The Cook & The Coach Blog

Time with Family and Fridge Repairs

9/15/2016

If you are following our adventures we left off last with our 4th of July adventures around Lake Minnetonka with Laura's family. We ended up spending another 2 weeks in Minnesota. This time included me playing in a golf tournament with some of my family. Doing some minor RV repairs and one major one, a new fridge. We got to meet our newest nephew, Joseph, right before we left town and spend some time with some amazing friends that we've missed while being on the road.

Going home is always pretty special to me, especially when it involves playing golf. I grew up on that golf course. If it wasn't for Minnesota winters it would probably be fair to say I spent more time out there than at our house. So to be able to bring Eli out here is pretty special. He really like riding on the golf cart with Grandma and Grandpa. He also like chasing around our golf balls and even hit a few!

While I was playing golf Laura was able to sneak away to hang out with her sister and her family at an RV park just 20 minutes from my hometown. Pretty random coincidence that they happened to be in the same area on the same weekend as us. Oh and of course being home in Redwood Falls meant we had to stop by Dari King. Eli really liked his first ice cream cone!

Being home in Redwood also meant we had access to my dad and his handyman skills,tools, and generosity. The project that we needed to tackle was installing a residential refrigerator into our RV. Our old Norcold 1200 RV fridge just couldn't stay cold. The freezer worked but the fridge temp was hanging out around 50 degrees. This meant doing some modifications to the cabinet area where the old fridge was in order to make room for the new one.

We were fortunate to find pretty much exactly what we were looking for after a handful of stops. Given the smaller space we needed a counter depth fridge otherwise our hallway would disappear. The height wasn't as important since even the shortest fridges out there would have still required us to do some modifications. The other thing that played into our decision was finding a fridge that we could fit into RV. The fridge we found had about an inch to spare, and that was bringing it in through a window.

The actual install process was pretty easy. Thankfully we had a plugin that runs through our inverter, which means that our batteries could power our fridge as we were driving down the road instead of running on propane like our old model. If you want more details about what we did, I'm happy to share, just send me a note.

We saw Laura's family. We saw my family. We completed some necessary RV remodels. We saw some good friends. It was now time to say goodbye and make our way to Nashville for our Beachbody Summit. On the road again!

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Our New Home - Before and After Pics

4/28/2016

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We know these pics are long overdue since we have been on the road for officially 1 month now. We feel like we are pretty well settled and have things the way we like them. We still need to add a pouf or two to put our feet on in the living room, but for the most part, it's done! For now our stability ball is doing the trick. We also have some things we hope to add to our "patio" outside to make that a more homey feel.

The main things that we did were:

Paint all the cabinets in living area, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. We left the cabinets in the cab the original color
Painted over the faded and slightly nasty wallpaper. We went with a gray paint that had a little blue tone to it.
Put in new flooring the entire way from the living area back into the bedroom. We used a peel and stick resilient flooring.
Put up a subway tile for a back splash in the kitchen and bathroom.
Upgraded the TV in front and added our Blu-Ray player and Roku. We also installed a new sound bar rather than using the old system that was wired up and confusing.
We removed the valances from around all the windows and just re-hung the blinds that were inside them.
We removed one of the couches and installed a desk and left room for some of Eli's toys.
We installed a new LG washer and dryer combo unit. The old RV didn't come with one and we definitely felt we needed it since we would be living in here full-time.
We removed the old headboard and built a new padded headboard that we made out of some fun cloth we found and a few boards (Thank you Young House Love for the idea!).
We removed the doors on the closet in the bedroom and hung some curtains that we trimmed up to fit that space.

***Disclaimer: When we say "WE" did all of this work we're talking about us and Dan's parents. They were instrumental in helping us do ALL of this work in about 3 weeks...it was chaotic and they let us interrupt their peaceful lives for that duration...and for that we are SO THANKFUL!

The passenger's side slideout with our updated kitchen backsplash and a super fun pillow we got from a friend. Thanks Lacy! We love the white cabinets and how it brightened up the entire coach.

The driver's side slideout with our new desk and our dining area. Oh and Eli's toys!

Dan's kitchen!!! Other than lacking a little counter space we love this area. For those that are curious...the microwave doubles as a convection oven and actually works really well to roast veggies and bake. We were super surprised!! No dishwasher is a bummer, but we've made due.

A shot of our living area with our new TV, rug and desk. We love the way it turned out!

Shower and bathroom area. You can see how the old flooring flowed throughout the coach. The shower also has a tub in it which has been fantastic with Eli and makes bath time so much better.

