After five years, we've changed our motor home living room!

NOTE: We are about two weeks behind in posting our blogs. As things are changing quickly in our country because of the COVID-19 pandemic, please understand that some of our activities and decisions would be different if they happened on the day the blog was actually published.

While all our repairs were going on near Red Bay, Alabama, we were also designing some inside renovations. We never have liked our L-shaped sectional. In travel mode it looks like a regular sofa with a big unusable corner section. When the slides are out, we can pull out the stored end piece to make an L-sectional to look like this. Even though it looks like a good idea . . .

we've found that it isn't very comfortable. The cushion where Mark is sitting is too hard, and the section to his left is not deep enough to support our legs comfortably. So we rarely pull out that L-section, and it is just taking up precious space.

We shopped for a replacement couch this winter, but couldn't find anything that would fit into the motor home door, and fit into the slides we have. So we have decided to keep the main sofa, but take out the corner section. We had heard that this was a hard job, but Mark made it look easy as he started taking things apart.

He also found that those pieces were very heavy! With those metal upholstered pieces out of the way, we're ready to design its replacement.

We had already contacted Chris Berry Woodworking, another very busy handyman here in Red Bay, Alabama. Normally he would be booked for months, but a recent cancellation made him available to do some work for us. He came over to take some measurements and get our ideas, and he started work while we were waiting on our repairs. At this time we're still looking for projects to keep ourselves busy. Denisa found out that the heaviest piece of that corner sectional made a pretty comfortable place outside to shell the pecans from last fall.

Fast forward a week, and we have finished our repairs at Custom RV. So Mark drove the motor home the 18 miles to Chris Berry Woodworking to install the new cabinet. His shop is down a narrow winding road that isn't wide enough to even paint stripes on it. We had to giggle when we read one of the road signs, "Hootey Hoot Holler."

Chris was excited about the opening of turkey season, telling us about his hunts from years past. He even brought out his collection of turkey spurs that he keeps from the leg of each Tom he shoots. Does that count as the wildlife picture of the day?

Chris has all the wood stains that Tiffin uses, and we could get matching drawer pulls here. So he can build custom furniture in any size you want that exactly matches the rest of our woodwork.

We traded a corner sectional that we weren't using, for a some very functional storage that is just the right size and perfectly matches. Those drawers are 28 inches deep, and Chris made the drawer sides extra tall. We haven't yet filled them up, but this change also saved us lots of cargo weight by getting rid of that metal-framed sectional. Denisa is pretty happy with this renovation!

Mark completed the last step. He had saved the arm from the L-sectional, and it fit perfectly in the space we left between the drawer unit and the couch. Mark attached it securely and we're finished.

The only major hiccup came when we brought in our slides after the installation of our new wooden drawer unit. It looks like one of the screws holding it in place was a tiny bit too long. It cracked the fiberglass on the side of our slide. Double whoops!

That took a little shine off our completed repairs and renovations here in Red Bay! We spent the night outside Chris's shop. The next morning we drove down Hootey Hoot Holler to see the nice lake that is three feet above normal. With all the rain they've been getting in Northern Alabama, the road literally ends in the lake.

If we hadn't already spent nine days in the northwest corner of Alabama, we probably would have stayed a while longer to put our kayak on that water. But we're finally finished with our repair projects and renovations! Now we're ready to be back on the road again with our new living room, and confident that everything is in top working order. It was a productive trip to Red Bay for us!