How we spent less than $2700 on our Airstream Renovation (2024)

I love the dreamy Airstream renovations I see on Pinterest. Trust me when I say I have spent FAR too many hours looking at these renovations, dreaming of buying another Airstream, gutting it, and renovating. Trust me when I say I would be in my glory, while Josh would be in his worst nightmare. When we bought our Airstream we were already living full-time on the road and the option of a full renovation wasn’t on the table, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t make some modifications to personalize and upgrade some of the Airstream.

We looked high and low for the floor plan we bought. While we knew which model we wanted and we wanted to buy used, we had no idea what year we would be able to find. Imagine our surprise when we found this stunning, perfect 2014 gem in Tucson, AZ in 2019! I drove the 200 miles to see her and bought her on the spot (yes our Airstream is a her)! In fact, Josh never even stepped foot inside her until after we (and by we I mean I) signed on the dotted line and sent over our money. While we felt so, so lucky to have found exactly what we wanted, there were still a few things I wanted to change.

We set aside $3000 of our total Airstream renovation budget to make all of the cosmetic updates we wanted. All in we spent a total of $2,678.39 to update and decorate the Airstream. I was really amazed at what a change we were able to accomplish while not needing to complete a gut renovation. The Airstream was in great shape when we bought it. The cabinets needed no change, all of the appliances worked, and we got to use our budget solely to customize the interior to fit our design style and aesthetic. We reused as much as we could from our 5th Wheel and found a home for our favorite personal possessions we brought from our home. We love the end result and hope you can take some inspiration to make modifications of your own!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Josh and I live, work, and travel full-time in our 2014 Airstream Flying Cloud 30’ FB Bunk. As I mentioned some things I wanted to change and others we needed to. First, we needed working space solutions. We run our ad agency from the road and while we both work solely for our company, we don’t work in constant collaboration. We both have our own work and responsibilities and need spaces we can ‘go to and work’.

This is where our bunkhouse came into play. We don’t need to sleep 8, the number that this Airstream can sleep. Honestly, 99% of the time we only sleep ourselves and our three fur babies. The bunkhouse was calling to be converted into an office and that’s exactly what we did. After removing the queen-sized bed I laid some peel-and-stick flooring that was similar in tone to the rest of the floor, used the IKEA coffee table we had in our 5th Wheel as a desk and put my creative thinking (and google skills) to the test to resolve a desk chair, finding this amazing swivel kids chair, on sale, at Target. I also found this cute little rug at Marshall’s for less than $35. Everything else we used in our ‘office’ we already had in the 5th Wheel. I’ve been eyeing a new table that matches our desk for our record player but we’ll have to wait for stores to open back up before we’ll be able to make this swap.

Peel & Stick flooring: $33.25

Tulip Swivel Chair: $40.45

Rug: $34.56

Swap Out Your Airstream Countertops, Sinks & Faucets

The original countertops were really dark and shiny. They made the overall feel of the Airstream dark while the counters ALWAYS looked dirty. The big box hardware stores will not sell you a piece of the counter unless they install it and they won’t install it in an RV. We only had about a week to complete phase one of our reno so we didn’t have the option of going to a local mom-and-pop shop for custom counters. We ended up going with an IKEA in-stock counter and LOVE it. It was so easy to cut to size and is the perfect color.

The bonus is the counter is actually light! We bought one piece and used it for both the kitchen and bathroom, completely brightening up our living space. I opted to swap out the round sink for this deep square sink with a new farmhouse-style spray faucet. I love that the sink has this wood cover that helps hide some dishes if we don’t do them right away, but also it isn’t so big that dishes can pile up. This is the third time I have purchased this sink faucet, once for our house, once for our 5th Wheel, and now for the Airstream, that’s how much I love it. Additionally, adding in some living plants and amber apothecary dish pumps along with my antique rose gold canisters, all from our house, make this little view one of my favorites in the whole Airstream.

Ikea counter: $87.20

Kitchen Sink w/Cutting Board: $269

Kitchen Faucet: $159.95

Update Your Airstream Table Pedestal & Dining Table Top

The original dining table top was the same material as the counters. Just like the counters, this was on top of the list to go. Unlike the counters, I wanted to take this as an opportunity to add some warmth and design. My wonderful younger brother is also very handy and when I asked him if he’d be interested in helping me make a tabletop he responded in minutes with inspirational pictures! I am beyond thankful for his help because in the midst of this reno, our flush tank check valve broke and I spent about 2 days trying to fix it! He held the project together and finished it. It is by far one of my favorite things we updated in the Airstream. I love the color, I LOVE the pattern, and I love that my brother made it.

