RV remodel before & after: our #cottagecore inspired DIY RV kitchen

We picked up our 2001 Mercedes Elnagh motorhome the day Barcelona announced its second lockdown. Originally, we’d planned on living in the RV for a while before starting renovations. But after the orders to stay in place, we figured “hell, what else do we have to do?” and dove headlong into our DIY RV renovation. After some initial demolition, the first big project we tackled was our RV kitchen remodel. Because this wasn’t just a ‘weekending’ vehicle, it needed to be ultra-functional, but even more so, we wanted it to feel like Home.

We’d had nearly 2 years of discussion and daydreaming about full-time RV life before we actually had our hands on our van. This gave us ample time to gather inspiration for the interior design. Though we do plan to live around Barcelona long-term, we don’t consider ourselves Beach People, so a beachy bungalow or boho vibe wasn’t the right fit. We prefer to soak up the sun and the sea from high up on the oceanside cliffs. In other words, we’re Mountain Folk and predictably have a soft spot for cozy cottages. I’ve long loved ancient stone buildings and traditional old world interiors, and with Chris’ Scottish heritage, it just felt right for us to go with a country house feel. Lived in and well-loved. Minimal on the kitsch, but extra helpings of warm and cozy. And I think that’s exactly what we managed!

Here she is, the transformation of our RV kitchen then & now

The caravan was in pretty good condition when we bought it, despite her 19 years. In the hunt for the perfect tiny house on wheels, we narrowed it down to a few really important must-haves. They mostly centered around: engine condition, off-grid capabilities, internal layout, and budget. We knew we wanted a bit of a cosmetic project and Ida (our van’s name) ticked all the boxes, while still giving us the room to play with paint, textiles, and personality.

How we chose the paint color for our farmhouse-inspired RV kitchen

Dish by Caterina Roma and curtains from Maisons de Monde

Because it was a small space and would need to be road-ready within a few minutes, I couldn’t rely on knick-knacks and lots of decorative pieces to communicate the aesthetic we were going for. Instead, I needed to be really intentional about paint color, kitchen hardware, and the few functional kitchen accessories we’d have space for.

Early on, we agreed to avoid painting everything white and realized we both loved the idea of farmhouse-green cabinets. (Funny enough, they’ve blown up in popularity since.) I love the pastels of French country estates and the wheaty accents of paired-back, modern farmhouses. And Chris is partial to color with a little more saturation. Those were our guidelines for picking the right shade of green for our kitchen cabinets. Looking back, it’s ironic that despite choosing not to go with beachy vibes, our color scheme nods to the ocean hues of our seaside city anyway—something we both love in retrospect.

Another key element to achieving the #cottagecore kitchen of our dreams was to add new kitchen hardware to the RV cabinets. The original push to close latches were a dated chrome finish and lacked character. So I swapped them for more traditional brass handles that could patina with use to give us that well-loved farmhouse look. To my surprise, what was meant to be a quick fix turned out to be one of the most time-consuming projects. If you want to replace your RV cabinet handles check out my easy tutorial to save yourself some time. In the end, they added the charm I was hoping for, especially paired with new brass hanging bars.

Why we installed hanging bars for the perfect storage solution in our RV kitchen

Storage is key to full-time RV living, so it was something we were keen to add more of during the renovation. Some people choose to park up in a single locale for a few weeks or months at a time, but we knew (after COVID) we would be traveling frequently for fun and to scout out a plot of land for our one-day bricks and sticks tiny home. With that in mind, we’d need to get as much of our day-to-day stuff secured or put away, so we wouldn’t be wasting tons of time shuffling things around every time we wanted to hit the road.

Adding kitchen bars was the right solution for us. It served multiple purposes like, keepings items organized while being easily accessible at all times, securing things in place but still allowing them to gently swing without breaking during transit, and it also gave me the opportunity to display accessories that were beautiful and meaningful, but not too stuffy—like items you’d find in a family cottage or farmhouse.

Items from Ja Ceramics, Coffee Sock, Ikea and Muy Mucho

It was so fun to hunt down just the right pieces. We tried to repurpose a lot of kitchenwares from our previous flat, many of which were gifts. We chose to commission a couple of important pieces (pictured left), so in the end, we only had to buy a couple of new things. Now, our very personal display consists of:

• custom-made ceramic coffee scoops and a charcuterie board

• sustainably-sourced cotton coffee socks

• varying sizes of wooden cutting boards

• blue and cream french-inspired tea linens

• little bits of leather, twine, and brass throughout

• and a place to display dried flowers from bouquets Chris has bought me on special occasions

I’ve adopted the Slow Home ideology with this home, so I’m sure this collection will change and evolve with our travels and as our family needs change. And I love how that’ll help mark our chapters.

We also upgraded our countertops with contact paper for a budget-friendly RV kitchen remodel

Of course, renovating the RV while we were living in the ~160sqft (14m2) space had its fair share of challenges: constant mess and dust, sharp tools and tripping hazards, lack of running water, and sometimes noxious fumes. Because of this, it required that we split our renovation goals into 2 phases: The Right Now and The Ideal. Though it’d be beautiful to add a butcher block countertop—in an ideal scenario—we’d have to investigate it more thoroughly because of installation and weight. It wouldn’t have been realistic to rip out the countertop, reinstall the water system, and replace the gas stovetop without the proper power tools or a safe place to escape to at night.

So instead, we went with a budget-friendly fix of paint and contact paper for upgrading the RV kitchen countertop right now. Even then, it did require we go without running water for over 2 weeks so we could repaint the sink (and bathroom shower)! We relied on the campground for bathroom breaks, showers, and cleaning dishes. Once it was thoroughly dried, I applied the contact paper and sealed the edges with silicone for protection. It was my first time doing it, so it didn’t turn out perfectly, but it looks a hell of a lot better. It’s livable and definitely much prettier now too.

