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This article is about how I modified the living quarters of our 1999 Trail-et trailer. Hopefully this article will give someone else idea's of ways to modify their own trailer. One piece of information I give people when thinking about upgrading is to found an old camper and to strip it o the appliances.
We bought an old camper for $500. It had a refrigerator, double sink, 20 gal water tank, 5 gal water heater, 12V electric water pump, Table, and a stove. To purchase this equipment new would have been over $1300.
Most of this article is about how I installed the appliances from the Camper into the Trail-et.
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When we first started horse camping, we used a bumper pull stock trailer and a 10ft camper. I believe the camper was made in the late 70's, and it had definitely seen better days. Every time I jacked it up, I thought it was going to be its last. We purchased the camper in 2000 and used it until the summer of 2003, when we drive to Chicago to buy a used 1999 Trail-et.
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 The Trail-et is a 3 horse gooseneck with a 6 ft short wall. It came with a 110VAC Air Conditioner with heat strip, a propane stove-top, a propane/12VDC/110VAC refrigerator, a hand-pump single sink with 5 gallon water tank, a fold-down couch, a vertical cabinet, and two overhead cabinets.
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The first picture is the front of the long wall, showing the couch and an overhead cabinet. The second picture is the back of the long wall, showing the vertical cabinet. The third picture is the front of the short wall, showing the stove-top, single sink, and the refrigerator. The last picture is over the gooseneck, showing the bed and a small cabinet.
   
As the Camper was on it's last leg, I didn't feel right selling (or giving) it to anybody. So I was just going to take it to the dump. But before taking it, I just happen to look up the information on the refrigerator that was in the Trail-et. I couldn't believe what I found, the thing costs $700! That got me to thinking about all the appliances in the camper and how much they were worth:
- Propane/110VAC refrigerator with freezer box, $700 (if not more)
- Double sink, $100
- 20 gallon water tank, $125
- 12VDC water pump, $65
- 5 gallon propane water heater, $280
- Table mounting hardware, $25
That's almost $1,300 of appliances, and we only paid $500 for the Camper! So before taking the camper to the dump, I stripped it! Then I began the task of installing the appliances from the Camper into the Trail-et.
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 The first thing I did was to remove the single sink and install the double-sink. Because the double sink was longer than the single, I had to extend the cabinet by approx 4 inches. This provided room for an on/off switch for the water pump that would be installed later.
On a side note, I later replaced the on/off switch with a 15 minute timer switch. This was done after leaving the on/off switch in the on position and then running low on water in the 20 gallon tank. The pump run long enough to need replacing.
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 Next, I completely removed the fold-down couch. As it's normally just my wife and I, we really didn't have a need for a full-length fold-down couch. In it's place I built a table with bench sits at each end. One of the bench sits would hold the 5 gallon water heater and the other bench sit would contain the 20 gallon water tank and 12VDC water pump. I positioned the table so there was just enough room to slide in.
 I used the mounting hardware from the table in the Camper to build the new table in the Trail-et. The only new piece I had to make was the table top. For this I used melamine covered MDF, with a plywood reinforcement on the bottom side. On the edge of the MDF, I used melamine heat-sensitive trim tape.
The most nerve-racking task to installing the water heater was cutting a hole through the side of the trailer. I chose to cut the hole a little small, then I enlarged it has needed.
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Here is a picture of the finished table and bench sits:
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 While there was already a refrigerator in the Trail-et, it didn't have a freezer box. So I had no choose but to install the refrigerator/freezer from the Camper into the Trail-et. But, before installing the refrigerator, I moved the vertical cabinet towards the front of the long wall and butted it up against the bench sit with the water heater. Besides providing more spare room at the rear of the long wall for the installation of the refrigerator, the vertical cabinet also serves as a backrest.
As the refrigerator needed to be vented out the top, I mounted it as high as possible. This left room for a storage area underneath. The final result is the picture to the right. This installation of the refrigerator also required cutting two more holes into the trailer. One on the side wall and the other on the roof top. Luckly, neither hole at to be positioned very precisely (unlike the hole for the water heater). To cover the hole on the side, I used purchased a plastic RV access panel kit. The panel was required to provide access to the back of the refrigerator. The roof-top hole was required for venting of heat and fumes when running on propane. To cover this hole, I purchased a vent cover kit.
 
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 Sometime later, I replaced the overhead cabinet above the stove-top. Replacing it with one that was wider, taller, and a little deeper. I also used horizontal sliding doors, which the wife really liked. The vertically opening doors on the old cabinet make it hard for her to see inside the cabinet.
I also mounted a vertical melamine board to the end of the cabinet. This provided a little more separation between the "kitchen" and the "bedroom". It also provided a place to mount a LCD 13" TV and DVD player.
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While I thought the living quarters was looking really nice, the wife decided the inside was a little to "white" from all the melamine, so I replaced the cabinet doors with doors made of plywood. To protect the wood and darken the color a little, I painted them with a clear lacquor.
I also removed the overhead cabinet above the table and replaced it with one a little larger and with sliding doors that match the cabinet over the stove top.
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 And as a last little touch, I added a spice rack for her.
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