Another view of our bedroom and the curtain that we hung instead of the glass doors. Oh and our residential washer and dryer that we added. There was an electrical box that stopped us from pushing it back far enough to get the doors back on. Our plan is to move that so we can slide it back a few more inches. We probably won't put the doors back on but might do a curtain or something... we are still deciding on if that's necessary.

Our new headboard and our own bedding. We also brought in our king size mattress that we had in our townhome. It's been nice to have our own bed to sleep on. The throw pillows will get upgraded at some point...they're not exactly what Laura would like but we're just working with what we already had!

A look at the old mirror, ugly valances and light fixtures that didn't work. We used the light fixtures that were in the bedroom and just moved them out into the living room.

And a few more random pictures! Thanks for checking out our house!!

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Stop worrying. Start trusting.

3/31/2016

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Sometimes you see God work in big ways...and sometimes in small ways. Both are amazing 😉 but I'm always reminded that:

He WILL provide...so we can laugh and not worry so much!!💗

I don't know about you, but stress brings out the worst in me. These last few weeks have been hard...we're out of routine, haven't had a "home", (so thankful for my lovely in-laws who opened up their house to our crazy), attempting to keep our business going and growing, supporting our team and running accountability groups while we remodel the RV, clean out our town home, sell all the leftover stuff, sell two cars and purchase a new car, make sure Eli still knows we exist 😂 and spend time with him...plus try to remain sane, get our workouts in and try to have a little normalcy. There's been no time to think, breathe or process much.

I've been trying to control outcomes and circumstances rather than just trusting HIM and His faithfulness. He works in ways we don't expect...and can move the most impossible situations.

Why do we forget that when things get tough??! Because we're human and we're messy, that's why. The beautiful part about all of this is that He waits patiently and just draws us back to Him. But It's up to us to admit that we need a His help 💗 He won't force anything on us.

Yesterday as we were driving to look at a potential car to purchase, we took a second to pray together and just ask for guidance. After an hour or so of Dan chatting with them and me chasing Eli around 😜 the dealer wasn't budging on the price...so we decided to pack it up and keep looking elsewhere. 20 min later the dealer called and came really close to what we wanted...so we went back and bought it. We could have obviously just chalked it up to the stuff car dealers normally do...but it was pretty much exactly what we had been wanting to pay and it was everything we had been looking for. So yea. A God thing. Not a coincidence.

If you're going through some stressful times and feel like you have to control everything....or know how everything is going to work out. Just stop. Breathe. Simply do what is in front of you at this very moment and TRUST GOD with the big picture of your life!!

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Our New Home - Before Pics

3/17/2016

We have had a quite a few people ask about our RV and wanted to more about it. We realized we haven't really shared much about our new home, especially pictures. We snapped a few pics before we started our remodel project, which we are in the middle of right now. We've gotten a few comments from people that have basically said, "Why would we change anything, it's beautiful?" We agree that it didn't "need" any work done, other than maybe new carpet. We wanted it to feel like "our" home and not a factory created one.

Here are some pictures of the front living area of our motorhome. The kitchen has a 2 burner cooktop... we've thought about upgrading to a 3 burner option but we hope to get by with the 2 plus our multi-cooker. Plus we have a table top grill that we can use when we get to our campsites. Both of the couches fold down into beds, so in theory we could have up to 6 people sleeping in our coach. Our plan is to remove one of the couches and put a desk in so we can have a dedicated workspace. That will definitely get used more than a 2nd sleeper sofa.

Pictures of the transition area and the bedroom. The door on the left is to the bathroom. There is also another sink to the right. The bedroom has a king size bed in it, BONUS!!! Our plan is to just use our mattress in here. We will also be installing a new washer and dryer combo unit in the cabinet to the left of the closet. We figured laundry was more important than storage. We will be doing something new for closet doors also. We weren't crazy about the mirrored doors.

So there is an idea of what our new home will kind of look like. We will definitely be sharing the "after" photos once we get things done....which we hope will be in a week or so. It's been a fun...yet slightly stressful project. Our son, Eli has decided to graduate into the terrible 2's...at the age of 19 months so that's been interesting. Watching him has been the most challenging job we've had, even above ripping out carpet. We just keep saying it is just a phase and once we get on the road he will bounce back to his normal, jovial self. At least we hope. A whole year of this could be pretty overwhelming.

HUGE shout out to my parents, Steve & Deb, for all their help with painting, priming, babysitting and advice. There would have been absolutely no way we would have been able to get this done without them!!!

Time with Family and Fridge Repairs

Our New Home - Before and After Pics

Stop worrying. Start trusting.

Our New Home - Before Pics