Another thing I really wanted to swap out was the telescoping table leg because it was HUGE! you could barely get your legs under the table without hitting your knees on it, so we opted for the Lagun table leg. This table leg mounts to a wall, or the base of the dinette in our case, and can adjust up and down and spin in various directions. We opted to buy two mounting plates and we can now move our table to our couch if we want to use it there instead of with our dinette. Additionally, we bought a single leg from Ikea to help with the weight distributions because it’s a really big table.

Lumber: $102.47

Lagun table leg: $238

Ikea Mid century table leg: $25

Total Cost: $365.44

Replace Airstream Cabinet Handles That Reflect Your Style

Like most things in the Airstream, the cabinet pulls were rounded and silver. Ironically, this is not my preferred style. Luckily, swapping out cabinet handles has to be one of the easiest updates you can do to personalize your space. What I learned in this process is that the handle holes on the Airstream cabinetry are an unusual width (3.75 center holes) and you’ll need to be careful to pay attention when ordering. We needed 25 total pulls to update all of the cabinets. Josh swapped these all out in about 45 minutes! The quality of these pulls is really nice, while lightweight and stylish.

10-pack pulls: $25.97

15-pack pulls: $32.47

Total Cost: $58.44

Give The Airstream Shower a Spa Feel

Just because you only have 15 square feet doesn’t mean you can’t have a luxurious bathroom. I wanted this bathroom to look and feel like it was in a house. We used a piece of the counter we purchased for the kitchen to update the sink basin and swapped out the pulls as we did throughout the rest of the Airstream. If you’ve ever been in an Airstream bathroom you may have noticed they only have tiny round mirrors. Not only was it too small to use in a day-to-day sense, but it was also above my head! After looking for over a month I finally found the perfect mirror that fit the odd-shaped wall and while maximizing the number of mirrors we could have. Adding some art and a (real) plant and all of sudden this bathroom was beginning to transform!

Next, I turned to the shower. I hated when you opened the bathroom door you looked straight into the shower stall. It always felt dark and messy so I bought this cute white shower curtain from Target and this little gold tension rod from Walmart. I love how it softens the space and makes it feel like a house rather than an RV. In the shower, I swapped the shower head for the Oxygenics RV Shower head which has the best pressure no matter what the RV park water pressure is and has the shut-off button that lets you limit the water flow when you are boondocking. Next was one of the most expensive things of the entire reno and it took me 6 months to commit to buying it, but I kept going back to it over and over again and finally pulled the trigger to add this Airstream teak shower mat! The company we purchased it from makes these mats to fit the various models of Airstreams so you can search for your model and they have it to fit.

Mirror: $49.99

Wall Art: $9.99

wall planter/living plant: $12.99/4.99

Oxygenics RV Shower Head: $49.50

Shower curtain/tension rod: $24.99/$2.50

Teak shower mat: $229

Swap Our The Airstream Mattress & Bedding

RV mattresses are infamously uncomfortable. While the mattress in our Airstream wasn’t terrible, it was used, so it was the first thing to go. We decided to go with a memory foam mattress since we’ve slept on one for years and they are very easy to cut to make it fit your space. Real-world Queen mattresses and RV Queen mattresses are not the same. I don’t know why they call them a Queen but they do.

We opted for one from IKEA because we needed one that was thinner than we could find on Amazon both for weight and so that when sitting up in bed we wouldn’t hit our heads on the overhead cabinets.

We have been long-term lovers of Brooklinen sheets, so we have brought all of those with us into the Airstream and we also love these Casper pillows. Again this is our home, so we’ve brought these all with us but if you’re looking to make your RV bed a lux dream this help get you there!

IKEA foam mattress: $349

Reupholster Your Airstream Seating

Of everything we did to update our Airstream the single largest impact came from reupholstering our dinette and couch. Our 2014 model had black leather upholstery and it made the interior feel very dark. I wanted something bright and light, but also something that could hold up to life on the road and three cats! We did our research and decide to go with Sunbrella fabric. This fabric is stain resistant and waterproof and can be machine washed. As a result, I made the bold choice to buy WHITE(!!!) with grey striped fabric and sow new slipcovers for all of our cushions.

All in we order 14.5 yards of the fabric and over the course of a few days I sewed all the new cushions. There are a few different companies I could find out there that would make these covers for you but they cost thousands of dollars and for less than $300 I felt my sewing skills were up for making these covers. Also, for only $300 if we hate them or want to change them again down the road we won’t feel so obligated to them since we didn’t spend thousands to have them made. I promise you if I could make these you could too, but give yourself plenty of time because it was surprisingly time-consuming!

Fabric: $279.85

Customize Your Airstream Interior With Peel-And-Stick Wallpaper

I have painted an RV in my life and I promised myself (and Josh) that we would never do it again. I love to paint but painting an RV has to be one of the worst DIY experiences I have ever had. This meant finding solutions that did not involve painting. Having been a renter for many years I was familiar with peel-and-stick wallpaper and decided to go that route. Once we knew what upholstery we were going to go with for the main furniture I turned to my favorite wallpaper site (yes I have a favorite) to find the perfect design. Spoonflower offers thousands of design options so you are sure to find the perfect one for your design style. The peel-and-stick style is super easy to install and the quality of the paper feels high-end.

