Tour of our Holiday Rambler Imperial Motor Home

I don't know about you, but I occasionally get hit with a bout of curiosity regarding the inside of people's RVs. Whenever I read blogs about the RV lifestyle, I like checking out the photos that the bloggers share to see what kind of layout they have and how they use their space. To reciprocate the favor, I'd like to share with my readers some pics of my Holiday Rambler Imperial motor home. It is 40' long class A diesel pusher.

We start in the cockpit area, where you see the one and only door right in front of the passenger seat.

Directly behind the cockpit is the living room area, where we have a jack-knife couch and a small freezer. You can see our two-seater dinette in the back left corner of the photo. Fortunately, there is a leaf that pulls out so we can squeeze the kids in around the table.

Here is our kitchen, which has a decent amount of counter space for a motor home. It also features  solid oak cabinets which I would love to have painted. We have a side-by-side refrigerator, stove, oven and convection microwave but sadly, no dishwasher.

Moving on, here is our lovely bathroom . . .

. . . and shower. If you were to keep walking through the bathroom past the shower, you'd find the bedroom at the back of the coach.

But first, if you were to open the doors just past the shower, you'd find the piece de resistance, our washing machine.

The RV is an older gal, but she looks pretty good for her age.

Sagging RV Mattress Nagging for Nothing

Over the last few weeks, when the weather has cooperated we’ve been sleeping in the RV, which for the moment is still parked in the driveway. What we’ve discovered is that the center of our mattress sinks, so we both roll inwards and sleep on a steep incline. It’s definitely not the most comfortable way to spend a night, I tell ya.

I’ve been window shopping (from my browser window) for a new RV mattress, and I’ve been hesitating to purchase anything for two reasons: 1) I don’t really have the money right now to spend on a new mattress. 2) I’m afraid to purchase a mattress online without having first tried it out to make sure it will be comfortable.

Here is one that I have been considering, which is reasonably priced and sounds like it would be comfortable.

 

It’s probably a good thing that I’ve postponed investing in a new RV mattress because yesterday I made a discovery. Now, I’m no longer 100% certain that the mattress is the problem. 

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled the mattress completely off its platform because I wanted to see what was under the bed. I lifted up the platform and then pulled up the carpeted area underneath. I found out that I can access the engine right here and completely see daylight. Somehow, I thought there would be something more between the bed and the stinky engine beneath it. It feels a little unsafe, whether or not it actually is, like it could be a fire hazard. Yes, it’s been that way for twenty years, but it still just doesn’t seem right.

But that’s not the discovery I was referring to previously. What I discovered is that the wooden platform that holds the mattress sinks in the middle. It has some give to it. I’m wondering if it’s just worn out or if maybe one of my kids has been jumping on it. At any rate, it needs to be repaired. We’ll either need to install some supports underneath or put some sturdier plywood on top, or maybe we’ll need to do both.

When that’s done, then we’ll see if we can make do with our current mattress. 

Choosing our First RV on a Too Small Budget

There are so many factors that go into purchasing an RV. I’ve read countless articles that detail how to select just the right one, whether it’s a travel trailer, fifth wheel, class A, B or C. So, I won’t go into all that again. 

For our family of five – dad, mom, two teenage girls, and a golden retriever - we knew we wanted/needed a class A motor home. A travel trailer or fifth wheel would not work for us because then we’d also have to purchase a truck. More importantly, the kids fight when they’re cramped together in one spot for too long, the dog gets restless on long trips, and I seem to need a bathroom at least every couple of hours.  A motor home would give us the ability to get up and move around a little bit if we needed to and to have easy access to a bathroom.

While it would meet some of our needs, a class C also would not work for us because we need the basement storage. And a converted bus, think Prevost or Eagle, was out because even if we could find one with a purchase price to fit our tiny budget (I hear you laughing), buses typically only get about 5 miles to the gallon, which absolutely does not work for us.

Michael insisted on having a diesel pusher, which hopefully would hold up well for all the many miles we planned to put on it. Unfortunately, limiting our search to diesels significantly reduced our chances of finding not just the right rig but any rig. There just aren’t many diesels in our price range.

There were five criteria which our new motor home had to meet: 1) Cheap. Our budget was nearly non-existent. 2) Dependable. Here is the issue- cheap, as we define it, and dependable are usually mutually exclusive when talking about motor homes. 3) Diesel motor.  4) Road ready.  5) Looks half-way decent. 

Our budget was our most limiting factor. The overwhelmingly vast majority of motor homes we found that fit our meager budget could not even come close to meeting factors two through five. We were willing to sacrifice layout, size and comfort to get good bones and readily accepted that we would need to forget about luxury and go for basic.

After searching for several months, we found two good candidates. One was a beautiful, exceptionally clean, shiny 36-ft Fleetwood with two comfy fold out couches (one for each kid), a booth dinette that can sleep even more,  washer/dryer, a small bathtub (oh yeah!!) and a beautiful layout. Aaahhhh, I practically drooled over it when we went to look at it. It was absolutely perfect for our family, except for the price. Unfortunately, it was about $7000 plus tax over our budget, the dealer would not budge that much, and there was just no way we could afford it.

The second one was a 40-ft Holiday Rambler with 20 years of dust hiding in the crevices (not exaggerating), and in my opinion, an awkward layout for our family. With dinette seating for two and the only extra bed a not-so-comfortable jack knife couch, it was built for two passengers rather than for five. It has a washer and shower, but no dryer or bathtub. The dryer is no big deal, but I’ll really miss having a tub. The design of the kitchen limits us to a sectional style sofa in the living room, no room for two regular couches and no space to build any bunks. Priced at $3000 less than the Fleetwood, the seller agreed to reduce his price by $4000 more, and we stayed right on budget.

On the plus side, the coach is very roomy, has good solid cabinets and counter tops, and has an aluminum roof. It also has a bigger, more powerful Cummins engine, which will come in handy for towing our car. It has a pack brake, which we will definitely need when we descend mountain roads. Thankfully, the rv cleaned up very nicely after several generous doses of extra strength elbow grease and actually is in pretty good shape over all. Most importantly, it meets all five criteria we set. 

Yes, there are things I would like to change about it, but I feel very blessed to have been able to find something we can afford that meets our needs. And, if you were to ask Michael, the Holiday Rambler is perfect just as it is and is so much better than the Fleetwood. We agree to disagree.

Update: Since buying the Holiday Rambler, we have added one crazy cat to the family, but I’m pretty sure he can’t be pleased no matter what, so no need for me to weigh in on his preferences. And much to our sadness, our golden retriever has decided to stay with his grandparents.