Where do we hide our dirty laundry? With limited space, we needed a place to store it until laundry day. Our rig has a pass-through storage compartment under the front of the trailer, which is under the bedroom closet.
Rather than keeping a hamper for dirty clothes alongside the clean clothes in the closet, I decided to make a laundry chute.
While driving through the middle of nowhere Texas, I noticed several cars slow down while passing our trailer. We stopped at a rest stop along the way I did a walk around… and I found the trailer wheel well covers were both very loose.
Before we left Phoenix, I spent some time crawling under our trailer inspecting its brakes, suspension, and axles. Until now, we had only hauled our house for a few very short trips, so thankfully things were still fairly clean down there. The trailer has an electric brake system on all four tires. One of the first things I noticed was the electrical feeds to these brakes were not protected in any way, and they could rub on the metal surfaces: a potentially dangerous situation down the road. I purchased plastic wire loom and wire ties to cover and protect the wires. The wire loom is corrugated and flexible, but split down one side so it is easy to install without unhooking anything. I slipped the loom over all exposed wiring and secured it with wire ties and clips. I maintained sag loops to allow for suspension movement. Trailer brakes are vital …
I know it’s August and we haven’t had to think about our furnace in months, but winter is just around the corner. It was time to do some maintenance. Much like moving into a sticks-and-bricks home, there is always something to work on. Last winter we were having periodic issues with our furnace not lighting, especially on the coldest nights. I checked the air intake and exhaust ports to make sure there were no blockages, since bees and wasps like to make their homes there from time to time. The other appliances that use propane fuel (stove, hot water heater, and refrigerators) all worked fine. The furnace itself is mounted under the kitchen pantry and is not easily accessible. Thankfully our trailer has an electric fireplace as an additional heat source when the furnace acted up. The propane (LP) gas system runs off two thirty pound tanks located on the …
While we still lived in a sticks-and-bricks home and I had my wood shop, I did some last-minute cabinetry for our RV. Above the windows on each side of the bed was a space that had the potential for a small cabinet. The existing cabinets above the headboard had vertically-opening doors that were several inches away from the wall on each side. If I kept the cabinets shallow enough, they should fit. First, I drew up a plan for two cabinets, and then I made a wood cut plan. I chose poplar for the cabinets to keep the weight down, and to better match the other cabinets. There would be a single door and room for two shelves inside each cabinet, and a water bottle shelf. The shelves are large enough for things like average-sized pill bottles, small packs of tissues, eye drops, and lip balm. Rather than a plain …
Those of you who’ve followed our Instagram might’ve seen that we’ve officially left Arizona (for now) and are on the road. We have a schedule to keep to get to our Florida destination on time (more about that in a future post!), but not such a tight schedule that we can’t stay 2-3 nights in each spot, and we’ve limited our travel to 200 miles per day. So here is what happened when we landed in El Paso: The truck wouldn’t start! At least it waited until we were settled into an RV park, rather than the middle of nowhere. And in Texas, there’s a LOT of “nowhere.” We bought our 2016 Ram 2500 a year ago and it’s in great shape. It even came with brand new tires, but we suspected the battery was original from the factory. Anyone who has spent any time in the Arizona heat knows …
The medicine cabinet in our RV was generously sized (in our opinion), but it only had one shelf. There was a lot of wasted space. While we could have stored about 16 super-tall cans of 80’s Aqua Net, we’ve both outgrown that phase and our toiletries are a bit smaller these days. The cabinet itself is made of a light ¼ inch plywood, so it is not a good base with which to attach a shelf. However, I did this, I wanted to avoid visible screws. I chose some light hardwood lumber that could be stained to closely match the rest of the cabinet. Rather than installing standard shelf supports (which would likely require visible screws), I made two legs and used double faced tape to attach them to the inside of the lower shelf in order to support my new shelf. I cut and stained the new shelf to …
As we continue our quest for space optimization, we discovered some wasted space in the cabinet below the sink. Only the top half of the total cabinet space was usable as a cabinet when we bought it. The lower half of the space was closed off with a panel, in order to hide the plumbing connections and electrical runs. The area below the sink was opened for a previous project where I found myself tracking down a water leak. The space was closed off with a ¼ inch plywood panel to protect the water lines, drain, and some electrical feeds. When repairing the leak, I realized this area still had quite a bit of usable space, if I made a few modifications. My plan was to install a sub-floor in the cabinet and close off the areas with the water and electrical feeds using floating walls. I started by adding …
Shortly after we moved in, we started noticing water on the ground under the dump valve for the black tank and one of the gray tanks. Thankfully, the water appeared to be either fresh water or gray water! But it was a concern and needed fixing. Our unit has an all-weather sealed underbelly, so the water leaking could have been coming from any number of places and traveling along the underbelly to the drain valve area. We were really concerned, because water can do a lot of damage when the leaks are not addressed quickly. During the course of troubleshooting, we noticed the leak was the worst when the bathroom gray tank was close to full. I made a small incision in the corrugated plastic liner covering the underbelly to dry it out and get a better look at the problem. I could see the bottom of the gray tank, …
This post was originally published on The Whisker Shop’s blog with the title Helping Cats Live Large in Small Homes, and we’ve used this philosophy for “cattifying” our RV home, too. If you lack the square footage for elaborate cat furniture, there are plenty of ways to help your cat branch out (and up), and make you feel like he’s got more room than you. Tip #1: Think vertically! This is really the best way to maximize a cat’s space. Adding shelves, or rearranging stuff on existing shelves to make room for cats, is like a cat magnet for most cats. Keep in mind the size and age of your cats: smaller or older cats may need additional shelves or a chair moved so they can get on and off the shelf safely. Make sure the shelves can hold your cats’ weight and the force of their jump, to avoid …