As a result of going with white wallpaper, I also decided to put up a peel-and-stick tile ‘backsplash’ next to the stove because I have splattered tomato sauce onto this wall far too many times not to. I have used the plastic peel-and-stick tile before and it does not hold up well near the heat of the stove. I found real tile peel and stick tiles at Lowe’s and they are perfect. We only needed 2 tiles so it was an inexpensive and easy option that looks great and pairs well with the overall design. Because this is removable and not terribly expensive, like the fabric, if we decide we don’t like it or want to change it, we aren’t out a ton of money.

Wild Jasmine Peel and Stick wallpaper: $192

Gold Burst Peel and stick wallpaper: $82.99

Peel and stick tile backsplash: $25.96

Upgrade Airstream Blinds & Curtains

The 2014 Airstreams had metal slat blinds. Besides being ugly, they were always cold and did a crap job blocking light. Airstream swapped these out in 2015 for a pulldown, fabric black-out curtain that made much more sense. We wanted an option that would help control the temp, were blackout, and most importantly white! Blinds are expensive but trusty IKEA came to our rescue once again. The Fyrtur blinds are very similar to what the later model Airstreams install at the factory but they are over $150 (each!) and we needed 9. I was not interested in spending nearly half our budget on just blinds. We choose the Hoppvals blinds in the various sizes we needed and they work great. They can be pulled and stay at any height, work great as black-out curtains and actually came in all the widths we needed for the various Airstream windows! The mounting brackets are flexible so we were able to cover the holes from the old mounting brackets and we use clear command strip hooks to hold the blinds flat against the curved wall.

IKEA Hoppals blinds: $260.91

Command strip hooks: $5.42

Total Cost: $266.33

Find Airstream Storage Solutions That Work For Your Needs

Because we’ve lived in small spaces, including another RV, before we lived in the Airstream we had a lot of bins and over-the-door hangers that we brought with us into the Airstream. Amazingly, most of them found a new home and solved some kind of storage issue we had in our new space. Storage solutions can get expensive quickly so before you go out and buy too many bins and baskets check out your local thrift store for plastic bins and boxes that could work for you. Also, think outside the box. You don’t always have to use the object as it was originally intended.

For example, we use metal wire magazine bins to store our laptops and iPad. We also have the most amazing toilet paper holder I have ever seen. This bad boy stores 9-12 rolls and takes up so little space in our teeny tiny bathroom! We have also found that the OXO pop-top canisters fit surprisingly well in the pantry and upper cabinets for bulk storage like oatmeal, dried beans, and protein powder. Again, we already owned all of these items from our house so repurposing them when we moved into our Airstream saved us some money.

Add Personal Touches (And Maybe A Plant Or Two Or Ten)

You will see throughout all of our photos there are real plants, pillows, and art all over the Airstream. It’s been important to me that we have furnishings in the Airstream which make it feel like a home. We live full-time in these 200 square feet and have taken many of our favorite possessions and found a home for them somewhere within the Airstream.

This includes throw pillows we owned, my favorite antique rose gold and teak canisters, plants, our beloved record player, and wall art that was in our previous homes. I was surprised at how much we have been able to repurpose and not need to spend any additional money.

Rug: $49.99

Total Cost: $49.99

FAQs For Airstream Renovations

How much does it cost to renovate an Airstream?

The cost of renovating an Airstream can vary widely depending on a number of factors, including the size of your Airstream, the extent of the renovations you're planning and the quality of materials you choose. You spend as little as a couple of hundred dollars for smaller updates you do on your own or pay anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 for a full renovation.

How long does renovating an Airstream take?

The timeline for renovating an Airstream can vary depending on the scope of your project. Generally, you can expect a full professional renovation to take anywhere from several months to a year. Factors that can affect the timeline include the complexity of the renovation, the availability to work on the project, inventory or parts and any unforeseen issues that may arise.

What do you need to renovate an Airstream?

Renovating an Airstream can be a fun and rewarding project, but it does require a significant amount of planning and preparation. Some key things you'll need to renovate an Airstream include tools such as a drill, saw, and level; materials such as insulation, flooring, and fixtures; and a clear vision for your renovation project. All of these are based on the renovation size, we did our updates mentioned above in smaller chunks and over the course of a year when time allowed.

Is it hard to renovate an Airstream?

Renovating an Airstream can be a challenging and time-consuming project, but it's definitely doable with the right mindset and resources. Whether you're tackling the project yourself or hiring a professional. It's important to go into the renovation process with a realistic understanding of the time and effort involved.