I thought I'd start a thread listing the mods I've done to my 2016 Hideout.
We (my wife and I) purchased it in March of 2018. We felt more comfortable buying used as we figured most of the "new trailer" bugs would be worked out by the previous owners. All of the mods we've done so far have been plug and play.
The first thing done was to switch out all the interior incandescent lighting to led, even down to that little torpedo looking light in the fridge. Most of the lights were standard 921. I bought
these based on a recommendation in a thread I read on this forum, actually.
Camco water hose filler attachment with shutoff switch was an impulse buy on Amazon after reading the reviews, but not something I'd ever want to be without. We use it to fill our extra seven gallon water jugs when dry camping, too. Which reminds me, I need to buy a funnel, those water jugs don't exactly flow into the filler valve of the trailer.
We also upgraded the bathroom some as well. The shower setup, was, for lack of a better word, inadequate. Also ugly. I replaced the white plastic faucet with the "crystal-like" knobs for the much classier looking
dura faucet. Replaced the grey plastic shower hose with a
118" stainless steel wrapped hose, which in hindsight was a bit long. Something between 90" and 100" would have worked just as well. Apparently woman folks need to be able to wrap the hose around themselves twice in order to shower.
And also replaced the generic shower head with the nickel look Oxygenics Fury shower head. I won't post the link, since it seems like everyone makes that their first upgrade.
Used the hose that came with the Fury and the old indoor shower head to "upgrade" the outdoor shower. The end result was that both showers were improved and my wife thinks I'm a genius. That's always a win-win situation.
My favorite modification thus far has been to get rid of the old ceiling AC vents, and swap them out with
closable vents. I looked at the Keystone Montana line and they have the same type of vents as The Hideout. I'm telling you, closable vents make even the most anemic AC seem like a powerhouse.
The screw holes didn't quite line up with the original vents, but they all get covered anyways. Even if a person doesn't do this, it's worth just buying a roll of ac silver foil backed duct tape and making sure the AC vents are all sealed properly. We initially just purchased one to close off the bathroom ac vent, because who wants to hop out of a hot shower into a frigid room? Shutting that one off increased the cold air from the others by at least 20%. If you close off all but one, you get the equivalent of doing an ac dump out of that one vent. Sometimes the vents develop a slight whistle when closed, and cracking the vent open slightly makes it go away.
Seriously, closeable vents should be a standard item on RV's.
Replaced the non-existent bed with a
10" lucid memory foam short queen. The previous owners must of upgraded the mattress and then took it with them when the bought a new rv. From the sound of it, the stock rv mattress would have been less than satisfactory anyways. So far, it's held up well. We've been using it daily for almost six months. I'm just over 200 lbs. I haven't noticed any sag or deterioration yet.
Got a
little mail holder/key hook thing to hang by the front door. Replaced the light weight command hooks we used to hang it with heavier ones after the weight of a leather dog leash hanging off one of the key hooks caused it to crash to the floor...at 3:00 am.
Our particular model has a very large wardrobe closet in the bathroom. Despite the long length of the clothes bar, it's not actually designed to hold more than, say, 20 t-shirts. On our first outing it crumpled like tin foil and dumped all our clothes in the bottom of the cabinet. A trip to Home Depot later, we were the proud owner of a heavy duty bar, and a center support bracket, which was screwed into the back wall and ceiling. Because of the bracket, the clothing bar had to be moved further back in the closet, giving us more visible floor space in the front. Another win-win situation.
We also bought
vertical plate holders. The
small sized one works perfect for bowls. We filled them with those things Corning Ware ones. No breakage or movement during travel. They helped immensely with the kitchen storage space.
Now we move on to outdoor mods and accessories.
It's always fun to wander outside and notice your 10 year old autistic nephew standing on top of your trailer pretending to pot zombies with a Nerf gun. Not!!! We purchased a
ladder cover a few minutes later.
It's surprisingly well made and has the equivalent of a "stay off my lawn" sign on it, which has been enough of a deterrent that he hasn't tried to take it off for a repeat try.
We also bought a pair of
X-chocks. Those were just a common sense purchase. Extra peace of mind. We use regular rubber chocks too, as a kind of double insurance.