We are now 2 weeks into full-time RV living, and we absolutely love it! Waking up to the view of the water, the birds chirping, & the ducks waddling is fantastic! Living the simple life with less stuff surrounding us is so relaxing. So far we haven’t even felt crowded – in fact, we are really enjoying our smaller space and the closeness it brings. We are also getting our own alone time when we need it. Emily loves to hang out in her bunk reading with the curtain closed. After Rob gets home from work in the afternoon, we get lots of time to sit and chat while she’s outside playing with friends. It’s like we are getting date time! Then we all come together for dinner and family time – board games, a Bible study or a movie. Once Emily goes to bed, Rob and I get time in our bunk at night where we read or watch a show on Netflix together with headphones so as not to disturb Emily.
Now all we need is for Rob to retire so we can be together and travel all the time! Still have a while to wait on that, though.
I want to share some of the changes that we’ve made to our RV to make it fit us better. I already shared how we made our fridge magnetic, so today I’ll share another one of my very favorite changes that was made possible thanks to my handy Hubby!
Our camper came with a booth style dinette and under each seat is some available storage. The downside was that in order to access the storage, you had to lift up the seat cushion and lift up a piece of wood – which means if someone was sitting at the table, they had to move first.
(Don’t mind the mattress hanging over the cushion….we also replaced that “bunk” style mattress with a super comfy memory foam one!)
My clever and very handsome Hubby had a solution to this storage problem – DRAWERS!
He cut out the hole for the drawers
Then he installed the drawer tracks (purchased from Home Depot) and also secured them with some extra pieces of wood for stability and proper sizing. Our drawers only go about half of the length of the dinette because the water heater is on one side and the water pump is on the other. If your pump and heater are elsewhere, you could make these drawers even longer.
He built the drawers from scratch
He even built the drawer fronts, routed the edges, and stained them to make them match our other cabinet doors. The angle of this picture makes it look like the drawer fronts are 2 different colors, but they are the same!
I absolutely LOVE these drawers!!! Not only are they beautiful – they are so handy! At first, I thought I was going to put our homeschool supplies or some kitchen appliances in them but those plans changed. I ended up putting our homeschool supplies in the “pantry” because the size of the shelf just worked better for our binders. The appliances all fit under the kitchen sink & stove, so that opened up these drawers for our pantry storage! I have all our canned goods in one and our bread/tortillas/chips in the other. It’s perfect!! I can grab things from the drawers even if someone is sitting at the table, and Emily loves being able to reach down and grab her snacks while she’s doing schoolwork at the table.
Live simply, love abundantly!