We are in the "fall out" shelter in Conway Arkansas. Argh! "Fall out shelter?", you ask. I believe, the picture about explains it. They have us backed into a big tin shed at the dealer where we purchased our rig, waiting on warranty repair parts. This is all "normal" from what we have read. When you purchase a new RV expect issues on the first few thousand miles until you work out all the kinks. We are working out the kinks...slowly I might add. We had a major thunderstorm a couple of nights ago. You should have heard it beating down on the "big tin shed!" I was thankful we had that extra layer of protection. So enough about that now on with the subject for this week, living Life XL in a small space.
So we have a fairly large house for just the two of us in Phoenix, Arizona. It is 3000 sq/ft of living with an attached three car garage. We have just moved into an 400 sq/ft EnduraMax fifth-wheel RV with a single (tiny) car garage attached. It is what is called a cross-over toyhauler. The cross-over part of it is because it is not like the normal toyhaulers of the past. It is a bit more up scale and not made for the family of five to take the five quads to the dunes. It is built for the couple to have luxury and take a golf cart or a couple of nice bikes on the road. There is extra sleeping space but not the multi-bunk space as we have seen in the "typical toy-hauler." So the cross-over luxury and extra space design makes moving into it a bit easier to take. It is not tiny as you see in this picture. That is a full semi-truck and trailer hiding behind our rig one foggy morning.
The amenities it includes were not that far from what we are used to. We have a full shower and a small, make that extra small tub. The bath is tiny but effective. We have and awesome, and very useful kitchen but no dishwasher. Believe it or not they have RV dishwashers but the prices are unbelievable, take valuable space, and use a ton of water too. We have our recliners, and couches to relax and our BBQ grill under the awning outside. The bedroom has the king sized bed with the reading lights and nightstands just like home. We even have a family room fireplace, all be it faux, it does put out heat when you want it too. You have already heard about my office and how much I enjoy it. With all this, it is still a fairly drastic change and several have asked, "how do/did you do it?" I will try and share some of the tricks and discoveries we have made so far.
The greatest asset to have when making a move to a tiny space like this in my opinion is an organized spouse. Heather lives organization. She just loves to organize and put things into organization. As such this life style works for us. She looks at the problem or a space issue and immediately sees the organization solution. She has put our lives in order in this 400 sq/ft box. One of greatest organizational solutions; smaller boxes.
We have most everything in organizational boxes. It starts with our clothing. Socks, undergarments, teeshirts, etc. all rolled directly from the wash and put in a separate plastic box with lid into the closet. We do not enough drawer space for all of this to go be sorted into otherwise. It is super easy for me to just grap the box in the morning, pop the top off grab what I need and slide it back in the closet and grab the next one. Everything stays tight and neat and take much less space.
Next there are boxes in the cabinets for the spices and small bottles. As you travel invariably the next time you open the door items have shifted and most all it falls out on the floor. Not if they are all in a box. The boxes stay right where they were when we started. Plus the way she has them sorted, when you are cooking you just grab the spices box and you have most everything you need.
Heather has boxes in most of the cabinets, organizing everything from our medications, office supplies, toiletries, you name it. I can find it all in a box, and most of the boxes have a label. It is awesome.
Now, think about the odds and ends you have in the garage you have kept to maintain you place. I don't know about you but it seems to grow in drawers, jars, just about everywhere from previous projects and such. You keep all the extra parts to hopefully prevent one of the 2.3 trips to Home Depot on the next project. (2.3 trips, that is what Home Depot estimates each project requires requires) Heather has trip prevention wired too! Harbor Freight had these special boxes with a bunch of compartments and a handle. She bought three. I have loaded one for plumbing, one for electronics, and the last for hardware. Plumbing is washers, hose clamps, miscellaneous hose fittings, some special RV plumbing parts. In the electronic parts is my multimeter, all the wire, wiring parts like wire nuts, solder, soldering iron and such. In the picture you only see the plumbing and electronics boxes. The hardware has all the nails, screws, nuts, bolts, and washers you can imagine. Depending upon what I am working on I grab my box and go. I have used these at least fifteen times already on this trip. (This is a good one for home too. You don't have to be in an RV to put these together.)
Another issue we have run into is pretty obvious is space. You never have enough. So with the space you have you become creative. Every store we go to we are always on the hunt for something to expand what space we have. We have found some great items.
