spotzgelato
- Oct 27, 2020
- 3 min read

Interior Progress - Priming and Painting

Last week we shared our final plan for the exterior of the Spotzmobile. This week we can't wait for you to see the transformation that is happening on the inside. This week we finished the interior priming and painting.

The Spotzmobile, our Fifth-Wheel, is a 2008 Keystone Copper Canyon that we have owned for a couple years. It measures 34 feet and has a couple bedrooms with a den, kitchen and bathroom. It has two slides.

The interior was very typical of most campers.... lots of heavy upholstery in brown, earth tones. Everything was really dark and cave like and not at all homey. Here's a reminder of what we started with:

First, we removed the original dinette and loveseat in the den/kitchen area. We also removed all the beds in the bunkhouse so that we can turn the area into a combination of an office and extra bedroom. We also removed the sliding doors from the front bedroom. In the bathroom, we removed the vanity and sink. In the kitchen, we also removed the counter top and sink and will replace those with new.

Next we went to work getting ready to paint. The preparation was the most time consuming part. We removed everything from the camper including the blinds and window coverings. Next, we removed all the cabinet doors and their handles and hinges. We saved the hinges to reuse, but will replace all the handles with new ones. We removed the toilet in the bath so we didn't have to paint around it. We removed the stove, but left the refrigerator and range hood in place. We were happy to discover that the front wooden panels on the refrigerator were easily removed. We dropped all the lights down from the ceiling and covered them with bags to protect them from overspray. We covered all the windows with painter's tape and leftover house wrap material we already had. We taped off every roof vent, skylight and heat vent. We removed all the switch plate covers and covered everything that couldn't easily be removed with painter's tape.

Once everything was prepped, we scrubbed every surface with Spic and Span to remove any oil and dirt that had accumulated. We used spackle to fill all the remaining holes in the walls. Next, we used a hand held sander with 120 grit sandpaper to rough up every surface, with the exception of the ceiling. Our goal was not to make the surface rough, but to sand off any shine so that primer would stick more easily. We followed this procedure with all the walls, trim and cabinet doors and cabinet interiors. It was a huge amount of sanding but was crucial to a good end product. Once we were finished, we cleaned up all our dust with tack cloths and a Shop-Vac.

Next, we used Kilz Adhesion Primer to spray the walls. (We couldn't find this primer locally and ordered it through Amazon.) We thinned the primer with 1.5 cups of water per gallon so it wouldn't clog up the nozzle on the sprayer. We sprayed all the walls, trim and every cabinet interior. We also sprayed all sides of all the cabinet doors and drawers. We had 45 cabinet doors so this part took quite a while! We were blessed with good weather, so we lined all the doors up on a system of ladders and tables all over the front yard to spray them. We did one coat of primer. This took a couple days to get everything painted and we used 3 gallons of primer.

After the primer dried completely, we caulked all the cracks that showed up after priming and filled any remaining holes that we missed on the first go round.

Our next step was paint. We used un-tinted Sherwin Williams signature white base in a Satin finish. We bought this locally at Lowe's and thinned each gallon with 1/2 cup of water per gallon to make it spray more easily. Again, we sprayed all the walls, trim, and cabinet interiors and doors and drawers. We did two coats of paint on everything and added a third coat on some of the long walls that still showed some streaking after the second coat. We rolled the ceiling with the same paint.