5th Wheel Renovation Episode 2: The Kitchen

The game plan

There is a game plan or plan of attack for this thing. We're going to start by getting rid of the faucet.

We will unhook the plumbing on the bottom and then unscrew it from the underside; it should come off. 

Then we'll take the countertop off, which should also be screwed in from the bottom side. So let's get started.  

The island is pretty much demoed as far as we're going to demo it. The countertop and sink are off. We are on to the kitchen area. The microwave is out. 

We're working on the stove, and we'll just start working our way this way, ripping all of this out. 

Replacing the microwave and cooktop

With the microwave gone, it's so much more roomy here. But we are planning on putting one back in. We removed that one because we really like the convection-style microwave that we have in our current RV.

That way, we can get rid of the oven and just use the microwave for oven and microwave purposes. So we're planning on putting the new microwave back into basically the original spot but just have that convection option instead. 

Check out how tiny these RV ovens are. Not that we do a lot of baking, but they're just not functional. You can't bake much in there.

So we are just going to remove this entire thing, and we're going to replace it with just a cooktop on top of the counter. Then we'll have that convection microwave for any baking that we need to do because this will not cut it. 

Removing the propane range

Since we're going to be removing the propane range and replacing it with an electric cooktop, I'm just out here shutting off the propane so that I can tap that line off and get rid of it.  

I got the propane shut off. Ready to get that thing out of there? 

Goodbye, enormous range. 

That was actually a tiny oven. We're going to put all new cabinets in here and have the cooktop on top. 

The microwave and range are gone. Now it's time to get all of that entertainment, fireplace, TV, and everything else out.

Later progress

Let's see what's going on here. It looks good. You can see how much space is behind there. So right now, this was the old pantry. The door is taken off. We're going to widen that and move it to the end. That way, this can all be the kitchen. 

We're starting to rip the rest of these cabinets out. 

The trick is to go nice and slow and take everything apart one board at a time so as not to damage the ceilings and the walls. 

Removing the RV fridge

I'm working on removing the RV refrigerator from the trailer. I already got everything disconnected on the outside. So how do we do this?

How do we get an RV fridge out? Well, we already got it disconnected on the outside, and now we're removing these little plugs, and it's screwed in. 

There are four on the top, four on the bottom. 

We should free it up and we just pull it out. So is it one big unit? Yes. 

All right, guys, we got the refrigerator out, and it weighed about 500 pounds. It was kind of ridiculous, but we survived. I got it out and didn't destroy anything. 

We've got these big holes that we have to deal with. 

The residential refrigerator that we're putting in here doesn't need any exterior venting, so we'll just have to get those covered up and seal them up nicely. 

Then we can reconfigure the cabinet a little bit to make it the right size for the new fridge, and we'll get it put in. We got a lot done in the last couple of days.

The fridge is out back, and now we got to get the new fridge in. But I think we're going to try to paint first. But we got to get this thing out of here. So that means we're going to take out this big window back here and get this fridge out. That'll be a process. 

5th-wheel renovation

We hope you've enjoyed watching our 5th wheel renovation, especially the kitchen. Have you done any 5th-wheel renovations? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Watch episode 3 here.