RV There Yet?: For some, they’re home away from home. For others, they are home. From purchase to renovation to life on the road, campers offer the freedom to live on one’s own terms. Click here to read more articles from our camping issue.

Alice Zealy pivots her head — left, right, left, right — as she checks and double-checks the width of the wall’s opening. Arms stretched wide, she lifts her metal measuring tape half a foot up, eyes her answer, and sighs. “There are just no right angles in an RV,” she says with a smirk.

Dressed in faded Chuck Taylors, distressed jeans, and a coral tank top, Alice is wedged in the narrow gap between a pull-out pantry and the wall of an outdated Keystone Montana fifth wheel — a style of camper pulled by a pickup truck. Their plan, Alice’s sister, Mary-Knox Zealy, explains, is to swap out an obsolete cooking range for something that better fits their client’s lifestyle.

Alice and Mary-Knox Zealy photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

Alice and Mary-Knox run Rain2Shine Ventures out of an unassuming corner-lot workshop in Archdale. Here, the sisters transform campers and vans of all kinds — Airstreams, Sprinters, fifth wheels, and more — into spaces that feel less like recreational vehicles and more like residential retreats. This project, dubbed Indie, is a six-month-long, down-to-the-studs renovation that’s brought fresh color and functional craftsmanship to a previously brown and worn-out RV.

Clutching her sunglasses, Alice hustles down Indie’s metal steps where, just a couple of yards away, a Ryobi sawhorse waits in the gravel under the RV’s front overhang. She measures and marks, and soon the sound of a circular saw cuts through the quiet morning. Less than two minutes later, a new trim piece in hand, Alice turns and heads back inside Indie to finish framing the hole for a new dishwasher and stovetop.

• • •

Their work may appear modern, but there’s nothing new about the motivation behind it. “Dad would be so proud,” says Mary-Knox, recalling how the sisters’ instinct to figure things out, to make things work, was fostered at the feet of their father, Sam Zealy, who spent most of his career in property management. “Dad was a handyman; he was Mr. Fix-It. But he was so much more than that.”

“Our dad had subcontractors, sure, but if he could handle it, he would,” pipes up Alice, interjecting in the natural, ping-pong way siblings tend to tell their tales. “And because of that, I learned about fuses, plumbing, air conditioner basics …” she trails off in thought. Before she was even a teen, Alice, the oldest child, was puttering around rental sites, mowing lawns, painting doors, doing small jobs that would teach big lessons.

The Zealy sisters’ late dad, Sam, fostered their creativity and built them a one-of-a-kind playhouse in 1989. Photography courtesy of Alice and Mary-Knox Zealy

“I still have a lamp he made out of toilet parts,” says Alice, noting Sam’s propensity for particularly quirky projects. Notable around their neighborhood, he also built his daughters a backyard playhouse — a kid-size replica of their Greensboro abode — when the girls were 7 and 2. “Our home was the first in town to have a Palladian window, and he made a little one in the playhouse, too, that opened and closed with a latch,” Mary-Knox says. “When we grew up, he turned the playhouse into a chicken coop — the nicest chicken coop ever. It was quite the talk.”

Thankfully, their mother, Jane “Peppermint” Zealy, a teacher, had a knack for interior design. “We certainly got our style from our mother,” adds Mary-Knox, flipping through photos of past RV projects and noting an innate fearlessness with color and pattern and the way a space should feel. “We’re a good product of both parents.”

Their dad died in 2007, but among his lasting impacts was the inspiration for the business name. Sam called his daughters Rainbow and Sunshine — terms of endearment that, years later, found their way into the moniker Rain2Shine Ventures when Alice launched the company.

• • •

While she’s now one of the region’s most sought-after renovators, Alice was in her 30s before she ever set foot in an RV. She and her ex-husband had purchased a camper with high hopes for big adventures. After they separated, Alice wanted to reclaim her travel zeal. She purchased her fifth wheel — a 2003 Holiday Rambler Presidential — in February 2020 and spent the next seven months making Wander Woman her own.

