A Comprehensive Guide to our Truck Camper Renovation

I live in a self-renovated 2005 Pastime Truck Camper with my girlfriend, Meg, and our 5-year-old boxer mix, Jax! We purchased our camper in July 2025. After our first camping trip in September ’25, we started renovating. Throughout our truck camper renovation process, we found SO MANY THINGS wrong with it. There was wood rot in a bedroom wall, electrical issues, and a broken propane system. We spent 5 months fixing everything we could while ripping apart the inside to give it the colorful facelift it deserves! Keep on reading for the full story of our truck camper renovation, from where it all started, to our decision to get a truck camper vs. a camper van, and all of the creative details (with product links!) that went into this camper!

A guide to buying and renovating a truck camper

This post is long, because it is a comprehensive guide to our truck camper renovation. So if you’re looking to jump to a particular section, click one of these links below:

Table of Contents

Where our dream of living in a camper started

Meg and I have been dreaming of doing van life for years–even before we met each other! When we first got together, Meg had just come off of a month-long road trip in a camper van rental. She told me that it was a goal of hers to own her own rig and be able to travel full time. I had followed many van life accounts on Instagram and always admired the lifestyle, but never imagined I’d actually be doing it. It wasn’t until we started dating that I started to build the confidence to actually try full-time camper life on my own!

It was a long journey to get to where we are today. Meg and I initially started having serious conversations about buying a van together about 9 months into our relationship. We stumbled upon a van for sale by another outdoor influencer couple on Instagram (shout out Gwyn and Ami!). After reaching out to discuss buying their van, we backed out. I thought it was way too soon to enter into a $80k deal with someone I had dated for less than a year.

Meg and I continued conversations about buying a van for the next year and a half. We test drove a Ford Transit in October 2024, too. But when it came time to deciding what to buy and when to buy it, we hit another road block. Our plan was to move to Rhode Island in spring 2025 to buy and convert a camper van ourselves. But then Meg decided she wanted to stay in Los Angeles another year and work as a facilities manager at her climbing gym to gain some helpful experience for our truck camper renovation. This was a stressful time for both of us. But ultimately it ended up being a good thing. We needed another year to really strengthen our relationship before embarking on this journey together.

Fast forward to March 2025. We attended the Overland Expo West in Orange County and toured several rigs, from $150k+ trailers that we could never afford, to affordable truck campers and pop-up truck campers. While we had never really considered a truck camper before, we were hooked after we toured the newest Adventurer model and felt how big it was inside. Meg and I changed our entire plan and decided to buy a truck camper instead.

Why buy a Truck Camper vs Camper Van?

A truck camper came fully built-out, with plumbing and electrical all figured out. That means that any renovation we do would mostly be cosmetic because everything is done for us. With a camper van, we would either have to buy used with a build that wouldn’t necessarily fit 100% of our needs with two people and a dog, or we would have to spend over a year building something completely custom from scratch. The other option is, coming up with $150k+ for a fully custom professional build, which is money we did not have.

The other thing to consider is what you’re driving. With a camper van, your house is also your vehicle. If you ever need vehicle maintenance, your house goes with it. And if you’re not a full-timer and don’t have another vehicle to use to run errands or go places, you’re driving a van around town. With a truck camper, if we need vehicle maintenance, we can take our home off the truck. And if we’re running errands in the truck, we don’t need to take our house with us and can leave it at a camp site. A truck can also handle rough roads better than the average van. The truck is also incredibly useful in many other situations, like moving or hauling large things. When we weighed our options, we felt like a truck camper was a better fit for our current and future needs.

Now that we’ve been living in our truck camper for over a month, we have considered what life would have been like in a van. Our dog likes to jump up onto our bed, but the bed is pretty high so we do worry about the impact this has on his hips and joints. A truck camper also requires that you have some steps so you can more easily get in and out of the camper, whether it’s situated on the truck or off. These stairs can be quite pricey. A van typically doesn’t require external stairs because it’s lower to the ground.

Buying a Truck Camper

You have so many options when buying a truck camper; you can buy a brand new one from a local RV dealership, or you can buy a used one from a seller on Facebook Marketplace. Our decision was to buy a used camper on Marketplace because we figured it would be a lot cheaper than buying new… boy, were we wrong. We toured two campers: one from the 90s that was in great shape but needed solar power and an A/C unit for over $10k, and another from 2005 that needed a lot of work but was being sold for $7k. The second one ended up being the one we bought, but in retrospect I wish we had negotiated the price way down. We found a crunchy wall in the bedroom, which was a sign of water damage and wood rot. We didn’t have a lighter to test the propane system, which ended up needing to have some parts replaced in order for it to work properly. The electrical system was a little wacky, with newer lithium ion batteries, but an old converter, which ultimately led to some issues any time we were plugged in. There was a leak in the grey water tank, too.