For example, Wal-Mart had these wire shelves you put inside of a cabinet to add additional shelves. $9 and you have super strong additional shelving. It is hard to tell in the picture, however, this shelf has about 1/2" clearance on the side. It was as if it was made for this cabinet. It gave us three times the usable space. We have just begun to fill it.
The next space and back saver we installed ourselves is the "cadaver slab." Heather, hates when I call it that but it is exactly what it looks and acts like. It is 93" long and 34" wide. On our rig we have a compartment that goes all the way through under the kitchen. The compartment has two large doors on opposite sides. This slide goes in that compartment so you can put your items on it then slide it out to access all that is in the compartment easily. With out it you have to pull everything out to get to the items in the middle. Picture above is of it pushed in and the other is pulled out. Notice my tool box hanging on the end. I would estimate the toolbox weighs about 250lbs. The drawer is rated for 800lbs!
Several have asked for a few more pictures and details on our RV. Here are few more interior/exterior details...
In past blogs I talked about the garage and how it converts to my office when we park. How do we use it as a garage on the road? Our RV dealer,
National Traveler RV installed for us a system called E-Track on the floor of the garage. All it is metal slotted channel on the floor. We can insert these removable hooks (that is one installed) any place along the one of the three channels running in the garage where we want to attach tie-downs. We also have special heavy duty
Condor motorcycle chocks that attach directly on the E-Track too. This chock just attaches to the track by the four quick disconnects. When we are ready to load the bikes, we just drop the ramp and ride them right up and into the chock then tie them down to the clips. I can load in less than 10 minutes time. When the chocks and clips are removed, with the E-Track, we can roll out the carpet over top and you hardly notice it it there. We obviously like our BMW's but on carpet, really!
How about our washer/dryer and new ice maker. We were constantly stopping to buy ice. You know the dog, Brodie, needs ice in his water. We found a great little ice maker at Target that makes several pounds of ice a day and it matches the washer/dryer too. Just so happened it fit perfectly in the cabinet above. It is working out very well.
The "washer/dryer combo is fabulous." is what Heather is often heard saying. She has said she is sure she can ever go home to a normal washer and dryer now. With this one you throw in the clothes, add two tablespoons of HE laundry detergent, walk away and come back to clean DRY clothes. No fuss no muss. All in one step. It does not do huge loads but, makes up for it with all the settings of the big fancy machines and not having to move loads from one machine to the other. The very best thing...NO LAUNDROMATS! Need I say more?
This is one side of our family/living room, and our recliners, the kitchen is above to the right out of the picture.
This is the other side where we have a coach, underneath where there is tons of storage.
This is looking towards the kitchen
The ceiling with the fancy medallion, sconces, and lights.
On the outside of most "toy haulers" there is a fueling station. This is a view of ours. Inside that door is a nozzle just like you see at the gas station. The switch turns the pump off and on, that is if I have it turned on inside. We can carry 30 gallons of fuel for our motorcycles. That will fill Heather's motorcycle about eight times and mine about four. That gives us some major exploring range.
This is Heather and Brodie's "dog washing station." Actually you are seeing inside one of the hatches where you dump the holding tanks. It is there so you wash up and spray things down when done. There is a coiled hose with a nozzle in the lower compartment and a sprayer with hot and cold above it. At the very top is where we connect to the city water supply. Very handy on the outside of the rig.
Well, I suppose that is about all the boring stuff on our RV and living in a box. For those of you that asked are you sorry you did now? At least now you have a bit more of an idea of how we did the transition from a large home to the tiny one. We are loving living Life XL in a small space and we thank God for it and each of you every day.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Love Steve and Heather from the fall out shelter in Arkansas
In past blogs I talked about the garage and how it converts to my office when we park. How do we use it as a garage on the road? Our RV dealer, National Traveler RV installed for us a system called E-Track on the floor of the garage. All it is metal slotted channel on the floor. We can insert these removable hooks (that is one installed) any place along the one of the three channels running in the garage where we want to attach tie-downs. We also have special heavy duty Condor motorcycle chocks that attach directly on the E-Track too. This chock just attaches to the track by the four quick disconnects. When we are ready to load the bikes, we just drop the ramp and ride them right up and into the chock then tie them down to the clips. I can load in less than 10 minutes time. When the chocks and clips are removed, with the E-Track, we can roll out the carpet over top and you hardly notice it it there. We obviously like our BMW's but on carpet, really!
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