Like so many others... I am wanting to insulate inside of my DR and make it a "camping" area.  I have read all the threads, most of which say to use the rigid foam insulation, but can't figure out how to make that rigid foam insulation cover the curved/coved area between the ceiling and the wall.  I read one post that said to use the rigid foam insulation and that the back side can be "scribed" to contour to a curved surface.  But I don't know what "scribed" means.  I'm a woman who does not have any mechanical inclinations and am trying to figure out how to do this myself.

Thanks all!

Last winter my husband and I turned my 4 ft shortwall Featherlite dressing room into a tiny weekend package, and it took us working together almost a month to do. It was more work than we had realized, and I do want to warn you that before you start. On the other hand, we are really happy with our job and I think it was time well spent.

For us, the two most difficult things were 1)how to handle the curved ceiling and 2)what to do about electricity. Our information basically came from this forum, and the toddredwrench forum and his links, plus looking at real trailers at dealerships to see what they did. We used rigid foam insulation, but ours had enough "bend" and flex that we didn't have to score it with a knife to put into position. We did the sides first, and they were pretty easy since you just have to measure carefully, cut and tape with aluminum tape. The celing wasn't much harder, and we were able to push insulation into all the spots without scoring at all. We then chose to put all our wiring in the curved top corner of the roof - so we wired everything (If you don't have the skills to do this, hire an electrician) so all our wires ran at the curvved corner where the walls reached the ceiling. Then we covered everything with plywood, using the "one side smooth' type. We did not put up furring, because our plywood was thick and strong enough to screw cupboards into without the furring. It was hard work using the metal screws to get the plywood in place. But the curved part where the ceiling meets the walls wasn't an issue as we had worried. We were able to put in the ceiling and follow the gradual curves of the roof, and then when we put in the walls they just met at a square angle. I'm not sure if my explaination makes sense, but basically that curved space there just ended up as dead air space, hidden behind the plywood. The plywood was heavy and it took a fair amount of strength to install is, especially the pieces over our head on the ceiling, so probably the hardest part was manipulating it into place while screwing into the metal. I could never have done it without my husband's help - I don't have the experience to know how to measure each piece so well (nothing was ever square, so each piece ended up a bit like a jigsaw puzzle piece!) and then being able to find the metal rafters when they were out of sight behind the plywood. I could have insulated alone, I never could have put up the walls alone.

We then crackfilled the plywood, allowed to dry, painted it with a sealant and then applied wallpaper to everything. We used vinyl addhesive to hold the wallpaper in place, and while it was messy and a bit tricky to apply, it has held up well this year. The walls were easy, i used basic blue wallpaper, but the ceiling was tougher. Here is used the thicker, textured wallpaper. The results are good - the texture makes it look somewhat like a stucco ceiling and it does not look tacky, but only time will tell on how well it lasts. Other options would be to paint the ceiling with a textured paint - you can buy all sorts of textures in your local box stores. Without the textured paint I think the trailer would end up looking tacky; painting over smooth plywood does not give you the same appearance as painting over gyprock.

Anyhow, there are lots of do-it-yourself books out there that talk about how to wallpaper tricky areas and how to paint different ways, so you shouldn't have difficulty in this area.

I'm not sure if i would honestly recommend that everyone try to do a trailer theirselves. I found the job alot more work and more complicated than i had expected. If you have no previous building skills it probably will be too difficult for you. I'm not trying to discourage you, because there are answers to this problem. If possible - hire someone with building experience to help you, and get lots of info before you start. The costs will still be reasonable and you're more likely to end up with something useable.

We didn't build our own cupboards, but instead bought cupboards from our boxstore and assembled and installed them ourselves. They were our biggest expense but worked well.

Good luck. A DIY can turn out great, but there is a reason professional places charge all the money they do! The job is challenging and takes a lot of time and effort to complete.