We had absolutely no experience with campers when we started shopping for truck campers, and truthfully, there is no amount of research we could do on our own that would prepare us with the knowledge we needed to ask important questions and test out different systems in each camper we looked at. We also didn’t know what a good price point was prior to searching. So with all of our mistakes and missed opportunities in mind, here are some tips we’d love to share with anyone who is interested in buying a truck camper:

The number one rule: Know your truck’s payload limit, and know the dry weight of the camper you’re considering. This is the absolute most important thing to keep in mind when buying a truck camper. If you don’t own a truck yet, but you’ve got your eye on a swanky camper with slide-outs, then you might need to prepare to buy an F-350 or 3500-model one-ton truck.
Check for water damage.
Bring a lighter and test the propane system.
Research the resale price of the model you’re looking at.
Ask about the seller’s experience. How long have they used the camper? How many times did they take it out?
Ask about any upgrades that have been made to the camper.
Check all of the tie-down points. Are they securely in place, or is there any wood damage causing any of the tie-down points to be dangerously loose?
Consider your toilet. There are many different toilet options to consider, and this is something you want to pay attention to when shopping for a truck camper. Our truck camper has a flush toilet, which sounds really nice until you consider the fact that everything flushes into a black water tank… which you then have to empty using a hose hookup. Watch the video of the first time we emptied our black water tank to see how well I handled this chore. Now that we’ve used our flush toilet and dumped out our tank during our first month on the road, we’ve agreed that if anything were to happen to our toilet or black water tank, we’re just going to get rid of the whole system and get a composting toilet instead. There are also cassette toilets and other types that RV-ers and van-lifers swear by, but after weighing our options, we wish we had a composting toilet.
Climb up onto the roof and check for cracks. We wish we had done this when we bought it, because we ended up finding so many tiny cracks in the roof that were potentially letting in water every time it rained or collected condensation.
Negotiate! If you see ANYTHING wrong with the camper, those are dollars that you can knock off from the asking price. We completely regret just paying the asking price instead of negotiating, because I really think we could have knocked at least $2k off of the price with all of the damage we found. This is a major lesson learned, and if we are ever shopping for an RV or camper ever again, we’ll be a lot more confident in how we approach buying used now that we have more knowledge and experience.

Renovating a Truck Camper

Our truck camper was like a late 90s time capsule, with dated veneer on the cabinets and doors, and factory-installed wall coverings that reminded me of those cups we used to drink out of at parties in the 90s. The fabric on the windows and couch was also dark, dusty, and dated. If you know me, you know I have a very colorful sense of style, so I was really excited to take this drab 2005 camper and turn it into a modern maximalist home on wheels. Keep reading for my design process, from coming up with a color palette to picking out every item that I bought for our truck camper renovation!

Finding the Right Color Palette

Pinterest is your best friend when looking for a color palette for a truck camper renovation… or any renovation or home project! I searched “color palettes” and started scrolling, pinning the ones that stood out to me the most. I love maximalist design, but in a small space it is important not to overdo it so it doesn’t feel too overwhelming.

What was helpful for me was to sketch out the layout of our camper first, and I didn’t use any special design program to do this! I just created a template on Google Slides and mapped out all the walls, cabinets, and appliances so I could start to visualize the space.

I initially presented Meg with a few options based on colors that we already had at home, because I wanted to be cheap and reuse some of the linens and pillows that we had at home. She quickly nixed that idea, so that’s when I turned to Pinterest for color palette help.

Meg and I both fell in love with a color palette that included blue and wine as dominant colors, orange and purple as accent colors, and one of my favorite shades of green as a middle tone.

I started to sketch it out in my handy Google Slides template and I searched for paint colors, wallpapers, linens, and other items that would help bring the vision to life!

Everything I bought for our truck camper renovation

We put a lot of work into this truck camper renovation from the inside out. We modernized the inside and made a colorful home on wheels that suits our tastes and personalities. There are a lot of little details that went into this, like hooks and outlet covers, to the bigger details like veneer and flooring. Keep reading to find links and info about everything we put into this camper!

