Living in a tiny space poses a few unique challenges. (We live in a 22 ft Nash Travel Trailer, my husband and I, no pets.) so, to make it more liveable we have made a few adjustments and/or additions, subtractions, and alterations.
1. New awning sunblocker - We maximized the functionality of our awning by the addition of a sunblocker shade. this is simply a curtain-type shade that hooksonto the edge of the awning, when it is extended, and hangs straight down to the ground. What this does for us is it creates a shaded area under our awning, provides outdoor living in the rain, creates more living space which we find super valuable, and it looks cool. Besides, all the big boys have them and I wanted one too. So, I went to RV accessory websites and priced them, Ouch. I went to Ebay and found a new one, still in the package for half of the price! My kind of deal! So I bought it, Lance easily and quickly installed it, and here it is! We found it really needed deflappers, and guy wires to make it very stable in the high winds. We have had rain, rain , rain here in Southern Colorado and it is holding up beautifully. I will take some photos to show you what I mean stabilizing it. I love this sunblocker and highly recommend it. PHOTO
2. We continue to weed out the stuff we need, versus the stuff we think we need. When we first took off RV-ing, we brought too much stuff with us. I took my best guess but still took too much. Living in our RV for 6 months now has given me some new perspective. I could cull my whole LH (Little House) and rid myself of all the superfluous stuff but I am having too much fun to do it all in one sitting. But, I cull as I go. The things that I am letting go of are excess kitchen linens. I do far less dishes because I cook less than I thought I would. It doesn't make sense to cook too much. the kitchen in the LH is not designed for cooking three complex meals per day. We still eat well, but we cook more simply. We eat more raw stuff. (Blog fodder for another day.) the upshot is that we do less cooking, so we need less dish cloths, tea towels and etc.
I need fewer bath towels. 2 each is loads. I do laundry about every 10 days and we reuse our towels. I got those towels that are made of microfiber that the army uses, because they dry in a snap and they are durable, lightweight and take up about 25% of the space as regular towels. They are really cool. A quick note about them: they feel really weird at first because they dry so well that they stick to you when you towel off. However, you are dry immediately, which is the point, no?
3. If there is an item that can do double duty, it can come with us on the road. If it is a one use item it has to stay home. For example: I use hand soap to lather up my legs before shaving. No need or space for ladies shaving foam. Also, in the kitchen, my sieve is my colander. I cook bacon, grill sandwiches, and cook meats, and wieners on my George Foreman Grill. I eat out of my small mixing bowls. I scrub myself with worn out kitchen sponges, and they work great! I have one, I say, one (1) notebook that has the spine sewn together, you know the cheapie Walmart kind that has the speckled card board cover, and I write everything in it. I just checked and they are called composition note books. Everything gets written there, even the things that I would have normally written on post its. This way I don't have papers everywhere and I know where I can find it later. This is a very valuable tip! Try it! You will like it! After some info becomes obsolete I cross it off with one line through, so I can still read it if I need the info again, by chance, and if I don't need it I can easily page thru to the good stuff. If a whole page is lined through, then I cris cross the page. You can easily blow through a bunch of pages and quickly find what you are looking for. Hot tip!
We truly have no room for anything that is a cute little chotsky. I have no tabletop room whatsoever. So, if anything is pretty for pretty's sake, it has to be taped to the wall. I have a few pretty pictures taped to the cupboard doors.
4. Speaking of cupboard doors, I have magnetic strips in a line on the inside of the cupboard doors, along the top. I can stick pins, tacks, bobby pins, and etc in a safe place, out of sight and where I can find them easily. I also screwed in a few cup hook to the insides of the doors. I can hang my ear buds,9 I have several pair,) charger cords, sunglasses, keys, tire pressure gauge and etc. this works well. I hate having little things that i use constantly, hanging around with no place to put them. I also put a calendar there inside my cupboard doors, photos of the grand kids, and useful that i am supposed to remember, like when to rotate the tires on the rig or family birthdays. My LH looks tidier for it. PHOTO
5. Sleeping Arrangements - ours are pretty good but pretty spartan. I have to admit that we sleep really well in the LH. lance sleeps on the double bed, diagonally, and with a full complement of sheets, blanket and bedspread. I sleep on the jackknife bed, that is a sofa by day. I also sleep diagonally and have to make up my bed every night and fold all the bedding and jack knife it into a sofa again the moment I wake. I cannot be a slob and take my time because we need turn our bedroom into a living space again upon rising. Oh, I alsmost forgot. The twin size jersey sheets that you can buy at department stores, fit the jacknife bed. Because they are stretchy, a twin fits size fits the irregular shape perfectly. One adjustment I have yet to make is that my bedding takes up too much space when it is all folded and stored under Lance's bed. It requires about 3 square feet. A friend told me about a goose down sleeping bag, but I think I will pick up my goose quilt with my flannel sheet. I think that will be better. As spartan as our arrangements sound, we sleep very well, like two logs.
6. Our bathroom situation is less than perfect, but still very workable. When we are in a campsite we do small business in the LH, and big business in the restrooms at the park or campsite. No big deal. We use our bath tub for a place to store our dirty clothes, in a hamper, waiting for us to do laundry. I also use a dishpan for my shoes. I hate to have shoes all over the place because they are big and clunky, they should be on the floor ( you can't put them on the table or counters and I have no closet space) so I put them heel down and toe up in a dishpan. It can hold 4 pair and I sit the whole works int he tub beside the hamper. I shower at the campsite. Or if I need to use my own shower, it is simple to remove the hamper and dishpan, and replace it after I shower. This works well to keep my living space tidy. PHOTO
7. THE BEST ALTERATION WE MADE TO THE LH! You know what a kitchen looks like in a trailer. They are all the same, and mine is tidier than most because I see to it that it is! What we found is that Lance and I are so big that we have to stand sideways to pass each other in the kitchen area, between our stove and the kitchen dinette. Our LH has the dinette that is actually two very uncomfortable right angle bench that face each other with a tiny table in between - you know what I mean, the kind that the table flops down and fits between the benches, and the back cushions remove to flat and make a mattress? Well, this is not very workable for us, because we are tall and big folks. We don't need a bed for midgets, at least not in the foreseeable future. So we took the table out and cut it off on the wall side by about 5.5 inches, and reattached it to the wall in a permanent fashion. And it doesn't wobble anymore. The improvement made a huge difference. Now we can pass by one another with ease, and I can now reach to the back of the cupboards that are over the table. Lance could always reach this space but I couldn't. I used to ask him to put the stuff away that belongs there, and he is happy to do it but he is no good at it. All the stuff has to be just so, nested together and in the "right" way so it will all fit. Now it is better. Much better! In fact, I will reiterate! It is flaming awesome! I love it so much! PHOTO
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