While we love our Airstream and everything about it, some things are better in theory than reality. The bathroom door is one of them.

The system is a bi-fold door that folds in or out, depending on whether you are in or out of the bathroom. It allows for more space in the bathroom and the floor plan than the older angled door did. You can see the door folded in the picture above and how much it frees up floor space. But, and there’s always a but, if the covers aren’t tucked in tight, the door is difficult to put into the “occupied” position. And, the covers are almost ALWAYS not tucked in tight, especially at night. To be frank, nothing says being awake the rest of the night from frustration from the simple task of going to the potty.

After seeing a number of other Airstreamers remove the door and put up a curtain, we decided to try out the idea. The older Airstreams had an angled door so removing the door and adding a rod was a simple fix; not so with our new Airstream. You can see the floorplan in the picture above and see that once we removed the door, we removed the wall so we needed a different solution in order to hang a curtain.

So, the idea process began and hubby ran with it. He kept trying to explain what he wanted to do and I kept thinking, that’s a lot of work we really don’t need to do. He designed a two-rod system that would give us the same floor space as the door. Kudos to him. He did it. I was skeptical, but only because instead of making one curtain, I had to make two. I did a little brainstorming of my own as well. Together, we have always made a good team and I think we accomplished a solution that we both love.

I made the outer curtain and hung it on one side of a double shower curtain rod hook. I decided to hang a shower curtain liner on the inner hook so when we exit the shower, we won’t wet the pretty curtain. These are held back with a tieback during the day. I purchased a coordinating shower curtain to hang on the second rod for “non-occupied” use time. It is light and airy and allows the sun to shine through an otherwise dark corner during the day while hiding the shower and toilet, as well as giving us needed floor space. It is tied back out of the way during shower time and when needed, it slides open and the outer curtain slides close when necessary. All-in-all it is a great solution and I love how it opens up space. With the door, the sun was blocked and now with a light curtain, the sun comes in.

Our second modification was a new tabletop. While the original tabletop was nice, I wanted a map, and hubby wanted to make the benches a little easier to slide in and out of. The original tabletop was a little wide for the space. You can view that project along with how we made the table here.