1. How it all began...

My husband and I were into camping before we had our daughter. She came along and I no longer had an interest in sleeping on the ground in a tent with a screaming, crying, non-sleeping newborn. This past summer I was browsing Pinterest (my weakness) and noticed a few posts about pop up campers. I was sold. I began obsessively reading and staring at pictures of how other fellow crafty people took campers and flipped them. I started looking at campers on Craigslist but was disappointed at the lack of pop up campers in my price range. Bummer. After weeks of stalking browsing Craigslist, I thought we finally found the perfect camper. My husband and I rushed to a tiny little town about 45 minutes away and were immediately disgusted. The ceiling and floor had a lot of water damage, the screens had many critter holes and the condition was just plain bad. I left with a sad face on. I believe everything happens for a reason, maybe a pop up wasn't meant to be.

About a week later I was driving to my SIL's house when I noticed a garage sale. Set back near this family's barn was an older pop up with a tiny sign that said '$250'. WHAT?! I slammed on my breaks, turned around and pulled into the driveway. After a brief conversation with the owner's dad I asked if he could hold the camper for $50 until I could get my husband to look at it later that night. He said sure and off I went. No less than an hour later I was back. Who was I kidding? I couldn't pass up this deal, even if my husband would be mad (sorry Cody). I paid cash and this puppy was in our side yard the next day.



After a closer inspection of our new-to-us camper we noticed that it was in solid shape for being a 1991. There were some tiny tears in the canvas and a critter recently went to town on some of the wiring. Definitely nothing that we couldn't live with or fix (you'll see how handy my husband is). We were now the proud owners of a Jayco 806 Deluxe Pop Up Camper. By the time we got it home it was dark and I had to wait until the next day to get to work. I could NOT sleep. I browsed Pinterest and made big plans for our little pop up.