Reorganizing our Closet and Other Chores…

Time seems to be compressing as we get closer to Christmas Day. We have been busy here doing tasks on the motorhome and of course enjoying the 80 degree afternoons and pleasant evenings.

One major undertaking was repairing our bedroom closet. Five years ago I basically gutted our closet (it really only had a closet rod for hanging clothes on) and converted it into a more functional space. Using a closet organizer I bought at Lowes I attached some supports on the back wall and hung wire shelves to increase the usable space in the closet. It has performed well over the last five years but this summer a big bounce as we were crossing a railroad track pulled out one of the closet rod supports.

     

So we basically took everything out of the closet and took advantage of that situation to discard any items and clothing we hadn't been using over the last several years. Then I had to reattach the supports in places so the structure would be strong and support the load of clothes and items we have stored iin our closet. It took the better part of a day but our closet in back in tip top shape.

Getting the closet cleaned and organized led us to cleaning out the bathroom storage area as well. While in the bathroom we also had a very minor leak on the base of our shower enclosure that i needed to apply a small bead of silicone caulk along the bottom of. This easy patch keeps the water inside the shower enclosure where it belongs.

I also replaced the slow burn fuse in our slide out that I finally found. I had a 30 amp non- slow blow fuse in it that worked but was not what is needed. Also taking advantage of having an address we got online and registered both our vehicles in Texas. We are once again legal on the road…

Another small task was to repair a spring that had broken in one of our dining room chairs. I had to be a bit creative but was able to re-secure the spring using a makeshift anchor. Hopefully it will last a good while and if not we can always take it in to an upholstery shop to get property repaired.

We also renewed our Good Sam's membership and renewed our Good Sam's Roadside Assistance plan. The Good Sam's Roadside Assistance plan has sure saved our bacon a few times and we wouldn’t be on the road with out it. Speaking of bacon we have been taking advantage of the warm evenings here to grill some great food and of course we have made time to check out a few watering holes.

Well with Christmas coming I hope everyone out there ahs found a great spot o be for the holidays. Whether it is in a nice campground, a remote boondocking site or back home to see the family here is to hoping everyone has a great Christmas break…

NOTE: We are now in our winter home for the next several months in Bonita Springs Florida at Imperial Bonita Estates RV park and Coop.

How to Better Organize Your RV–Part 2

Our RV had a large cabinet for a washer/dryer combo in our bathroom but we opted to not buy the washer/dryer combo and instead utilize the space for storage. To best utilize this space we used some Sterlite freestanding drawers that we slid into the openings and stacked atop each other. This has worked reall well for our bathroom storage needs.

Now as most of you know the closets in an RV aren’t the best design for maximizing use. We first thought about using some stackables in our closet but in our first year our closet rod broke so I completely re-designed the entire closet using portable closet racks we bought in Lowes (I also wrote a blog about that project).

There is also loads of storage under most RV beds so that is where we have stored extra linens, blankets and pillows. However since we are fulltimers we also have a lot of nice clothes that we might need for weddings, funerals or if we take a cruise someday. For those needs we bought a few extra-large air-tight vacuum packed space saver bags. These are the kind you pack full of items then use a vacuum to extract the air out of the bag allowing you to store twice as many clothes as in a normal bag.

Well before this blog gets too wordy I will end it with a list of several other items or tips as to how we save space:

• We use adhesive hooks that don’t damage our walls to hold our robes in our hallway. These easy-to-remove hooks won’t leave residue on our walls if we want to move them or get rid of them.
• We use Velcro to keep our stereo components in place. By putting Velcro on our dish box and sticking it to our receiver they don’t shift around and always stay in place.
• We use many of the collapsible kitchen items such as our salad spinner, measuring cups and one item we don’t have but want the Fold Flat Cheese Grater.
• We also have a collapsible Mesh Laundry Bag for our dirty clothes. It stays collapsed until our hamper is full and then out it come to take the clothes to the laundry.
• We also save space by rolling instead of folding our towels and my T-shirts that fit better in the overhead bin in my bedroom. It makes it easy to see what color T-shirt I am grabbing from the top cabinet.
• We also have our Plastic Bag Dispenser which hangs on a cabinet door for  recycling plastic bags to use as trash bags while traveling. Of course ours has a Texas A&M University logo…
• We store flour, sugar and our rice in Acrylic airtight food containers which help keep the contents fresh. It also is good for keeping bugs out and away from the RV.
• We use baskets in just about every room to store small items and to keep clutter to a minimum. They also double as decorative items. We have bought several of them in thrift stores making them an inexpensive storage solution.

     

These are many of the things we do to save space and protect items in our RV and we would love to hear about what other things of you do!