Along the way, she became disenchanted with the maintenance of traditional houses, and soon began to question, Why am I not living here full time? When the Rambler was complete, Alice left her stationary home and made her move, choosing a long-term spot at a resort campground in Advance with her partner, Eric Ellington.

This 2003 Holiday Rambler Presidential called Wander Woman was Alice’s first camper remodel — and has been her home on wheels since 2020. photograph by Mary-Knox Zealy

Something else clicked then, too: a business idea. While documenting and sharing Wander Woman’s transformation, Alice saw there was a market for professional, fully customized renovations. Armed with an education in interior design and the lessons gleaned from her parents, the entrepreneur started Rain2Shine in 2021 in a lot adjacent to Eric’s custom car shop.

The team was completed in 2022 when Mary-Knox joined the business, applying her vast corporate marketing background to media content and eventually helping with project management and styling. “At that point, I’d done a handful of renovations myself, and I just knew I needed my sister,” Alice says, throwing an arm around Mary-Knox’s waist.

“Our skill sets are different — I couldn’t build anything to save my life — but I can see what works, keep us on track, and always think five steps ahead,” explains Mary-Knox, smartphone in hand, ready to document the day’s progress and send an update to Indie’s owner.

• • •

Rain2Shine’s balance of craftsmanship and creativity struck a quick chord with folks looking to reshape not just their spaces, but their lives. Ashley Smit and Brandon Terry were Texas residents when remote work gave them the flexibility — and soon, a deep desire — to have a more mobile life. They weighed whether to purchase a new camper or customize a used one, but discovering Rain2Shine, she says, solidified their choice.

“Ultimately, I wanted something that still felt aesthetically like a home — like the way that I would decorate,” adds Ashley, who appreciated the company’s style and the collaborative way it engaged clients. Helpful, too, was Rain2Shine’s location in North Carolina, the very place Ashley and Brandon intended to kick off their journey.

Ashley Smit and Brandon Terry were Texas residents before they hired Rain2Shine to find and renovate this camper.  photograph by Mary-Knox Zealy

The couple relied on Alice to shop for their used RV, and she selected a 32-foot 2006 KZ Durango fifth wheel from Person County. After conversations about their style and must-haves — a desk for remote work, space for two pets, and comfort amenities like a fireplace and washing machine — Rain2Shine got to work on Cricket.

When pick-up day came in May 2024, “I recall stepping in and being completely shocked by how perfect it was,” Ashley says. “After months of back and forth, it was exactly what we wanted.”

“It was exactly what we wanted,” Ashley Smit says of their renovated camper. photograph by Mary-Knox Zealy

In the two years since, she and Brandon have done what they intended — they’ve visited dozens of national parks, spent summertime on the West Coast, seen new-to-them states, and this spring, they even found themselves again in North Carolina, back where their RV life began.

“People ask us all the time, but we don’t have plans to stop anytime soon. It’s been a good amount of work — that’s what you’d expect when you’re literally pulling your house — but it’s been a whole lot of fun.”

• • •

Projects come in steadily, But Rain2Shine tackles just one to four per year. In many ways the work is as complex, or more so, as residential renovations. “Weight matters, everything has to be towable and mobile, and even flooring is custom since the walls are wavy,” Alice says. What’s needed is a balance of what they were given — an instinct to build and a desire to beautify.

Once full of dated cabinetry and walls, Indie got a stylish, functional update from the Zealy sisters. photograph by Mary-Knox Zealy

Their latest clients are a couple coming from Hawaii, newlyweds planning to start their life on the road. When it arrived at the workshop, their massive, 40-foot Class A stretched long across the gravel lot — four slide-outs, a large canvas. It’s been a nice expansion to the Rain2Shine portfolio, too. “People ask, ‘Do you do this?,’” says Alice, as she rattles off a list of examples. “We tell ’em all, ‘bring it on.’ ”

For most of their clients, these campers aren’t weekend toys — they’re second chances, retirement travels, cross-country adventures, the open highway. So, the sisters will sand and stain, film and laugh, chasing the same vision their parents did for making old things fresh again. The results are less measurable than inches and angles. They’re rarely square. But for the clients that call them home, they’re just right.