Path Design turned out to be a fitting name for Casey and Brandon Smith’s new furniture company. Shortly after founding it in 2019, the Bayonne, New Jersey–based wife and husband charted a new course for themselves, striking out in a Road Runner trailer they purchased and retrofitted for less than $10,000. In the summer of 2022, it served as their only accommodation for more than 7,000 miles.

When they started building furniture, it marked a new trajectory for Casey, then a college student and visual artist, and Brandon, a music producer-engineer and multimedia pro. But they took to it quickly.

$5,000 Camper	$220.69 Replacement Awning	$644.90 Battery & Generator
$730.07 Tires, Hitch & Hitch Lock	$1,015.70 Miscellaneous (Propane Tanks, Tape, Sealers, etc)	$255.89 Replacement AC Shroud
$376.36 Paint (Interior & Exterior)	$519.44 Shower (Tile, Flooring, Backsplash, Wallpaper)	$450.08 Sinks & Fixtures
$107.99 LED Lighting	$605.31 Mattress, Bedding & Decor
Grand Total: $9,926.43

“Woodworking was a middle ground for us, where we were able to be creative. But it was also more financially stable, so we didn’t have to rely on making a song or making a painting to pay the rent,” Casey says.

“We both love nature, too,” she adds. “So to be around wood while also letting our creative juices flow was really fun. And once you build your first table, you can build practically anything because the principles are all the same. You can change up the shape or the colors or the smallest little details.”

Beginning a furniture business on the eve of the pandemic proved oddly well timed, given the home-improvement boom that followed. Early on, Casey and Brandon rode a brief farmhouse-style wave that emerged during lockdown, selling as many pieces as they could make. As their carpentry confidence increased and the couple began building with hardwoods (particularly ash), their work transitioned to a more timeless middle ground between traditional and modern.

Yet still in their mid-twenties, they weren’t quite ready to settle into decades of churning out tables and benches. When the owner of their rented warehouse-studio decided to take over the entire building, instead of seeking out a new space right away, the couple decided to embark on a road trip—or, more accurately, another road trip.

“We could have gotten another space and kept that going for the rest of our lives,” Casey says. “Everybody was like, ‘Why would you walk away from something that’s been so successful and you’ve worked so hard on?’”

“It’s because it was so successful that we walked away from it,” Brandon adds. “We’re almost 26 and that was the most responsibility that we had ever had. A lot of times people get comfortable and that’s when they get stuck. When you’re uncomfortable, that’s when you really grow and that’s when you take these big leaps.”

Before they knew they’d be diving headlong into RV ownership, the couple took two cross-country drives together, first in a Nissan Sentra in 2019 just six months after they started dating. They found their happy place in White Sands, New Mexico, which they visited again on a second trip in 2021 in a pickup with a Path-designed camper; it’s where Brandon proposed to Casey. That experiment went so well that it left them hungry for more.

“We wondered what it would be like to do it on a larger scale,” Casey recalls, “where you’ve got running water no matter where you are, and you don’t have to cook on a propane stove outside if it’s raining. We began looking for a pull-behind trailer for a couple of months, but a lot of campers in our budget were older, with water damage or rust on the frame.”

Casey and Brandon were on a fairly tight budget, which meant more-coveted vintage trailers, like a midcentury Airstream, weren’t realistic. Turning their attention to newer used models, they instead spent $5,000 on a 16-foot-long 2006 Sun Valley Road Runner.

Though it looked dated inside, it was the layout that sold them. Says Casey, “A lot of campers in this size range have banquette seats in front, with the kitchen along the side and a big closet opposite. That layout just never really resonated with us because it was so closed-in. This one had the bed up front by a big window, and the kitchen was along the wall, with the door toward the back and room for a desk. Immediately we knew we could keep things open.”

The couple spent three months and an additional $5,000 working on their Road Runner, reconstructing numerous interior items including the bed, a desk, and the bathroom. They retained many of the cabinets and their hardware, but added new fronts.

“We had a big pile of scrap wood from three years of projects: offcuts, or little pieces that we saved because we liked the way they looked, that we could use to put custom finishes in the camper,” Casey says. “It kind of forced us to get creative, which we didn’t mind at all.” All told, she guesses they saved about $2,000 compared to buying the equivalent at cost.

The first piece they built was the desk, a focal point of the trailer, which is made of stair-tread cutoffs. “We needed the desk to be about seven feet long, but the longest wood piece was only about two feet, so we decided to kind of create this patchwork style,” says Casey. “That in turn inspired the kitchen counter, where we did a similar patchwork style, but alternated the direction of the grain so you saw some of the engraving along the front. That led to the bed-base, which was inspired by some custom benches we did for a veterinarian’s office in New Jersey, with end grain in different depths and different colors. And then that in turn inspired the kitchen backsplash, with that same sort of staggered-seam style.”

Throughout the renovation, she adds, “one thing inspired the next, which inspired the next. And at the end of it, it all ended up feeling very cohesive for us, which I think in a small space like that is really important.”

For new flooring, the couple went to their local big-box home improvement store and inquired about discounted or returned products, wood or otherwise. They drove away with $60-worth of tongue-in-groove vinyl plank flooring, which achieves a warm feel that complements the wood.

The interior color scheme is inspired by the trailer’s model name and by the couple’s favorite regions to travel to: the deserts of the Southwest. Off-white walls give way to a darker tan at the bed area. Some of the upper cabinets were painted the same colors as the wall to blend them, but Casey says they wanted to “have a bit more fun” with the primary cabinets in back near the bathroom, going with orange for the base. “It ended up being such a nice sort of statement piece to look at,” she adds.

The trailer’s boldest moment is its new bathroom. “That was our place to play because it was a smaller space in the back corner,” Casey says. In the shower, flooring in a stick-on stone finish gives way to bold cactus-patterned wallpaper. A half-wall features slats that move independently. “When they’re open, you get a lot of airflow, a lot of light,” she adds. “But when they’re closed, it allows you a lot of privacy.”

After giving it a new paint job that evokes a more vintage ’70s style, the couple hitched the Road Runner to their truck and departed Bayonne for points west on their 2022 summer road trip. With their two rescue dogs in tow, they moved at a more leisurely pace than they had previously, enjoying week-long stays on the California coast and outside Grand Teton National Park.

With the open road as their current calling, Casey and Brandon are still figuring out Path Design’s next chapter. More custom furniture is probably on the way, but they know they’re happiest balancing their business with other creative pursuits.

“We have such a love for working with our hands. I think no matter what we end up doing in the future, building will always be a part of it,” Casey says.

But, Brandon adds, “The other half of the answer is that we don’t know. We’re always throwing out new ideas. We want to renovate or design entire homes. Or just do music. Path kind of encompasses just an ideology, basically. We’re just creators at the end of the day.”

Related Reading:

This Surfer Road Tripped to Nicaragua, Built an $8K Tiny Home, and Decided to Never Leave

Budget Breakdown: A 1988 Jayco Motor Home Gets a Gleaming Retrofit for $5,700

Project Credits:

Designer and Builder: Path Design