Chinook RV

Lisa, I am such a fan of this cork! It’s just phenomenal looking and sounds like it’s cushy and comfy underfoot. I wonder why more folks don’t use it? I imagine it’s pricy but in such a small amount it seems that would hardly be a reason not to use it.

You mentioned elsewhere that you swept it off easily.

I’m not sure if you’re using it in ‘real life’ yet or still in the rehab process. I’m wondering how it holds up with messy spills, mud or liquids?

Thank you for the encouragement, everyone!

I'll try to reply to the comments about the cork:
The flooring is floating. We also laid cork in 2 other fibreglass trailers we had. It held up well, but you do have to treat it respectfully, like you would hardwood flooring. In our first trailer, we did have an accident that we didn't catch for a few hours, and we had no negative effects. The trailer was "new to us" and we didn't realize that the fridge door latch was broken. The fridge was totally loaded and everything tumbled onto the floor while in transit. A couple of cans of beer exploded and pooled on the floor. After we arrived at the campsite, we noticed the mayhem. There were no dents nor swelling. It wiped up well. We we washed the floor, we only use a very slightly damp mop or cloth. We also had cork in our house with a large dog running over it. No major issues.

Mattress:
We are likely getting the mattresses from Sleep Boutique in Calgary. They custom make any size and will upholster them (or use mattress ticking, your choice) and ship them. We explained what the purpose was (sitting and sleeping) and the salesman set up some combinations for us. I like a soft sleeping mattress, but when we tested that out, we sunk uncomfortably when sitting, so the clerk set up other combinations. We chose 6" high density medium firm + 2.25" polytel convolute. Now we will have to have our order changed because we don't need the mattresses to be that thick. The IKEA slats offer a lot of softness. Also, we don't want our feet dangling that far off the floor!

I was also considering a Zinus 6" Narrow Twin. You can find it on Amazon. It's very affordable and has good reviews.

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Update:
We added sides and boxed in the heating vent. We also got 2 more IKEA Komplement drawers, so now we have 6 in total. We still don't know what to do about doors for the front. Then, we need to make a plan about the sofa side.

The second bed is in and so are the flip-down doors. There is still lots to do, but it’s coming along. We plan to travel in this for 5 months this winter and leave our Airstream behind. Back in the winter of 2017-8 we traveled in the Chinook for 5 months. That’s why we knew we had to improve the comfort of it. We will post what we think after testing it this winter.

Update after one month of travelling:
Both beds are complete. However, we didn’t have time to order mattresses. We’ve been using 3” self-inflating mats. We are glad we didn’t put out the money on thicker mattresses because we would be sitting too far off the ground. 3-4” is all we can do comfortably. So far, we’ve been sleeping so well! However, we don’t recommend self-inflating mats when you are travelling through so many elevations as we have. We will invest in mattresses later.

Passenger-side bed:
6 mesh drawers from IKEA
leather door pulls from IKEA
Furnace duct is attached to the door (our Airstream was made like this so we copied that design)

Driver-side bed:
There are three drop-down doors to access storage from the side, but the mattress base also is hinged near the window so that we can access from the top. It’s heavy and not ideal, but necessary.

The IKEA Leirsund bed slat system is wonderful. We can raise our heads for lounging or watching tv.

Flooring:
We both noticed that the coach is SO MUCH quieter when we are driving. That was a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, the cork has performed as expected: it’s warm, easy to clean and incredibly beautiful! We can’t recommend cork enough!

Great upgrade with lots of new storage, cork looks really nice. I am now researching replacing my floor but I don't think cork will survive my wading boot cleats, however, having cork as underlay like Bfisher did might be nice.

Did I read correctly that the cork is more quiet when you drive, did you have carpet before?

Great upgrade with lots of new storage, cork looks really nice. I am now researching replacing my floor but I don't think cork will survive my wading boot cleats, however, having cork as underlay like Bfisher did might be nice.

Did I read correctly that the cork is more quiet when you drive, did you have carpet before?

Looks great! I may have to look into that slat system And I was seriously considering cork flooring for the sound deadening - glad to hear it works!

68camaro, yes the Chinook is much quieter when driving. We had the original carpet under the furniture, but the previous owner had changed out the carpet to carpet tiles in the aisle. The cork flooring has definitely improved the road noise when compared to carpet tiles. Sadly, it won’t hold up to your cleats!

We’ve been travelling for a month now, and it holds up to sweeping and washing (so much red dirt in Utah!) Yesterday, a jar of kalamata olives spilled all over the floor. No issues.

Lisa