The Paint Colors

Using the color palette that I found on Pinterest as a starting point, I used a website called Encycolorpedia to search for paint colors that closely matched the palette. A mistake I made with this process is trusting this source a bit too much. I wanted to find paint colors that matched the two shades of blue and the wine color in the palette. The light blue is Steamy Spring from Dunn Edwards, which became my kitchen and living room wall color. The maroon color is an archived color called Wine Country from Sherwin Williams, which I used on the bedroom cabinets. The last color is Laguna Blue from Benjamin Moore, but something wasn’t quite right about this color when I picked it up in store. The color online looks vastly different from the color on the paint swatch in store. The color ended up being way brighter than I wanted it to be, so I’m not 100% satisfied with how my cabinets turned out. We were renovating quickly and had just two months to finish the interior, so I didn’t necessarily have time for paint samples, so I just went with it. I don’t hate it, but I certainly don’t love it. It throws off my color palette a little bit, but I’ll fix it some day when I have the energy!

The wood and stain color

I added wood veneer to the area underneath our couch and to the exterior of our bathroom and door. I was afraid if I had painted these blue to match the cabinets, there would be way too much blue in the space. This color palette reminded me of a midcentury modern vibe, and along with midcentury design comes a lot of natural wood. So I shopped around for some veneer and found GL Veneer to have reasonable prices on both product and shipping (because shipping veneer is not cheap!!). I went with the Maple Plain Sliced Premium 10mil paper. This was my first time working with veneer and it was not as easy as I had hoped (definitely the hardest project for me during this truck camper renovation process), but the quality of the veneer was great. I used Weldwood Contact Cement to adhere the veneer to the sanded walls and bathroom door. This stuff is strong, so you’ll want to be extra careful when working with it!

I used the Old Masters Gel Stain in the color Cedar, which brought so much warmth to the space and looked perfect with the color palette. When working with staining wood or wood veneer, you also want to make sure you’re using a wood conditioner, especially if you use a wood like Maple. Maple takes stain well, but needs a conditioner first so the stain doesn’t appear blotchy.

Adding new floors to a truck camper

Our old floors were hideous. They were an off-white linoleum with a dated 90s pattern, and no matter how much we tried to clean them, they looked dirty. So we ripped them out, primed the plywood subfloor, added a second primer on top meant for peel-and-stick floor tiles, and added these TrafficMaster tiles that look like a unique wood pattern. They really brought the living space together and added to the warmth. They were also only $45 for one box, which was all we needed to cover the floors!

No matter where you are installing floor tiles, always remember to find the center of the room, and put your first tile centered on that midpoint. That allows your floor to look more balanced once all of the flooring is installed. It may add a bit more labor when cutting tiles to fit corners, but it truly looks so much better and less lopsided than if you were to start on one side of the room first.

Curtains for Truck Campers

First, let’s talk curtain rods for campers. Since this is a small space, using regular window curtain rods would not work here, because they’re big and bulky and would protrude from the wall way too far. So I used Kenney Sash rods in various sizes that I ordered from Ace Hardware. They don’t stick out as far from the wall as a typical curtain rod, and they’re much thinner than your average curtain rod so they don’t overwhelm the window space. They’re affordable, too! It’s hard to find the right curtain rod for a camper but these work perfectly. I bought them in three different sizes to work with all of our different window sizes:

11-19 inches, for our smallest window
21-38 inches
28-48 inches, for our bedroom and kitchen windows
48-84 inches, for our big living room window

Bedroom Curtains

In the bedroom, I opted for a thick non-stretch velvet material that looks and feels luxurious, because I wanted my bedroom for feel cozy. This Etsy seller has a variety of colors, and the fabric is gorgeous.

I opted for the burgundy and lavender colors to make color block curtains, and I especially love how the lavender fabric looks when the sun shines through. Without light coming through, it’s a subtle light purple, but when the sun shines through, it really illuminates the fabric and looks more like a neon lavender, which I love! I highly recommend this fabric if you’re interested in sewing your own curtains, and I will absolutely be shopping from this Etsy seller again when I own my future home and have many more rooms to decorate!

Kitchen and Living Room Curtains

In the kitchen and living room, I wanted a lighter-weight fabric that allowed light to filter in but still provided the privacy we needed. I went with the burgundy and two shades of orange cotton muslin fabric from the Etsy seller AgoraLoom. I love the burgundy fabric in the kitchen to complement the blue cabinets and connect the color scheme to the bedroom. I chose orange for the living room to help differentiate it from the kitchen space to feel more like separate areas with a color change, but in retrospect, I’d probably just bring more of that burgundy color into the living room, too. These are easy things to change as my mood changes!

