Our new home

On May 9, 2023, we finally saw our new home in person for the first time! It’s a 2023 Majestic fifth-wheel trailer, designed and custom-built to our specifications by New Horizons RV Corp. in Junction City, Kansas. We ordered it in October 2021 and worked on the design for several months before construction actually began in August 2022.

Our Majestic is 40 feet long on the inside, and about 43 feet long on the outside from the kingpin to our e-bikes on the rear of the trailer. This is only about a foot longer than our 2013 Heartland Landmark, which we’ve lived in for the last seven years. But the Majestic is built much more solidly: with all our stuff moved in, it weighs in at almost 25,000 pounds, about 5,000 pounds heavier than the Landmark. That robust construction was one of the main reasons we decided to go with New Horizons.

I’m sure we’ll have much more to tell you about it in the coming weeks–but for now, here are some photos of our new home! All except the first one (with me in it) were taken by New Horizons just a few days before we moved in, so there were a couple of incomplete items, and of course, none of our stuff was in there yet.  (Click on any photo for the full-size version.)

We’ll start our photo tour outside, at the front cap. The Majestic stands 13 feet, 6 inches tall at its highest point, about 4 inches taller than the Landmark.

Walking around to the door side, you can see the four-color full-body paint scheme, in metallic silver, blue, black and white. We used the Glowstep Revolution Uprising entry stairs from Torklift International. The stairs adjust to different heights and collapse into the doorway for travel.

Continuing toward the back of the trailer on the door side, the two power awnings are visible. There is one on the body from the door to the front of the trailer and a smaller one on the main slide.

Now we’re at the back of the trailer, looking at the rear cap. There’s a tall window in the middle, which is behind the kitchen sink. Our e-bikes now ride on a rack mounted to the receiver hitch.

On the street side of the trailer, there are two slide-outs. The one on the left in this photo is the bedroom slide, while the other contains the desk in the living area.

As you walk in the entry door, you are in the living area. We created a two-person desk with a roll-out shelf for our laser printer and lots of storage above. We now have our Steelcase office chairs there, and the folding chairs in the photo are stored under our bed.

To the right of the desk is the entertainment center, with a 65″ LG C2 OLED television (although we’ve been too busy getting settled to watch anything yet!). The cabinets above the TV have both 120VAC and 12VDC power and connections to a rooftop antenna for our internet equipment.

Turning to the left from the entry door, you’re facing the rear of the trailer. We loved the theater seating from Lambright Comfort Chairs that we had in the Landmark, but it was too wide (and the wrong color) for the Majestic. So we ordered a different style from Lambright for this unit. The dining table is to the left as you walk back toward the kitchen.

Ah, the kitchen–my (David’s) favorite room in the house! I love to cook, so expansive counters and plenty of storage were a must. And because I tend to use a lot of utensils, bowls, and so forth, we also have a Fisher & Paykel drawer dishwasher. Although the window shades were mostly pulled down for these photos, with them up the kitchen (like the rest of the house) is suffused with natural light.

The kitchen has a 24″ residential-style four-burner range (with enough room to actually use all the burners simultaneously if I want) with a full-size oven, as well as a large microwave/convection oven. We configured most of the base cabinet storage as drawers rather than cabinets so we don’t have to reach deep into cabinets to find things. The larger drawers hold pots and pans and mixing bowls. On the right side, which is the main prep counter, there is a pull-out butcher-block cutting board over a tall pull-out that contains trash and recycling bins.

Opposite the range is a Samsung 18 cubic-foot residential refrigerator/freezer (on a dedicated inverter for when we’re off-grid), an enormous pantry with pull-out drawers, and a pull-out broom closet. The dinette with a storage buffet cabinet can seat the two of us, or four people with the addition of a table leaf.

The kitchen is open to the living area, and there’s even a view of the TV from the prep counter.

Now we’ll go up the interior steps to the bedroom and bathroom, which are in the front of the trailer. The large panel next to the TV, below the thermostat, is the main control for the Firefly Integrations matrixed lighting and monitoring system that controls much of the coach. The tall doors to the left of the stairs are for a coat closet.

This is the view of the bedroom from the top of the interior steps. The bathroom is further forward.

The street side of the bedroom has built-in drawers and cabinets, along with a short hanging closet and some nice counter space. The angled upper cabinet was missing its door when these photos were taken, but it’s there now.

We brought our own king-size Tempur-Pedic mattress from the Landmark, which is why the platform is bare in this photo. The platform lifts up on gas struts, with a huge amount of storage underneath. The nightstands have the same solid-surface tops used in the rest of the house.

To the left of the bed is a tall hanging closet with space at the bottom for laundry baskets and shoes. Cheryl finally has a usable full-length mirror that’s not blocked by anything. The large closet door is hung from a uni-track on the top. It slides all the way to the left to do double duty as the bedroom door.

Turning around and walking toward the front of the trailer puts you in the bathroom. We each have our own sink and medicine cabinet in the vanity. The vanity and toe-kick lights were off for this photo for some reason, but it’s nice and bright with them on.

In the corner of the bathroom are a frosted glass-enclosed shower (no more clear glass and sliding tracks to try to keep clean!) and a macerating toilet.

Opposite the toilet, we have a cabinet with a Splendide washer and dryer.

And that’s the pre-move-in tour! It looks quite different now that we are living in it. We’ll share more photos and hopefully a video walk-through soon!