Photo illustration by Alex Cochran
Like a lot of siblings who are close in age, Kelsie and Taylor Wakefield, 16 and 17, have butted heads often. Over the years, feuds regarding who got the blue cup evolved into disputes over who got to drive the car. Unsurprisingly, their mom Heather Wakefield wasn’t sure how things would go when COVID-19 shut down their school and forced them to spend more time together.
But instead of bickering more, Kelsie and Taylor bonded over an unlikely shared project: a 1979 RV. Their younger brother, Adam, 14, found it in a classified ad for $300. In a time when school, dance classes, soccer games and basically everything else was put on hold, the Wakefield teens spent their time gutting an old house on wheels. They slathered on coats of paint, wired up an entertainment center and transformed the old RV into a grown-up clubhouse. Days spent sanding floors and reupholstering furniture turned into evenings streaming movies and telling each other storie