While on the drive over to North Carolina from Texas we had only a few incidents that could be chalked up to being newbies (inexperienced RV’ers). One of those was leaving our printer on a shelf accidentally only to find it jettisoned across the room after a 300 mile drive. It still works but makes an awful lot of noise… chalk that up to an experience learned.
The other incident was even though I tried to get the darling bride to get rid of lots of her clothes we still apparently brought too many. You see it appears that when they made the closet they only put in a 
closet rod that was rated for holding less than 300 lbs of clothes :)… The first picture shows what we had left – just a closet… no rod, no nothing…
So after another 300 mile trip we found the closet support bent and the hollow metal closet rod broke. So it was time to redo the closet. We planned on redoing it anyhow since the closet rod was too high for the wife to reach (she is a short girl). But we will just do it earlier than planned : )
So after lots of planning I had figured out what we could do. The only challenge as it turned out was how to affix anything to the walls for the supports. Since the back wall is made up of a thin Luann covering over about 2.25 inches of Styrofoam insulation it made for a challenge. Hollow wall anchors wouldn’t work so I used the fattest screw in sheetrock anchors which worked perfectly. I made sure the two inch screws I was going to use for support wouldn't go through the exterior coving by using an ice pick to measure how deep each screw could go.
Once the supports were up we inserted the self supports and inserted the new wooden clothes rod and put the shelves up on the supports. The shelves interlock into the support brackets but I also used zip ties to secure them to the supports even more. It looks great and is infinitely more functional and the darling bride can now reach not only the clothes rod but the plastic containers on the top shelf.
Now this was a fairly easy job especially when you measure the shelves and have Lowe’s cut them for you at their store. But as easy as it was it still required many more trips to and from Lowe’s than I would have liked… but for a total cost just under $190.00 we are glad we did it and now we have time to sit and think about it all at the Carolina Inn…
Clothes are always the nemisis of the newlie, which always seem to spend the first couple of years gettin' rid of them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I brought waaaay more than I needed. You will continue to purge as you get used to your new lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteNice modification to the closet....good job!!
I anticipate many "we brought to many ofs" but clothes for me will not be a problem. I have worked at home for so many years I have very few things I would want to be seen out in the world in. I may actually have to buy a few!
ReplyDeleteSo far it sounds like all of your newbie mistakes are minor; hopefully they will stay that way! :) I think we all started out with too many clothes. Even with as much as we pared down, we still have our favorites and I know we have clothes in the closet that we have yet to wear since hitting the road almost a year ago! That should tell us something, shouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a job well done. We put shelves in our closet. Have a few hanging, but just dress clothes. We mostly do the jeans and t-shirt thing.
ReplyDeleteI expect we'll have the same problem..sorting through clothes we brought that we never wear. Oh well, gotta learn!
ReplyDeleteBetter home, better living for the seniors. Seniors easily gets irritated. That's why we need to choose a home where they will enjoy their life with the help of some activities.
ReplyDelete