How to Remodel a Travel Trailer, According to the Hosts of “Dream Home Makeover”

Shea and Syd McGee have renovated nearly every part of a home throughout their tenure as co-hosts of “Dream Home Makeover,” but in the newest season of the Netflix series, the husband-and-wife duo take on a new kind of challenge: remodeling their family’s Airstream for stylish camping trips. 

Airstreams, remodeled vans, and other forms of mobile living have been popping up across the internet in recent years, with many people taking to the mobile lifestyle for an opportunity to travel, camp, or live affordably. When Syd brought home an Airstream, Shea was surprised but ready for the challenge, and quickly learned some of the essentials of working on a travel trailer. Above all, she stressed the importance of working with someone who knows what they’re doing.

“Work with an expert,” Shea said during an interview with Apartment Therapy. “I was blown away by how much I didn’t know about building an Airstream. I think that I imagined I would just design a small space.” 

In reality, she had to pay much more attention to the weight of the materials she was using. Rather than put marble tile on every surface in the Airstream’s bathroom like she had initially planned to do, Shea had to scale back and instead use it on the shower floor and two accent walls.

“When I am designing a home, typically the heavier the material, the nicer it is, but with an Airstream you want it to be really light,” she said. “And so I [was] picking materials that are the opposite of what I tend to think of as the materials I’d want to use. So it definitely turned my usual design perspective on its head.”

In addition to using lighter materials, she found that she had to utilize every single part of the space in order to stylishly incorporate the mechanical and electrical aspects of the travel trailer. They hid some of the components in drawers and a banquette, among other stealth locations. “It was a learning experience for me,” Shea said. “And I wouldn’t have known that if we decided to DIY it.”

“Once we got going, it was a fun project to work on overall,” Syd said. “And we’re really looking forward to a lot of family outings in that in the future.”

“Dream Home Makeover” is available to stream on Netflix.