Life on the Road | Caravan Renovation | Kitchen and Living

Our kitchen and living room was the most challenging part of our first DIY caravan renovation. Oh, and the most time consuming and expensive part 😉 

When we bought our caravan we already knew the kitchen was not going to last in the condition it was. We wanted it to be functional, modern and it needed to have bench space and storage. 

After searching for DIY Caravan Renovation Inspiration on Pinterest we started with dismantling all the cabinet doors, which Lion would paint later. 

After painting everything, we eventually got rid of the oven, fridge and all the gas pipes and connections as we decided not to cook on gas anyway. ( We bought one of those electrical hot plates to cook on outside and got an external electric oven from Target ) 

We used our leftover flooring on the workbench and leftover wallpaper on one of the kitchen splashback sides and two cabinet doors. 

As the kitchen bench top was quite low, we decided to lift up the workbench ( which also created more storage space ), so we went to Bunnings to get a kitchen bench top, a new sink, new exhaust and a splashback.

The kitchen bench top and the sink weren’t a problem. A few measurements, cuts, silicon, reconnection of the water hose and water drain pipe and a varnish of the kitchen bench top and that was done quite easily. 

But the splashback was a different story. I never heard Lion swearing so many times in a few days. As the material ( Polymer ) is so fragile it took a lot of patient and accuracy to cut it right. But we got there in the end, and it looked amazing! Very fresh and light. 

We went for a Polymer splashback from Bellessi for our caravan as it is cost-effective and most important: lightweight, which is very important when renovating a caravan. 

A polymer splashback is 50% lighter and more impact resistant than glass. Bunnings offers a range of Bellessi Splashbacks in many colours. We choose the ‘Cool Mist’ Option as we wanted something that created space and light. 

Together with our Timber bench top, it looked amazing! 

We also installed a brand new exhaust, as the old one was just disgusting. We never cooked in the kitchen, but we wanted to have the option that we could if we needed too ( for example if we would be on the road and the weather was bad ) 

We also used it when we had the oven on and wanted to mask some of the smells coming out of there.

The original caravan fridge was way to small for a little family ( more like a beer fridge ) so we got rid of that too and got a 2nd hand fridge in that only worked on electricity. ( Still small, but doable 🙂 We just needed to go shopping more often and get more fresh produce – which was the plan anyway ! ) 

Caravan Renovation Dining Area Inspiration

We didn’t do that much with the dining area. We painted it, got rid of the round seating – so we created more space – and replaced them with some colourful pillows. 

As the original caravan upholstery was white, we decided to cover it with a few single fitted bed sheets. Great to keep the white upholstery clean ( especially when you have a toddler ) and a very cheap alternative to a costly professional caravan upholstery replacement.  

We used the original dining table, and sometimes got it off and replaced it with a little side table when we had a lazy Sunday or Rainy day. 

We are pretty stoked with the end result! 🙂 

Do you want more inspiration for a DIY Caravan Renovation? Read our other Caravan Renovation Inspiration Idea’s here: 

Renovating, Living and Travelling in a caravan: How it all started 

Live on the Road: We bought a caravan

DIY Caravan Renovation Stripping & Demolishing 

DIY Caravan Renovation Paint & Wallpaper

DIY Caravan Renovation Flooring & Building a Bunk Bed

DIY Caravan Renovation Kids bed & Playroom

DIY renovation of our 80ties Caravan | Before & After Photo’s