Work finally begins

Today we started work on our camper. We purchased a 36 foot Wildwood camper manufactured by Forest River. Our camper is a 1993 model, so there are some things it needs, but we purchased it for $4200.00. We are hoping that we can finish all the work it needs and still be under $7500.00, saving us $2500.00 of our budget.
Our camper had a bedroom on each end. This was perfect for us, because we are going to make the front bedroom into a home office and extra storage space. Today we took our the bed frame in the front room, removed all the valances over the windows, removed the top of the bed in the rear bedroom as well as checked the awning. The bed frame was pretty easy to remove, most are only installed with a few screws. I removed the top of the bed in the rear room because I am going to build a new top out of plywood and hinge it in the middle to allow for underbed storage. My wife Lisa is going to recover the valances with new fabric to give them a face life without breaking the bank. The big suprise today was the awning, Piece of advice, do not by a camper without checking the awning. The canvas on ours will need to be replaced. We also made a list of things we need and where off to the store for supplies.
We purchased the material to replace the top and hinge the rear bed, the material to recover the valances, and some misc. hardware (screws, a couple of bolts, touchup paint, weather stripping, new locks for the outside storage compartments, etc. for $90.03)
This is one of the main motivations for this blog. I hope that our experiences will help others, who may be thinking about or already living in an RV, save some money. I plan on showing you how to do many of the repairs and upgrades yourself. Which will save lots of money over the cost of paying someone else. Most repairs are really simple with some basic instruction and know-how.
I planned on posting some pictures of our progress today, but we left the camera. Will do better next week.