Hello from Illinois

[Dave.E]

Hi everyone. Will be purchasing our new Chaparral 360ibl this Friday. We have been snowbirding the last three years in Texas and this year we are heading to Apache Junction, Az.. It will be nice to have more room this winter.

[clr]

Enjoy your new unit and welcome to the forum. I to live in central Illinois and do the snow bird thing in Texas as well. Going to try dry weather for a change I see. Good Luck

[Dave.E]

Spent last year in Weslaco tx. and it was cold and wet and we are going to try Az. this year hoping for warmth and dry and different sights and it's been a while since we have been to Quartzite.

[aceinspp]

Welcome to the forma former Illinoisan and enjoy your new rig. Later RJD

[scayne62]

Welcome from a young central illinoian, hop e to snowbird than full time someday.

[Briorick]

Welcome from an Ex-Northern, now Southern Illinoisan. Not at the age to go full time yet, but working on it.

Enjoy your new rig and in your travels, wherever it lands you.

[Mbornzo]

Welcome from Northern Illinois!


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[Wiscampsin]

Welcome from Wisconsin and congrats on your new Chaparral.

[Wobbles]

Welcome from Southern Illinois.

[Dave.E]

Thanks for all the greetings and we like our new Fifth wheel it is much bigger than what we had, we almost don't know what to do with all the room.

[scootingranny]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the 360IBL. We've had ours since March, have been on only 4 outings tho. DH retires Monday...and hopefully we'll be doing lots more traveling and maybe even some workamping. We are right now planning on a 10 day outing at two different parks with a group of fellow rvers. We hope our grankids will come stay with us some but since they are so active in school and other activities, we knew their stays would be few and far between and of normally short duration. We figured they could sleep in our room (only 2 of them, older 2 are in college and know they would stay with us even less). DH is an early riser and we'd sleep on the couch so that he can have his coffee and start reading at 5am without disturbing them. So we took out the bunks and made it my scrapbook room. It's almost finished and I'll post pictures when it's done. I've heard of others taking out the bunks and making offices or work out rooms or even a dog kennel room.

So have fun, please post pics (I love to see pics of everybody's rigs and camping spots!)

[Dave.E]

Actually ours is going to be our cat room. I am thinking about taking the bunks out, was it a big job? Then I will put their cat trees and cubes, beds and litter box in there and they will feel more at home when we go south for the winter in their room. They have me well trained.......

[scootingranny]

Dave E, my sweet hubby worked on removing the bunks for us and he said it wasn't difficult at all. He said if you can use a screwdriver, you can do it. How we did it was to remove the mattresses and the plywood foundations for them. On the top bunk, the front of the plywood foundation was screwed in but it wasn't screwed in at the back, making it easier to remove. The foundation for the bottom bunk was in two pieces. The piece over the drawers was screwed in and the drawers and rails for them were VERY easy to remove. The portion of the bottom foundation behind the drawers had a lift up thumb hole in it and wasn't screwed in at all....like a mystery storage spot. Then it was just a matter of unscrewing the sides that were screwed into the slide walls. I also think there was some nailing on the top bunk. DH wanted to preserve the wooden form in case we decided to put the bunks back in (slim chance we will) and when he was pulling it out, we did get some scratches on the wall (not bad) so be sure to remove all screws and nails completely before pulling them out. Pulling them out was the only part that needed to be done by two people only because of keeping the form. Hope that makes sense. Will post some pics...

[scootingranny]

Here's a picture of the room...not finished with it yet. Still a work in process

[Dave.E]

Thank you for the pictures they are very informative, that is how I hoped it would look when empty and your finished product is awesome.

[Dave.E]

Thank you Scootingranny, my wife and I removed the bunks with the help from your pictures. It took about 2hours including getting the parts down into our basement at home. It was nice to have the pictures to go by thanks again.....