Wallpapering a Truck Camper

Our truck camper came with factory-installed vinyl glued to plywood on all walls. It was very dated and ugly and needed a refresh. I did a decent amount of research on what to do with this factory-installed vinyl: do I sand and paint over existing camper wallpaper, or do I peel it all off and start with a blank canvas? Many sources revealed that sanding existing wallpaper and applying a strong primer would be the best (and probably fastest) option for covering up old wallpaper with new paint or wallpaper. But I wasn’t convinced my new wallpaper would hold up in fluctuating temperatures and climates. So I opted to remove all of the wallpaper.

How to peel off wallpaper from a camper

I bought a cheap heat gun on Amazon and got to work! I set the heat gun to a high temperature and slowly moved it around the walls, one small (about 10″ x 10″) section at a time. The vinyl started to bubble and I’d use a sharp tool to scrape just enough of it off for me to pull the rest off with my hands. I found it was easiest to heat a section at a time, peel it away from the wall without ripping it off, then continue working with the heat gun to peel more off the wall. Peeling off larger sections at a time, instead of ripping small strips or pieces off, made the process much easier because I didn’t have to deal with tiny pieces of melted vinyl scraps everywhere.

What kind of wallpaper is best for a truck camper renovation?

I initially looked at a few wallpaper options on Amazon, until I quickly talked myself out of it. Considering wallpaper for an RV or truck camper renovation is a bit more involved than a rental apartment or home. You want to consider all of the different climates and temperatures your camper will be exposed to, and how you secure it to the wall. I originally considered peel-and-stick wallpaper for the camper, but after peeling off the old factory-installed wallpaper on the walls, I realized the walls were a bit textured, and even with a layer of primer and paint, the texture might be an issue for cheap peel-and-stick.

So I decided to get vinyl wallpaper instead, because it would be durable and easy to clean by simply wiping it with a wet rag. After some light research to find the best wallpaper, I landed on Spoonflower, a website where you can find thousands of different designs and colors, and many options for wallpaper types, including peel-and-stick, pasted, and vinyl.

I found this gorgeous alien toile wallpaper that perfectly fit the vibe I was going for and it matched my color palette. I was so excited to buy this and install it! It was definitely a splurge, but buying a wallpaper that was thick, durable, easy to clean, and easy to install was important to me. The vinyl wallpaper requires a primer and glue, which I purchased from Roman Products. The instructions that Spoonflower provides for installing vinyl wallpaper makes the process seem intimidating, because they do recommend professional installation, but I was not going to hire a professional for this job. As exhausting as the process was, I think I did a great job, and the paper and glue was actually really easy to work with! The glue isn’t bonding the moment it touches the wall, so you can always peel it off and reposition it if you don’t get it right. There were times I needed to apply additional glue on the edges after repositioning, but overall the process was fairly straightforward and a lot of fun!

The best bedroom setup in a truck camper

Since we’re living in our camper full-time, I wanted to make sure that our bed felt exactly like it would in an apartment–cute, cozy, and comfy. Choosing the right mattress and linens was important to us. We didn’t want a thin and flimsy mattress, and we certainly didn’t want to keep the 20-year-old spring mattress that our camper came with when we bought it. I also am the type of person to splurge on bed linens, because there is nothing worse than cheap, scratchy sheets.

The best lightweight camper mattress

We tossed the old 2005 spring mattress and replaced it with a 6 inch memory foam mattress. It’s quite comfy, and it has an affordable price tag at just $129 for a queen. I did a lot of research on the best mattresses to use in a camper, and this one came up a few times. Weight was important to us, as we didn’t want a mattress that was thick and heavy. This 6″ Queen is only 33 lbs, which is perfect if you’re trying to sleep on a real mattress while keeping overall camper weight in mind.

Cozy bed linens for our truck camper renovation

Having a comfortable bed is so important to me, and linen choice is a huge factor in not just style, but comfort. I scoured the internet for the best sheets that also matched my color scheme. I originally wanted the Breeze sheets from Buffy, because we are using a Buffy Cloud comforter in the camper, but the color blue I wanted had been out of stock. So I ended up buying these sheets from Bed Threads, which I love! They’re the Percale sheets from Bed Threads in the color, Aegean. I just bought a fitted sheet and two king-sized pillow cases. My king-sized pillows are from Marlow Pillow, which I’ve had for YEARS and I’m obsessed with them. You can zip and unzip the pillows to adjust the firmness, and I love a king sized pillow because I usually cuddle it all night! We also have a fleece blanket that matches the fitted sheets that we used in colder temperatures.

