Organizing in a Travel Trailer

Organization. I’ve always thought organization skills were something that either came naturally to people or just. Did. Not. Exist with others. Though, somehow I feel I’ve been plopped right in the middle. You put me in front of an organizer and some beads and I could spend hours organizing them to perfection. Ok, so not to perfection but you know what I mean. But you put me in a room with, say, clothes or papers or whatnots and you can forget it. There’s no way, with our family of five, I can keep anything organized. Well, maybe some things…. Hehe.

 

One thing I have REALLY enjoyed so far since we’ve moved into our new little home on wheels is there’s really not too much space for a lot of things. Have you ever downsized? You haven’t downsized until you’ve moved into an RV! Lol. You have room for just the absolutely necessary items, and then maybe a few fun things.

 

Now I will say, I have yet to fill the space under the master bed. There are currently two storage totes under the bed currently. One for hubby’s tools and one I have for my sewing, crafts, and a few shipping supplies. The bottom bunk bed where the other storage area is, it’s completely empty. After having thought about it though I realized I haven’t brought over our out-of-season clothes, which really would only fill one or two storage totes. I don’t want to be lugging around a ton of clothes we don’t need but I will be bringing our heavy coats that took time to find on our budget, a few sweaters and winter footwear (like boots). That still will leave plenty of space though.

 

So this was supposed to be about organization, right? Not storage. So here’s what I’ve done so far. I had a plan (those always work out, right?), a plan to only take a few items of clothes per person. I mean, really, how many articles of clothing does a person really need?? Well, I guess that depends on the person…. Anyways, I started with my plan. We brought in just the bare minimum…. But then the little gears in my head started turning (watch out!) and I got to thinking “Oh wait, this is one of the kid’s favorite shirts, it’s a really nice shirt, they need this shirt”. Yea, those are the kind of thoughts that get me into trouble. All. The. Time. And have I mentioned I gave my girls a limit of three favorite dresses? ….My youngest had to pick two of her fluffiest, almost princess-like dresses. *face palm* “My girl, you are not making this easy for momma.”

Here is the kid’s closet. The clothes caddy was basically $10 at Walmart. There was a cheaper one but it was definitely “cheap” and I wasn’t about to waste my money on that junk. Like my zip ties? I told you they’re as handy as duct tape! I also got Command hooks, slapped one on the inside of the closet door, as you can see, and hung those purdy, fluffy dresses right up there. It’s a tight fit but my older daughter’s dresses fit and there’s just enough space for our son’s two suits he’ll be bringing.

     

Next is the cabinet above the dinette. This is where I’ve put what few school type books I’ve decided to bring. The kids do most “book work” online but there’s something about having paper books on hand that appeals to me. I also have their hobby organizers up there. The basket of story books were in the closet behind the clothes but they didn’t like them back there for long, in fact, it came out shortly after I put the clothes caddy up, haha. I also have school related papers in my file folder and my binder. We’ll see what, if anything, gets added to this space….

The closets in our room look something like this….

Something needs to change. I’ll probably take down the small organizer to the far right. Right now it just has nail polish which I didn’t want in an easily accessible place because, well, my girls like to sneak into them, lol. I’m not entirely happy with the shoe caddy for some of my clothes (some are in the cabinet to the right) but that’s what I have on hand at the moment and it does the job, for now. What you don’t see behind the clothes is my small sewing box, that I didn’t put in the storage tote under the bed. I do a good bit of mending and other small sewing projects and I didn’t want to have to pull the bed up every time I need to just sew on a button or something.

So there ya have it. I’m sure things will change over the next few months, as I think of better ways to utilize our space.

 

Are you a fulltimer? Have advice you’d like to share or ideas? Comment below!