at our rallies, the Speidels show RVers how they can save tens of thousands of dollars by upgrading and refurbishing their current motorhome or fifth wheel trailer instead of buying a new one.

Ron and Brenda know what they are talking about; they have turned their stock 2002 Winnebago Journey DL motorhome into a palace on wheels with the addition of a new custom full body paint job, custom built computer work station/dining table, replacing the original kitchen sink with a larger style, and several other projects. Most people who see their coach cannot believe that it is almost eight years old! It looks like a much newer, much more expensive motorhome.

Yesterday we visited their rig to admire their latest addition, a beautiful wood floor installed by Brad and Hall, an RV furniture dealer here in Elkhart, Indiana. Monday they will take the Winnebago to another local shop, Duncan RV Repair, where a new shower unit will be installed.

While they have invested some money in upgrading their RV, Ron says it has been a fraction of what it would have cost them to buy a different motorhome.

There is probably no better place in the country than the Elkhart area to refurbish an RV. Long known as the RV Capital of the World, you can find shops offering every service needed to complete any RV upgrade project here, as well as RV supply and surplus parts stores that have anything you might need. Some of the best known companies that we have dealt with ourselves, or whose work we have seen are listed below:

Phoenix Commercial Paint, (574) 238-5668 – Michele Henry does first class custom RV full body paint jobs for much less than anybody else in the RV industry. Most folks who have shopped the competition can’t believe the prices she quotes, and when they see the end result, they are always delighted.

Focal Wood Products (574) 773-4268 – We are just two of Amish craftsman Carlyle Lehman’s many satisfied customers. He’s the man to see for custom RV furniture.

Brad and Hall (574) 522-7435 – For RV furniture and flooring, the crew at Brad and Hall have seen many RVers driving out with a smile.

Duncan RV Repair (888) 738-6226 – For everything from general RV repairs to custom installations, these folks can do the job right the first time. 

RV Surplus (574) 264-5575 – When we built our bus conversion, we saved a fortune by shopping at RV Surplus, where they have anything and everything that goes in, on, and under an RV.

Sierra Custom Interiors (574) 848-1300 – Michael Greene builds custom interiors for horse and cargo trailers, and has a lot of creative ideas you might be able to tap into.

Master Tech RV Services (574) 522-6224 Master Tech offers a full line of services, from repairs and upgrades, to paint and graphics.

These are just a few of the companies here that can help you transform that plain vanilla RV into a custom home on wheels that will serve you well for years to come, for much less than the cost of purchasing a new RV. So if you’ve been thinking about buying a new RV, think again. You may be able to get what you want for a lot less than you would expect to have to pay!

Thought For The Day – Growing old beats the alternative of dying young.

Several people have shown us the excellent cabinets, furniture, and RV accessories that Amish craftsman Carlyle Lehman creates at his company, Focal Wood Products LLC, in Nappanee, Indiana. So when we got our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage, we paid a visit to Carlyle and talked to him about building a set of custom desks/workstations for us.

Miss Terry and Ron Speidel put their heads together and came up with a design, we ran it by Carlyle, and he went to work. Yesterday we drove the motorhome out to his place and Carlyle installed everything. All I can say is wow!

Unlike Terry and Ron, I can’t visualize things. I need to see the finished product. I am just amazed what they can sketch out, do some measuring, and come up with! Carlyle built us each oak desks customized to our individual needs.

Mine, in the foreground, has a regular drawer on the left side, and below it a slide out tray where our HP laser printer sits. The center has a pull out keyboard drawer, and the right side has two file drawers.

Between the two units Carlyle installed a matching bookshelf, and then we come to Terry’s unit. Hers has two regular drawers on the left, along with a file drawer. The center has a pull out oak dining table, with leaf, that slides in for travel or space savings. Below the table, two double doors lead to a storage area with shelf.

On the right, there is a pull out tray for her laptop computer, and then a door opening into another storage cabinet with another shelf in it.

Even with the RVs living room slide in, we still have enough room to move about comfortably, and with the slideout extended, the units take up less space than the two recliners and original table that were in the motorhome when we got it. We are very pleased with the results of this upgrade, and after years of working at a tiny desk, I feel like I’m in a regular office now.

Back at Elkhart Campground, Ron and Brenda couldn’t wait to see how everything came together, and were suitable impressed. If you are thinking about upgrading or refurbishing your RV’s interior, I very highly recommend Carlyle and Focal Wood Products.

Unfortunately, now that I have my brand new workstation, it seems like everything I use has stopped working. When I got ready to write the blog, I fired up my Dell desktop computer and we smelled something like hot electrical wires and then the computer went dead. I just bought the thing in March, so I’ll be on the phone to Dell first thing this morning.

Okay, having your desktop workhorse computer die on you sucks, but that’s why I have a backup laptop computer, right? I got my Dell laptop out, fired it up, and it would not connect to the internet thought our Verizon air card and Cradlepoint router. It shows that I have an excellent signal from the router, but every time I tried to go online, it gave me a message saying I had limited or no connectivity. I knew the air card and router were working, because Terry could get online with her laptop.

I tried all of the limited things I knew how to do, and finally gave up and stuck the air card into my laptop and went online just fine using the Verizon VZAccess Manager software. I’m sure this is a simple problem my pal Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour can fix, but it really raises my frustration level when the gremlins get to messing around inside my computers. They are my tools, and I don’t like it when my tools don’t cooperate.

Thought For The Day – The older I get, the better I was.

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