For our duvet cover, we opted for a linen duvet and pillowcase set from The Modern Dane. This was a bit of a splurge, but very much worth the price. I love the quality of this duvet cover, and the color perfectly matches the color scheme. Linen is naturally antimicrobial, which is the perfect fabric for a camper bedroom because we often get dirty and sweaty and don’t always have access to showers. We don’t want our bed linens to get too gross, so this felt like the perfect choice!

Hand-knit chunky blanket

I love making hand-knit chunky blankets, and have a tutorial here on my blog and on my YouTube channel! My materials are from BeCozi (you can use code DKITCHEN10 for a 10% discount). I made this beautiful hand-knit tri-color blanket to match our color scheme and it sits at the foot of our bed. Another one was made just for Jax so he could have a cozy blanket when he sleeps on the couch at night.

Creating a functional kitchen for a truck camper renovation

It was important to me to have a fully functional kitchen with creative storage. I make food content, and love to cook, so I needed my kitchen to make me feel calm, not overwhelmed, when trying to cook in a tiny space.</p>

Tile backsplash in a camper

I used

Kitchen storage solutions for a small camper

We shopped at IKEA and bought a Kungsfors rail, two containers for utensils, and hooks for hanging utensils that sit against the wall next to our stovetop. We also bought these hanging mesh bags for fruits and vegetables.

On the opposite wall, I installed spice racks so I could store 18 different spices (I only used three of the four racks that came in my order).

Cookware and Dinnerware for a camper

Cooking is (obviously) so important to me. While I wish I could have a ton of space for all kinds of cookware, I needed to make some decisions on what to keep in a tiny space. I cook a lot of one-pot meals, so I opted to keep my modular set from ByTheTable. It comes with a small and large pan and a medium sized pot. It also has a large lid, small lid for both the small pan and pot, a lid holder that magnetizes to both lids, and a handle that can attach to all pans and pot. I also have the Always Pan 2.0 from Our Place. I also brought my Smithey cast iron for over-the-fire cooking.

For dinnerware, we purchased the Passage Bowls, Plates, and Cups from Sea to Summit. They’re dishwasher friendly and lightweight!

Collapsible meal prep containers

Since we cook a lot, we needed some food containers that wouldn’t take up too much space. We love this collapsible silicone food storage container set from Amazon. They don’t take up too much space in our drawers!

Creating a cozy living room for our truck camper

It was important to us to have a cozy and functional living space to sit and enjoy a meal or get some work done. We wanted space to split up so that one person works at the table and one person in bed. Plus, our living room is where our dog sleeps at night! So a lot of detail went in to creating this space for our truck camper renovation!

Building a couch in a truck camper

The truck camper we bought had a couch that folded out into a bed. We ripped it apart and kept the metal frames. That way, we could build a new couch that matched the functionality of the old. For our truck camper renovation, I bought some custom-sized foam on Amazon for each piece of the couch. I used an electric bread knife to make any additional cuts to ensure the cushions were the perfect size.

I then bought a fabric from Sunbrella in the color Regatta to match my color scheme. I wanted a Sunbrella fabric because it’s durable, easy to clean, fade-resistant, and made for outdoor use. Even though our couch is indoors, we knew we would track in a lot of dirt on a daily basis.

I borrowed a sewing machine from a friend and watched a tutorial on YouTube on how to make a box cushion. Sailrite has a fabric calculator that is very easy to use for the type of cushion you are making. These resources gave me the confidence to tackle this huge project on my own!

Our table setup in our truck camper

I repurposed my old coffee table as our new table in our camper! It was the perfect length and width for our living room space. The color of the wood matched the wood that I stained on our bathroom door. It really brought this truck camper renovation together perfectly!

We also bought a Lagun table system. This table system is certainly not cheap, but it’s what many van outfitters and DIY-ers use in campers. You can buy full systems or individual parts to customize your setup. We opted for the floor-mount system and the extra long table leg, because that’s what fit our space best. The arm of the table allows us to rotate our table top 360º. I installed our table top slightly off center so that we could spin it one way for more hallway space, and the other way for more couch space.

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Adding creative details to our camper

We added a lot of little creative details to our camper to add the finishing touches on our tiny home! Many of these products are from Etsy, so they are definitely on the pricier side. But I do love supporting small creators. Etsy is a wonderful place to find cool gems that are not mass-manufactured.

J-shaped wall hooks