Lobster's nothin to show for cheapass camper page.

[Kanyon71]

Yeah, housing is a whole 'nuther peanut. I bet you see some crazy stuff doing that. The one I'm living in now I got from a flipper. Great house, but the attic insulation was torn up / missing and there were missing junction boxes, all the result of of laziness from recent lighting upgrades.

I put as the only terms of my offer that the seller install proper junction boxes and then knock off a thousand so I can install new insulation myself. I didnt want him covering over the wiring until I could verify that it was correct. All things considered though, that list of "fixits" was pretty damn low for a house purchase.

Worst part was that the attic has all of 4.5 feet clearance at the peak (rambler with a crazy low roof pitch). Somehow the previous owners managed to stuff not one, but two 20-foot old-school TV aerials up there. I have no idea how they did that. I had to cut each one into 3 sections to get them back down.

That's crazy lol.

Ya one thing my friend and I agreed upon is we will NEVER do work on a flip that we wouldn't feel ok doing in our homes. Having said that him and I are the same and we don't cut corners. In the end we don't make as much as most people who flip BUT we also can sleep at night and don't have to worry about the houses we sell being crap.

Now the down side of it is, my wife and I are looking to buy a house for ourselves again AND I notice EVERYTHING. The realtor we use if the same one who sells our flips so he knows how I am. I walked into one house saw a crack in the corner of the wall no one else noticed I said it's time to go to the basement, walked directly to the corner where I knew the crack was pointed and said roof has/had a leak, look at the rim joist it's black which also probably means all the plywood on that wall is rotten also. Now mind you they were asking almost $400k for this place. My wife was like NOPE I looked at my realtor and smiled and said good luck with that or getting it to pass a decent inspector.

[Lynyrd III]

EDIT: Pictures disappeared. I added a few of them back. That must have been a terrible read without them! Sorry.

So here is how crazy I am. I picked up a cheap pop-up camper in 2017, and the little bastard won't stop taking my money. Its the little things that do me in, all those teeny tiny mods that make life easier, but on the surface it doesnt look like anything.

I own a Flagstaff 206STSE, for those that are curious. You probably aren't, but if you were, thats what it is.

Here is the day I picked it up new:








And semi current photos as of this year











List of Mods, as best as I can remember:.

EXTERIOR:

- Let's get the most important mod out of the way first. The beverage container accessibility extractor.




- Rearview camera installed for visibility. The camera is wired up to a powered transmitter on the tongue, and I have a wireless 5" screen suction cupped to my windshield. Works great unless the sun is behind me, which seems to be always.
- A pack of four stabilizer arms mounted to the levelling jacks. Removes the trailer shakes. 2 of my jacks are as nature intended, the other two have a pair of arms bolted to them on opposite corners. So it eliminates side to side, to and fro, and twist motions. You know, in case I want to take samba lessons or something.



- Unijack mounted on the tongue. Along with dual battery boxes and electrical kill switch.

-Rock Lights installed on the exterior, in a night-vision-preserving blue color. Keeps me from tripping over armadillo holes.



-Travel lights all converted to LED this year. Oh, and I plastidipped the wheel. Dont judge. I can feel the judgement.

-roof rack nose piece added for hauling the porta tank. Post #8.

INTERIOR

-Paint, of course. Valspar colors "Dressed to the Nines" (yeah I dont know who came up with that), "Fedora Blue" (I dont know on that one either), and the fridge got a couple coats of chalkboard paint. Because color is good and veneer is dumb. I only wish I thought of doing this before I started wallpapering the buckboard with stickers.
-Piano hinges and lid stays installed on all bench storage.
-Shoe organizers everywhere. These little guys keep the interior amazingly less cluttered.


- Door reinforcements. Metal diamond plate installed as a door kick panel, to reinforce and repair the travel latches.
- Mattress: The cheap mattress was replaced with 5" memory foam. Thats as thick as I can go and still close the roof. However, underneath that I place a 4" foam folding mattress that can store on the floor when travelling, and underneath that, I lined the tray with gym workout tiles. Because I'm a pretty princess and I value a comfortable sleep, that's why.




ELECTRICAL/PLUMBING

-lithium iron phosphate battery conversion - It's coo. I quickly switched from a single 45 Ah deep cycle (really, Forest River!?) to dual 65 Ah deep cycles. Now I'm running a 120Ah lithium setup. Actually more capacity than the dual lead acids (because you can discharge it to a lower voltage), and it should reduce tongue weight by 50 pounds. It was an expensive ass purchase, but my poor Tacoma will thank me for it.

-Battery Monitor I started out with a 10 dollar voltmeter, then quickly replaced with a 15 dollar mictuning monitor. It did alright. I'm now rocking a renogy setup, and I dig it. Also installed new switches for exterior electrics.

- USB ports installed, for ability of charging up to 4 devices simultaneously.
- Solar is now on board. That sure beats lugging my 85 pound generator everywhere, and annoying the rest of the campsite. Still, the generator is great for august, because solar won't drive the A/C.
-Water filter replaced. Not upgraded, unless you call "no longer broken" an uupgrade.

Nice work !