Bathroom Shelf

I learned on the Visa owners Facebook page that some if the models have a nice little linen shelf in the bathroom above the potty...so of course I wanted to add something similar in that wasted space.

We noodled on it and decided to use wire shelving in the interest of weight and if used upside down it provides a nice lip.

As luck would have it, the right length was available as a packaged linen shelf at Lowes.  Of course it was the stock white plastic coated wire and I wanted an oil rubbed bronze finish to coordinate with the new shower enclosure.  Rustoleum makes an any surface, any angle paint that took care of that!

We had to cut the back right corner to accommodate the angle at the corner of the bathroom.  I had thought this was for the vent stack, but it is just for the rounded corner on the other side of the wall next to the fridge.  The vent stack is in the wall between the bathroom and hall...so if any 23BHD owners are reading this and plan to do this, just pull back the door frame trim a bit to pull back the wall material to see where the stack is as well as any wires so you don't screw through anything that you'll kick yourself for!

Shower Enclosure

If you went to an RV show this past year you may have seen a new style of shower curtain/door in some brand of campers (I don't remember which one)...we did and thought it was cool and left it at that.  But 'LaydBack' on the dogandtrailer.com forum tracked down the manufacturer and shared the contact information to buy one direct from the distributor.  They really should sell these things to the public, because they are slick.  After seeing 'WillingtonPaul' put theirs in at the rally in May, I ordered one up as my mother's day gift :)

  It is a nice thick and heavy vinyl that rides on tracks on the top and bottom, with a magnetic strip the full length of the door where it meets.

The top bows out like the stock shower curtain rod, so it gives a nice amount of space.

And the bottom is straight across so it fits nice and neat next to the sink cabinet.  No more floppy shower curtain, and more importantly - no more water all over the floor!

"This is Not a Storage Compartment"

OK, OK, I get it.  We shouldn't be storing stuff in the dead wasted space between the converter and the water heater...but we decided to anyway.  In our camper this is under the back bottom bunk.

You know those extra lengths of hose and power cord that you should have with you for "just in case" but have never touched?  We decided this dead space would be perfect for them.  Not super easy to access, but close enough if we ever need to get to them for some far-away utility post.  To avoid the hoses/cords from hitting against anything in the compartment we zip-tied them in their neat coils and hung them from a big hook screwed into the back upper frame of the compartment.

 Then Kevin cut a little access door into the plywood base.  

The thumb hole he made is right next to the "This is Not a Storage Compartment" sticker, which makes us feel like rebels ;)

Tongue Box and Power Jack

A huge thanks to Bob on the Visa owners Facebook page, who posted the details on his tongue box...they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Bob should feel flattered :)  The box is a truck box from Lowe's and I think it looks great with the diamond plate on the front of the trailer.  We can stow our Flojet macerator and hose along with the pack of Lynx leveling blocks, and for now the single stock battery and the towing mirrors (the mirrors will need to find another home when we upgrade batteries.)  We installed trays for dual group 27 batteries, so we're keeping an eye out for a good price.  Until then we will "run what we brung."

We also installed a power tongue jack.  I've always kind of poo-pooed the idea since we're strong able bodied folks who enjoy a little extra workout here and there...but with the up-down of the Equalizer hitch procedure and a lost bracelet because I took it off to do the cranking (and set it on top of the tonneau cover on the truck and forgot about it - major OOPS!) we decided to just do it.  We bought a Husky HB3000 and it has a built in plug guard for the power cord when it is being stored.   Since we wanted to use that feature we left the propane tanks where they were on the tongue and didn't move them forward for the box install...but the big plastic cover for them won't fit in this configuration, so I have a vinyl zip-up cover on order.  If we decide we don't like it we can always move the propane forward and remove the plug guard and use the big cover again.  So we'll see..I'll add a pic when the cover arrives.

The Hoppy Hitch Level still fits too, so that was good - I really like it! (it is the hockey puck looking thing in front of the jack...it has the cover on in the pic.)

So, in doing some research it sounds about 50/50 whether or not people like to cover their power jacks to protect from weather when being stored.  I saw a cool idea on RV.net where someone used an inverted wastebasket and installed some hooks to store the safety chains on when stored...looked like a great idea to me so I copied it.  Note the drainage holes drilled in the lip so water doesn't collect and get gunky.

And lastly, a couple of niceties in the chains and emergency break-away switch: hooks for the chains and a coiled line for the emergency break-away line:

The vinyl propane cover arrived and fits very nicely!  Here's the end result: 

And it even fits with enough space for the wastebasket cover:

Addendum: so we needed to move the L brackets for the Equalizer Hitch in order to add the box, still within their specs for minimum recommended distance from the hitch. But after towing for a bit, we both agreed that we could feel the difference and decided to get the L's back to the original spot. Kevin made a little deck with cutouts for the brackets that we then attached to the frame then attached the box to it. Nice and solid, and the ride is better again.

Door Maintenance

Well, we have 17 nights under our belts camping with Kansas and a couple of breaks in the screen on the screen door to show for it.  So in looking for a solution I found that they make a pet-specific replacement screening that is available at the big box stores.  So I replaced the bottom portion with it.  It does seem very sturdy and gets good reviews.  It is some sort of plastic rather than fiberglass.  So time will tell if it holds up to someone scratching at the door.  Side note: he was so cute napping in his bottom bunk the majority of the time we worked on mods this weekend!

The other things I did were to put springs on the screen door to make it close automatically (I had done it before, but let's just say I didn't read the directions and installed it all wrong.)  So this time was a success, and since I had to remove the gas strut door opener to get to the hinge screws we decided that we liked the ability to open the door all the way rather than the 90 degree angle that the strut allowed.  It is easy to put back on, so we'll keep it in the camper in case we change our minds.

More Kitchen Cabinet Space

The space under the kitchen cabinets is dead space used for heating and plumbing, but there is still a decent amount of usable space left under there.  So I unscrewed the access panels and added some strips of magnetic tape on the cabinet side, and some strong little button magnets on the removed panels.  For a way to open them I just used Gorilla Tape (my favorite stuff!) and taped a little ribbon pull on the top of each one.

I would have liked to add matching doors or something, but this will do for less frequently accessed stuff and is most certainly more cost-effective :).

Silverware Drawer

Since we don't have drawers in our kitchen (only cabinets), I decided to add a small drawer under the dinette table for silverware.  It is made by Rubbermaid and is just called Small Drawer.  I found it at Lowe's, but it is also here on Amazon.

Here it is in the open position...

...and closed position.  It kind of "locks" into place so I think it should do well in transit.