Big Girls Don't Cry

With apologies to Frankie Valli, we managed to avoid a situation where a big girl was going to cry.

Dawn broke hazy and hot in Tupelo, MS on Friday. I know this for a fact, because I had spent most of the night researching something that had upset Barbara the previous night as she was perusing the pictures I took during Day 1 of our 36LA build. Why was she so upset?

Wallpaper.

It sounds trivial at first, but when you know how these motor homes are built, if wallpaper has to be changed, it is a major deal, mainly because the wallpaper is applied BEFORE all cabinets and trim are installed, so once those cabinets are installed in slides, there's no going back.

Unless you want to rebuild the entire motor home and set yourselves back 4-5 weeks.

So when Barbara took a look at the wallpaper on the walls of the living area, Ol' Eagle Eyes noticed that the wallpaper Tiffin used in previous years had changed from a creamy color to a fairly dark gray. If you remember an earlier post we made about having to rush over to Red Bay to pick out all the new colors for floor, upholstery and trim, Tiffin made changes to their basic palettes from 2019 to 2020. What they didn't tell us is that they changed the color of their wallpaper as well, which when you couple a dark gray with dark mocha cabinetry, the look becomes a bit darker than originally planned.

And this is what had Barbara (rightfully) upset.

My research that night, which cost me some significant sleep, was trying to figure out if this was common across all 2020 units, or whether Tiffin just goofed on our wallpaper. Looking at pictures from about a dozen or so new units (and lighting can be all over the board on these dealer units), it was inconclusive. That required an email and a phone call to Danny Inman, they guy who showed us all the décor boards the last time we were in Red Bay. Once again heading back to his office, he explained that Tiffin had, indeed, changed their default wallpaper to a gray this year. Oops!

We confirmed that every model on the “Yellow Brick Road” that we had looked at the previous day did have gray wallpaper, but the proof was in seeing it in OUR unit. So it was off to the manufacturing floor – thankfully during their morning break – where we could spend some time figuring out if this would actually work, as well as seeing it in person. It helped that they had the lights on in the coach and the roof installed, so we could get a much more accurate idea of what we were looking at.

In the end, Barbara was able to accept the new color, and we could move forward.

The changes in our future home were significant from the previous day, in that the roof and front and back caps were now installed, making it look much more like a motor home and not a train wreck, but the interior hadn't changed much at all. Nevertheless, I was able to take a couple of more pictures of the interior.

A bit cleaner and more finished than the previous day. There's a microwave hidden behind that box cover.

Lights are working, helping us to make a decision to keep going.

You can just barely see the shower and linen cabinet to the left, the sink on the right, and the throne in a position of prominence. The gray area in the forefront is the pedestal for our queen bed.

One throne for the Queen, so naturally there needs to be one for the King!

Note the dash is installed, and you get a good view of the ceiling. The cross members on the front have also been removed, which means that's our windshield you're looking through. Ol' Eagle Eyes is looking closely at everything else, because we're not coming back until after this is done.

Feeling much better, we grabbed some lunch and headed over to Belmont, MS to the Tiffin paint plant for a tour. That will be covered in our next post.

Today, our new home has completed the main manufacturing process, and will have it's first test drive as it makes it's way to Belmont to go from ugly gray duckling to beautiful swan. Less than a month before our scheduled pickup date,  1 month, 3 days before retirement, and way too much to get accomplished as our calendar gets compressed!