Changing face of caravan interiors

In the old days, most caravans were a cheaper and more popular alternative to a holiday house.

They were towed at snails’ pace by station wagons to squeeze into overcrowded beachside caravan parks where they ‘propped’ to become the family ‘homes’ for many weeks over summer, along with the fridge, the budgie, the ever-barking dog, a few pot-plants and the kitchen sink.

Because they didn’t travel far or fast, they resembled their owners’ lounge rooms and kitchens, so you could expect to see extensive timber panelling, lashes of Laminex lace curtains and doilies at a time when Mission Brown was still fashionable.

Fast-forward to today and the landscape has changed dramatically.

Recreational 4WD vehicles, crew-cab utes and off-road capable caravans see us on the road a lot more, while at home – often an apartment, rather than a house –  the cosy lounge room has morphed into open-plan living, timber lives on the floor, not the walls and minimalism has overtaking ‘maximalism’.

Never a bystander to popular trends for too long, the Australian caravan industry has tried to follow domestic trends, but it has often taken one step forward and two backwards.

The current trend towards full composite walls and high gloss interior interior cabinetry are two areas that have added weight to many of today’s caravans compared with traditional framed wall construction and ‘picture frame’ timber cabinet doors and drawers.

These trends have been driven largely by customer demand, which in turn has taken its cue in part from household and industrial design, but also from major caravan manufacturers.

If Jayco in Australia, or Bailey in the UK, sees a production or customer benefit in building caravans with full-thickness composite wall construction, they have the volume to achieve this economically with support from their suppliers.

Both have chosen to clad their outer walls with fibreglass, while Australia’s second-largest caravan builder, Avan, has instead chosen aluminium because it's even smoother and is more resistant to UV ageing.

The decision by these ‘big boys’ in turn has forced the hand of smaller caravan manufacturers to move away from traditional timber or aluminium-framed wall construction in order to appear ‘modern’ in the eyes of intending buyers. However, without the volume, their material costs can be higher and their vans weightier.

The debate between traditional and composite wall framing has just about been settled in favour of composites because of their greater resistance to hail and trail damage, reinforced by the decision of Australia largest caravan insurer CIL to offer  customers a 10 per cent premium reduction.

Ribbed aluminium cladding on framed walls still has its devotees amongst older caravanners, or from savvy ‘newbies’, who understand that it can save them up to 3-4kg per square metre over the average composite, albeit with poorer thermal efficiency.

While it's still by far the most popular choice for caravan exteriors – not so much because of fashion, but because of its ability to reflect heat better than any other shade. Regardless, some manufacturers feel compelled to offer special colours like silver to denote anniversary or limited-edition models, while given the choice, many buyers will choose silver or one of the myriad of shades now available from manufacturers who use building industry products like Alucobond for their exterior cladding.

So if you want your caravan to feel like a pizza oven, choose black. Few do.

Interior changes

Inside it’s a different story, and there are even more persuasive reasons for living in the past.

Traditionally (going back to the 1980s and '90s), timber was just about all you could get, although you could select amongst Oak, Ash, etc.

Then as with household decor, it became fashionable to use coated ply in a range of shades, but in recent years the ‘décor de jour’ has become high gloss cabinetry.

Extra weight is the price you pay for fashion. ‘Picture-framed’ timber cupboard doors and drawers are generally the lightest, but solid doors are now the go in most Australian-built caravans.

If these are attached to the cabinet framed with an obvious gap that’s one thing, but on upmarket caravans where the closer ‘German’ gaps are used, with little or none of the cabinet’s framing visible, it can double the number of panels fitted to the average large family caravan, with an incremental weight increase.

Many major caravan manufacturers, like Australia’s Jayco and Roma, Britain’s Bailey and Slovenia’s Adria, use lightweight timber for their doors and drawers like Cypress to save weight, but as this has to be purchased and imported in large volumes, it's usually priced out of the range of most local manufacturers.

To give these lightweight timbers a more upmarket look, various manufacturers cover it in timber-look ‘paper’ foils. They look great, bringing the traditional warm timber look into the 21st century, but some are prone to staining, even from the natural oils on human skin.

Another innovation we have seen in the camper trailer market is the use of zippered canvas or Velcro-fastened vinyl instead of solid panels for storage lockers, but this has yet to catch on in caravans.

Most smaller local caravan manufacturers have dropped timber as an interior décor option, but Oak is still available at Evernew, whose origins date back to 1963.

“Timber wins hands down if you are trying to save weight,” says Evernew’s Richard Metcalf. "And probably 30 per cent of our customers choose our Oak furniture option over coated ply either for this or fashion reasons.

“In the past, many people went to the modern, minimalist interiors because they wanted a different look to their home, but now people with modern homes are rediscovering timber”

In contrast, fellow Victorian customer-builder Trakmaster, introduced gloss cabinetry on its popular Extreme model series several years ago that rejuvenated its previously-conservative image. But being a customer builder, you can still get timber on request.

While I doubt that the lace curtains, Laminex, budgie cage and pot-plants will ever make a real comeback, timber may.

Country style look returning?

We recently reviewed an Australian-built British Bailey caravan that came with woven cloth upholstery and timber cabinetry rather than the leather and high gloss interior of its all-Australian Rangefinder counterpart and tested the reaction of guests at a popular Queensland caravan park.

A young couple with children loved the ‘homey’ look of the British-sourced caravan because it looked so inviting, while an older man was delighted to see timber in a caravan again, after finding the inside of most current models “like hospital wards.”

When it comes to caravan decor, like everything else in our lives, old often becomes new again.