Final touches, we used rugs and curtains for that lived-in coziness in our DIY RV makeover

Part of what attracts me to cottages and farmhouses are their heritage charm. I love that almost tangible feeling of familial love and collected memories in old homes. And though our lifestyle is a rather creative solution to challenges facing a modern world, I wanted our home to have that same essence. After all, just because we can change our exterior surroundings with relative ease, these 4 walls are still where we live out our lives together—laughing, crying, growing together.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek inside our little home. And that it helps you to get creative and rethink the space you’re already in, or just maybe, it’s inspired you to dream up a whole new reality for yourself. Whatever is right for you in this season of your life. Just like this is right for us, in ours.

We picked a name for our tiny house on wheels! Meet our DIY RV, Ida Lewis.

Guys, after much deliberation, we finally named our girl! To be clear, I mean we chose a name for our RV hehe. We decided to name our DIY van build after the badass American icon, Ida Lewis. But let me back up for a second, because if you’ve been around for a while, you may have thought we’d already had a name going into RV life.

Chris and I moved in together after only 3 months! I know, I know. But the short of it is: when you know, you know. It didn’t take long for me to nickname our first flat together in Barcelona. Every month, I’d have a good giggle picturing the bank folks cringing when they caught a glimpse of my rent transfer to Chris—always lovingly signed “for the Love Nest.” Nest is translated as “nido” in Spanish. And when we started our tiny house journey, we started referring to it as our Casita Nido. Or “little house nest”, if you will. We even reserved the URL and Instagram handle.

Maybe when we build our bricks and sticks home perched high up in the Catalan mountains, or on a seaside cliff on the Costa Brava, we’ll go back to that name. But we both agreed it didn’t fit our new tiny house on wheels, so we got to brainstorming.

Like any proud parents, we had lots of prerequisites to choosing a name for our van. We wanted it to:

• pay homage to our American, Cuban, and Scottish heritage

• be sensitive to our adoptive home of Spain and its native language

• reflect all the adventures we’d embark on and experience on the road in our RV

• embody the values we feel strongly about as a family, like feminism, alternative living, tenacity, being close to nature, adventure, and plain ol’ badassery

So with a little creative license, we adjusted the pronunciation a bit. The original Ida was pronounced /eye-duh/, but we changed it up to sound a bit more Spanish. We refer to our RV as Ida Lewis
, /ee-duh loo-es/. Which is also a play on words. Ida means “going” or “to go” in Spanish—appropriate when you consider our house and life are literally on wheels now.

Ida was an American woman, but her surname, surliness, and penchant for braving the freezing sea felt very Scottish. (Plus she has a connection with millionaire and Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie, but more on that later.) Despite her small stature, this woman saved countless men—including numerous naval seamen—from drowning in the sea in a FULL👏 BLOWN👏 BUSTLE!👏 And frankly, I think that sums up the, read: MOOD, we wanted for this next chapter of our lives.

I first heard Ida’s story on the Stuff You Missed In History podcast. I remember enthusiastically recounting every detail of her unique life to Chris when he got home. Who, I should mention, was the one who later had the brilliant idea to honor her as our namesake. But if you’re unfamiliar with her story, I wanted to share a Sparknotes version here.

Ida Lewis was deemed “the Bravest Woman in America” by the press. She was born in Newport in the 1800s. As a preteen, her father was appointed lighthouse keeper of Lime Rock Light just off the coast of Rhode Island. Unfortunately, shortly after moving to the remote island, he had a debilitating stroke. This, and what I can only assume was an innate toughness, required Ida to step up to run the lighthouse and care for her younger siblings alongside her mother.

If you’re like me and hadn’t really given this kind of lifestyle much thought before, let me paint the picture for you. It required her to stay up all night tending to the lighthouse, including filling the lamp with oil from dusk to dawn, trimming the wick, and polishing the reflective bits, so sailors could see clearly. Then after a long night’s work and despite the area being prone to poor weather, she’d brave the sea every day to row her siblings to school. Returning for a quick nap before doing chores and picking them back up, and then it all over again the next day.

If that wasn’t enough badassery for a special honor, Ida is credited with saving 18 lives! Some accounts even say as many as 25 in her lifetime. Here’s the most famous story borrowed from Wikipedia:



“Her most famous rescue occurred on March 29, 1869. Two soldiers, Sgt. James Adams and Pvt. John McLaughlin, were passing through Newport Harbor toward Fort Adams in a small boat, guided by a 14-year-old boy who claimed to know his way through the harbor. A snowstorm was churning the harbor's waters, and the boat overturned. The two soldiers clung to it while the boy was lost, dying in the icy water. Lewis's mother saw the two in the water and called to Ida, who was suffering from a cold. Ida ran to her boat without taking the time to put on a coat or shoes. With the help of her younger brother, she was able to haul the two men into her boat and bring them to the lighthouse.”

Ida loved living in solitude on the island and humbly considered these daring and lifesaving acts, simply, as her duty. However, they garnered her a ton of adoration from the public

• She has had music written about her.

• She was one of the first women to be recognized as an official lighthouse keeper.

• She received a pension (unheard of for female keepers) from previously mentioned Andrew Carnegie.

• And the island the lighthouse was on was renamed after her—“the only such honor ever paid to a keeper in the United States.”

But, one of my favorite tidbits about her is this quote where she responds to criticism about it being un-ladylike for women to row boats. Ida said, "None, but a donkey would consider it 'un-feminine' to save lives." That my friends is Ida Lewis. Our RV’s namesake. 👏