Our RV Story… Once upon a time (last year) we bought a stinky, stinky Repo trailer. We bought it unseen knowing that the fridge would probably need to be replaced, the mattresses tossed, and everything would need to be very, very, very, deep cleaned! It was only 4 years old, but the people who owned it before us were not the cleanest of people. Plus when it was repossessed they left some sort of meat and freezie concoction in the freezer, which then sat in the heat for a few months, before we bought it. It was EXCELLENT! and perfect for us!
So we went on a journey to bring our new baby (the trailer) home… we cleaned her, and cleaned her, then cleaned her again… We removed the fridge, and let it sit in our backyard to air out for a month, we cleaned it with every cleaner available, let it sit in many different concoctions of cleaners, and the sun. We bought a new freezer door liner, and guess what… after so much loving care… It was back! No more stank!! Hallelujah!!
We also brought her home knowing that we would have to find a storage lot, because we have quite a steep driveway, with no space for a trailer… BUT… Within the first month of storing our lovely fixed up trailer, She was broken into, and almost everything we had just outfitted her with was stolen!! I know!!! What the what!?!?…
So guess what happened next… Yup! We knew that our trailer needed to be home with us. We didn’t want anyone invading her, or our space again, so our dreams of an RV parking pad begun!
And this is how it all went down!
First we did a trial run to see if the trailer would actually make it up our steep driveway! She made it with her back stabilizers millimetres from scraping the driveway. But she did it!! So game on!!
We have a side yard on one side of our house, and luckily we have a driveway which leads to that area, but it just ends at a bushy wall, and is usually just a parking stall. But not anymore!
Here is how we went about creating an RV Parking Pad at the side of our house!
SUPPLIES NEEDED TO MAKE A DIY RV PARKING PAD:
TO REMOVE AND FLATTEN THE GROUND:
- An Excavator
- A Dump Trailer – to take the dirt away
- A place to put the earth you want taken away
- Shovels!!
TO BUILD THE RETAINING WALLS & STAIRS:
- Retaining Wall Cinder Blocks – Found at Home Depot
- Retaining Wall Corners
- Retaining Wall Caps
- Pick Ax – for removing hard ground
- Circular Saw with a Diamond Segmented Blade – For cutting Cinder Blocks
- Level
- Laser Level – To make sure the ground your Retaining wall will be is flat and straight.
- Dirt or Gravel to fill inside the cinder blocks to keep them in place
- Landscape Block Adhesive – to secure the cinder blocks and the stairs
TO MAKE THE PATHWAYS:
- 2 foot X 2 foot Patio Slabs – found at Home Depot
- Leveling Sand
TO FILL YOUR RV PARKING PAD:
- A dump truck of 10 yards of 3/4 inch Crushed Gravel
- Landscaping Fabric
- Shovels
TO BUILD A PRIVACY FENCE:
- Cedar Fence Panels – Home Depot
- Gate Fence Panel
- Gate Hardware
- 4 X 4 Post Base – we used 3 of them
- Power Stud Anchor – To anchor the post base to the ground (In our case it was into concrete)
- Masonry Drill Bit – To drill through the concrete
STEPS TO MAKE AN RV PARKING PAD:
Step 1: Remember to always call before you dig!!!
Then prepare the space for your RV parking pad. We had to dig out a large amount of dirt to flatten the area for the RV. In total we removed 12 Dump trailer loads of dirt!! To remove the earth, we rented an excavator, loaded all the earth into a dump trailer, and took it to a place we found that was looking for dirt. Just look in your city’s classified to find a place to dump it.
The kiddos happen to have awesome grandparents that came out for a whole week to help dig out the whole side of the house! They are amazing… without them it would have taken 10 times as long. Since you don’t have our kiddos grandparents, you could get some buddies to help, or brilliant idea…. Hire someone to do it all for you!!
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Step 2: Build a retaining wall!
Start by digging a small trench, just an inch or 2 deep (this is where the cinder blocks will lay), and level it with levelling sand. This is when you will need that awesome laser level to make sure your wall will be perfectly flat and in a straight line… Shawnikins may or may not have just eyeballed it. But it still turned out awesome! He must have laser eyes!
Then start placing your cinder blocks. After you are done a row fill it with dirt or rocks to keep it in place. Then just keep layering them and filling them up, until you come to the height that you want your retaining wall to be.
Step 3: Line the bottom of your RV parking pad with Landscaping fabric to stop those pesky weeds from popping up through your beautiful gravel RV parking pad!
Step 4: Level the area where your patio slabs will be, and put down leveling sand. Place your patio slabs on top of the leveling sand to create your walkway (if you want a walkway that is).
Step 5: Fill RV Parking pad with gravel. Yes the dump truck made it up our driveway!!! Just level the gravel with a shovel, and hopefully you have enough to line your whole yard with too.
Step 6: Build some stairs. This seems complicated, If you need details on how to build cinder block steps just ask, and I’ll refer to Shawnikins on this one…
Step 7: Add retaining wall caps to the top edges of your retaining wall. Like this…
Step 8: Finish this end of the wall, and prep for building your privacy gate/fence.
Step 9: Install a privacy fence with a gate (or a “keep the deer out of your yard, and stop them from eating all your hedges”… fence!!). Just make sure however you decide to build your fence, that you can remove the fence to get your RV in and out! Wink! Look at those cute pesky deer.
Our fence is permanently affixed to the ground and cinder block wall on the gate end of the fence. Then the 2 panels that are in front of the RV are held in place with 3 black post bases, which are drilled, and anchored to the cement. This makes it so we (I mean Shawnikins) can just lift the fence panels out, and move them to the side, to get our RV in and out! Super spiffy! This way we can still have a man door gate, without opening the whole fence each time we just want to walk into the yard. Like this… So Smart!
Step 10: Add a walkway at the top of the stairs to access the top part of the yard. And then create raised garden beds in the extra space there, and plant a veggie garden… Perfect! Extra Gravel was sprinkled around the garden beds!
Step 11: Make it all look pretty, and paint all the wood elements BLACK! We painted our whole backyard fence the same color, and I must say it looks AMAZING!! Check out how we painted our fence black here!
Optional Step 12: Add lighting posts down the side of the walkway to light up all your beautiful work! And so you can pack up your trailer for your next vacation in the dark, when the kids are asleep! Stay tuned for our DIY Light Post tutorial coming soon!
This is now my favorite spot in our yard. I love sitting on the steps with some tea in the morning sun. I love my RV parking pad with our trailer on it, and my garden. It’s my happy place, that we built all ourselves, but mostly all of it was Shawnikins! He’s a super dude!
Having RV parking at your home is a game changer! It’s so much easier to pack up before our adventures, and clean out after we return home. It also serves as extra sleeping space for our guests, A fun place to play board games and color with the kiddos, and it was also used to quarantine Shawnikins away from us when the kids and I were all ill. Lol… I love it!
I hope this story of how our DIY RV parking pad came to be, inspires you to build your own RV parking pad too! It’s hard work, but more than worth it in the end!
Until next time, enjoy your RVing adventures, and creating beautiful things everyday!
XO JCL
P.S. What color do you think we should paint our house? Dreaming up new projects now! Wink!
Thanks for sharing, looks great. Did you use a tamper to flatten the rock? I’m thinking of doing a layer of crushed gravel, tamper it and then some rock on top.