I am thinking abuot lightening up the inside of our old camper ( 85 Aljo) with paint or wallpaper. It is not real wood, but a veneer something over wood. I hear you shouldn't due to the fact it makes it harder to resale. Compared to new campers it feels like wood, even tho it is not like our old motorhome which was real oak.


Anyone have any experience or thoughts on it?

What are your intentions for the trailer? Are you fixing it to sell or to use? Many people wonder what you are trying to hide if you paint one I think. Its like a car. Anyway here are my thoughts. But remember its your trailer and to do it the way you want to. I have two vintage trailers, a 71 and 72. I went with a retro look of the 50s/60s on both. I did total rebuilds on them . Both had the woodgrain looking stuff. I painted the first one using the colors they have for spongebob at lowes. The Scotty I have I am going with the same colors as the 60s scotty trailers had. But it was my choice to do so. I did not rebuild either to be resold but to be used by myself. If you are redoing one to be resold my advice is to fix it as good as possible but do not go overboard. Its hard to actually make any money on these. The trailers I have seen sell good were models that were collectable and that had a theme.
80s models usually are too new to be collectable, maybe in 10-20 years. I would be probably be lucky to get my cost out of them but I built mine to be used. So my suggestion is to fix it right,as cheaply but good as possible if you are wanting to sell. But if you plan on using it for a while do whatever you want to it. I have not seen many 30 year old or more trailers in good shape that are original. Do you have any pics out there and what kind was your motorhome? I haven't seen any older motorhomes with real oak. To see mine go to the link below and look at the scotty and the aristocrat. http://community.webshots.com/user/willy3486

I've tried to reply to your post several times and each time I start I have to get off for some reason or another.
I guess we are gonna just keep it. We just went to another big RV Show and stuff is just too expensive. We have 2500 in this so far and that would just be down payment on most.
We cleaned this one up ALOT and replaced the rubber caskets on the outside and the brown trim around the windows. We also painted underneath the belly so that looks better. The only thing left is to buy the rim around the tirewheel and reseal it. We did the roof again and all that.

It is alot of work. My arm felt like it was gonna fall off after I polished the outside with the SD20. It sure looked alot better tho. It only had about 10 years of mildew on it. I was NOT gonna pull that nasty thing up to a campground!

We had an 85 Mallard MH for 12 years that was built like a tank. The layout wasn't as good as the 5th in some ways, plus we just couldn't afford to drive it anymore. I did like being able to take it on my own tho. My husband pulls this 5th and I just haven't had the guts to try it yet up and down that mountain.

I liked the wood colors in your campers. I bet it is alot of work!

Redoing old trailers is a lot of work. But I enjoy redoing them. I am thinking about getting another one just to fix and sell. Its a whole lot cheaper to redo one than to buy one ready. If I was going to keep one and didn't like the wall colors I would paint it if I wanted to do that. The thing on these old ones is that after they get older the price of painted over original isn't much difference. When they get older like the ones I look at then its good to get them similar to the period they were made, I fixed mine with a 50s/60s look because thats what I wanted. A person could buy one in the begining of winter and by the time spring is here you could have it ready to go. I really like the scotty because it is really economical to use compared to larger ones. I can pull it with a small 4 cylinder. Sure its small but its cozy too. Once you are sitting down its really nice. I be glad when its done and I can use it.