Mother Trucker Designs Off Duty

By: mothertrucker43
On: January 28, 2020

As First Responders, our lives are crazy busy while on duty. We work a lot of holidays and unusual hours. With both my husband and I having long successful careers as First Responders, we have juggled quite a bit of life and career for the past 30 years. Over the years, it has been important and challenging to assure that our kids still feel that they are the priority. We have always prioritized family and created many great memories. We have planned and taken many great trips during down time. As we wind down the next few years, we decided that a ‘get away’ home might just be a good next adventure. I didn’t want to spend too much money on a second home and my husband wanted a great view. In order to fit both of our needs, we decided on on a manufactured home on the lake. I have never been a fan of manufactured homes. New ones have come a long way from the manufactured homes of yesteryear. However, we ended up purchasing one that was built in 1997 and had very minimum updates over the years, although the master bath had been recently updated and that put another check in the pro column when we were making our decision.

So my next few blogs, I am going to show how I am making an older manufactured home more of a dream home for us. We signed on the property just one month ago today. Here is the reason that my husband wanted it so badly….

Here are all the before pictures…

Kitchen with Breakfast Nook in Background

The Entry (we had owned the house about a week so we had already removed the fish wallpaper border when I took this picture)

I think you get the idea of why I wanted to make this space feel like our style. My husband probably wishes I was one of those people who could buy a lake house for just being a lake house… that it is to relax and enjoy the water and not care about the inside. I am sure in the last month he has desperately wished that I would have the attitude that it is just a place to create memories and lay your head when you are exhausted from a day on the water. But instead of complaining about it, he has just taken it in stride. In one month’s time, he has replaced 5 light fixtures, removed half of the upper cabinets, helped me add in faux shiplap, paint several walls, and a multitude of other improvements. Now from the next few pictures, you will see all of that. In future blogs, I’ll tell you how I did them and how I did them for cheap! We decided to limit our improvement budget as manufactured homes depreciate rather than increase in value. However, I still had to have a starting point of it being and feeling like our home!

Entry wall removed, Vinyl planks feathered back in, Board and Batten entry with hooks and faux shiplap top, curtains added, new light fixture.

One of my favorite transformations… upper cabinets removed, open shelving added, light fixture replaced. Now to tackle the other side fairly soon!

Vinyl plank flooring added, walls painted, board and batten walls (still in progress), curtains and our furnishings added.

So far, we just changed out the furniture in this room. This room is on the back burner!

Although I don’t have pictures of all the improvements, there are several we have done that are not captured here. We removed all the fish wallpaper border and all the fish decor. I tend to like a little more of a lake cottage look than a fishing retreat look. Keep checking back. My budget is limited to $6,000 dollars to transform this place from one end to the other! I can’t wait to share how I accomplished all my updates while staying in budget! Challenge accepted!