In July of 2015 we bought our first motorhome, a 1982 Foretravel Travco. We obviously had no idea what we were getting into, but we were charmed by some of its unique features and retro vibe. I immediately gave him the name of Bruiser, which ended up being more appropriate than I could have imagined, but not in the ways I had hoped!
Since the purchase of this beast I have searched online for anyone else who has the same motorhome and have found nothing. So now that I have spent the last 3 months remodeling Bruiser, I have gotten to know more than I care to know about this rare model.



When we purchased Bruiser he had (from what I can tell) the original furniture, oven, fridge, carpet, window coverings.... so pretty much everything was original. And although I appreciate the retro look and would have loved to keep it authentic, there was just too many pounds of dirt dug into the carpet and too many tears and oil stains in the fabric!






And one of the two previous owners did us no favors by trying to varnish the wood paneling. There were horrible streak marks and drips everywhere. They even tried to varnish the laminate countertop!


So the first step was to remove all the carpet and furniture and get to sanding and refinishing all of the beautiful cherry wood paneling.




We then laid a new layer of sub flooring because there were soft spots. An since we were putting in a hard/rubber flooring, we wanted to create channels or grooves that the wiring could be routed into.

We then laid the rubber tiles. Which took a lot of time because there's not much of an opportunity to use baseboards and so the cuts had to be very close, precise and clean up against the walls. 

I found some through-color vinyl corner protectors that matched the flooring perfectly. I used commercial "walk-off" carpet for the steps. Created a lip for the middle step so the carpet just lays into place and can be easily picked up and shaken or rinsed off.


I replaced the laminate countertop in the kitchen and got a new faucet. The original door and refrigerator laminate was brown wood and did not match the real cherrywood paneling, so I re-laminated the inside door and refrigerator panel.
 

I used the leftover laminate to re-laminate the underside and edge of the hide-a-way table top and got a fun laminate for the top, only to be seen when in the out position.

I had the engine cover ("dog house") re-carpeted and the furniture reupholstered. Got some carpet tiles from Flor, chairs from Target, and pillows made. 

 

   

Final after pictures to come!