The Lisle Family

After removing the wall, we relocated the booth table and bench seats down into the garage. This required unscrewing the booth from its current location:

and mounting it into the new location in the garage:

Here it is almost finished. There is still some trim work to do, though.

With the booth removed from its old location, we then bought a couple inexpensive chairs. We really like the way this change opened up the area.

Once the wall was removed, we could move the new couch in through the garage. It came boxed up and wrapped in plastic, so we had to do some unwrapping.

Once unwrapped, we slipped it into place.

We had expected to garage wall to come down pretty easy, and for the most part that was correct. My neighbor John recommended that I contact the manufacturer to ask about it. I did so, and was surprised to receive a reply within a day stating that it should be ok. There are no wires, pipes, or structural issues with doing so.

My plan was to remove the door, and then start on the garage side taking the paneling down to see how the wall was constructed. This helped me see where the screws were located.

Upon close inspection, I discovered a problem. The side of the walls are attached to the walls with screws. I could see the screws protruding in from the outside wall, but the screw heads are not visible on the outside walls. So I concluded that the walls were screwed in place before the outside paneling was installed. This made it impossible to remove the screws without removing the outside paneling, which I did not want to do. So I ended up drilling holes around each protruding screw, and then ripping the wood off the wall. This left each screw protruding from the wall. I then used a power grinder to cut each screw off at the wall. I’ll need to apply some sort of trim to hide the cut-off screws.

The picture above shows the garage looking from inside the RV. Part of the old wall is leading against the back (tailgate). The grinder used to remove the screws is laying next to where the wall used to be, and next to the step that leads down to the old garage.

Above the garage is a bed loft. The wall provided a bit of support to the bed, so we’ll need to reinforce it with a post or additional angle iron. We didn’t need to make that decision right away, but eventually decided to make a post that would only be put into place when using the loft. This leaves the space wide open the rest of the time.

Our first step, upon deciding to remove the garage wall, was to go purchase a couch. It didn’t take us long:

We’ll be picking it up next weekend, once the garage wall has been removed so we can get it in. This unit has a fold down center console, and dual recliners. It will be replacing both the recliner and the sofa. The console doesn’t have power ports, so we’ll be adding those later.

My wife and I have been in our current RV for about 2 years now. It is a 2007 KZ New Vision Sportster 41′ toy hauler (41KGx2).We bought it used, so it already had a bit of wear on it. We decided a couple weeks ago to do some major fixing up.

Note: not shown in the above floor plan is the 2nd door in the garage (storage area), nor the bed loft above it. I’ll be posting some pictures later on.

One of the problems with fixing up an RV is that the doors on an RV are only 24″ wide. We’ve about worn out the current recliner and sofa. But buying a new one was a challenge because of the narrow door width. We had about resigned ourselves to ordering one from an RV company, but then a plan started coming together (don’t you just love that?).

We originally purchased a toy hauler because we liked the idea of being able to take our motorcycle with us. But what really sold us was the idea of using the extra space to expand our living area. So for the past couple years our “garage” has actually been my piano room. We also put a 2nd refrigerator in there, and use it for ironing. It was really nice having the tailgate, because we could easily move big things into it, like the refrigerator.

We had originally thought that the separate garage would provide a mini-apartment for our kids when they visit. This hasn’t happened, though. The kids usually sleep in the fold out couch or loft in the main area. So it occurred to us, why not take down the garage wall, opening up the main area space?

I realize that the main reason for the garage wall is to keep the gasoline smell out of the living area. But we don’t keep the motorcycle in the garage. When we go somewhere, the first thing we do when we get there is to take it out.

Once we started thinking about taking the wall down, we realized that without the wall, we could bring any size furniture into the living room through the tail gate.

And so the project begins. I’ll be posting our progress as we go.