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A 1968 Camper Looks Unrecognizable After a Pastel-Filled Refresh

Nail Gun Nelly
Nail Gun Nelly
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published Jun 11, 2024
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dated camper interior before renovation
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Credit: @nailgun_nelly

This camper has been a labor of love and I tried my very best to keep a record of all expenses throughout this renovation project. I have received many requests to know just how much our vintage camper revival cost and the time has come for me to lay it all out!

Click here to see the before videos!

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First, what was the purchase price of our camper and what did we get?

In my opinion, old campers are gold — and when you are lucky enough to come across them in decent shape, snag them! I am always on the hunt for old campers and this time I was lucky enough to get in contact with the sweetest old man (who actually is my cousin’s grandpa) who wanted to part ways with his family camper. Not to mention it was just down the street from me!

He did not want me to give him any money for it but we did give his granddaughter $300 for her upcoming Disneyland trip, which is all he would take! The camper is a 1968 Prowler that is 16 feet long with a bathroom, dinette that turns into bunks, and a pullout couch bed.

Although it looked as if this camper was in great shape, we had to literally sawzall off the old hitch just to get it onto our truck to hobble home. The cushions were crumbling as I was pulling them out and we found water damage on almost all of the window frames. It had no black tank and different size leaf springs, so we had our work cut out for us!

With this being said, this was our fourth renovation and we felt very confident in our two- to three-month timeline (which we accomplished!).

Let’s break it down.

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Demo

We started with the demo! Luckily this step requires mostly muscle and not much money coming from your pocket (that is assuming you have access to some basic tools like a hammer, pliers, impact drivers, and pry-bars). One cost you may incur is a dump run fee to trash all of the items you take out, which may run you about $50.

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Framing

Until you get into demo, you never truly know what you may have to repair. In our case, all of the windows on the right side of the trailer had water damage to the window framing, along with a small section in the front corner and in the back storage area. The cost to fix these areas are as follows:

  • Wood to frame: $82
  • Insulation: $20
  • Melamine boards: $65
  • Shiplap and board & batten wall treatments: $123
  • Framing total: $290
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Exterior

Next, we tackled the exterior, as we had to remove all of the windows to do the needed framing repairs. We resealed all of the windows and added new butyl along with new roofing screws. All of the seams of the trailer were redone the same way and the roof seams were resealed with lap sealant. Check out the paint prep here!

After pressure washing, we painted the entire exterior with DTM Epoxy Primer/sealer before painting with high-gloss, exterior house paint. We used the Wagner Control Pro 130 paint sprayer and it worked great! Click here for paint video!

  • Epoxy & Exterior Paint: $228

The awning and back storage area I chose to add, which completely upgraded the look! It only took three high-quality 2×6 cedar planks in the back and 5 cedar fence boards to create these. Click here to see this!

  • Cedar and fence boards: $167

We didn’t know that the current leaf springs on the trailer were different sizes, so when we removed the tires we had that extra surprise. Remaining exterior costs were as follows:

Exterior total: $1,103

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Plumbing

We did a lot of upgrading to the plumbing and pretty much changed everything out.

Plumbing total: $1,847.72

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Electrical

Although we kept the basic wiring throughout the camper and just updated the light fixtures, we also decided to give this girl a little more power by adding solar and a small battery bank. We added one 100 amp hour Lithium battery along with two 100 watt Solar Panel from Renogy. We also added a DC fuse box, updated the shore power outlet, and changed all of the exterior lights out. Cost for these items are below.

Electrical total: $2,421.21

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Inside Work

In this section, I will cover all of the work we did on the inside including paint, flooring, counters, tile, bathroom walls, cushions, and decorations. 

Interior paint required 1 gallon of primer and 1.5 gallons of paint color. I was able to get a sample quart for the cabinet color and a sample quart for the blue accent. I had left over epoxy appliance paint for the shower pan.

After paint, it was the interior finishings.

Interior total: $6,044.96

The much-anticipated grand total came to $11,706.89

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With that being said, I do want to thank the wonderful brands that I was so lucky to partner with for this renovation! I have done multiple renovations in the past and I will say some of the finishes in here are more than I normally would spend, but I do hope that you know I reached out to all of these companies because they offer top-notch quality products. Without all of your support, none of this would be possible! Be sure to check them out!

With that being said a large portion of this project was sponsored and my total cost was $3,517.09!

This article was originally published on Nail Gun Nelly and has been republished here with permission. Nail Gun Nelly is a member of The Co-Op at Apartment Therapy Media, a collection of partner publishers.

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