"How do you all fit in there?" (RV renovations for 9 ... now 10)

"How do you all FIT in there?"

"How many do you HAVE in there?"

"How many beds are IN that thing?"

"Can you even walk around in there?"

These are the questions we are greeted with after we pull into a campground or parking lot and start filing out of our 26-foot Class C motorhome.  That's about 240 square feet of living space (or about 215 square feet if you don't count the cab, since we don't actually live in the cab, I just drive in it).

When I bought this RV, it slept 6 and we were a family of 6, so it was perfect. The RV originally had a "living room/entertainment" area in back behind the kitchen and in front of the bathroom. I had added a bunkbed across the top which could be set up and taken down daily but that quickly got old and we just left it up all the time, but that meant ducking down to get to the bathroom and we hit our heads numerous times trying to stand up too soon before reaching the bathroom.

 

As I added to our family through adoption, I also had to add beds and storage space. So, I gutted the entire RV. We emptied all cabinets and cubbies and started pulling all the pink furniture out. We pulled up the pink carpet. Everything was pink! Notice how the kitchen counter curved into almost an L, blocking part of the hallway to the back. It left very little room for people to walk by if someone was cooking or washing dishes so I reconfigured it all. I was able to reuse almost everything I had taken out and only purchased new flooring (one long sheet of vinyl) and some 2x2s and 2x3s to build the new beds with. The vinyl flooring has come in handy so many times. We had a water leak, a big water spill, and several wet, muddy days but it was extremely easy to clean up.

Our original dinette could seat 4 regular people, or 6 littles, so I took it out and rebuilt the benches to be a little longer, adding maybe 6-7 inches. I haven't put in a longer table yet but that's coming soon. With the longer benches, we can fit 6 teens or adults or 7 people with littles and, instead of sleeping 1 person, the bed sleeps 2 very comfortably. I also added more seatbelts under the benches so everyone can buckle up. When we are parked at a campground, we just leave the dinette in bed mode. When boondocking, we must set it up and tear it down daily unless we find a picnic table at a park, or something similar, to eat at.

You see, below, I took out one of the kitchen cabinets, cut them, and pieced them back together so that they are straight along the wall and I cut out the L part. I had to make a new counter. After much research, I decided to cut out a sheet of plywood to the dimensions I needed, with sink and stove holes cut out, then I painted it on both sides with blue garage floor paint and finished it with many layers of polyurethane coating. It has held up for almost a whole year now pretty well. I intend to make the dinette table to match it: blue plywood. We have about 2 feet of hallway space straight back from the door to the bathroom. It does require patience in waiting your turn to pass, and sitting while others pass, but we've gotten used to that.

I built a permanent bunkbed above the dinette. There is a long cabinet of cubbies along the ceiling but I built the bed in front of those so the child up there uses those cubbies for his clothes. It is almost a standard single bed up there. I also added a cabinet under the bed above the center of the table for a VCR/DVD player for the TV I eventually want to put in near the window. We do have to duck down to scootch into the dinette benches but otherwise it's pretty workable. I also want to put in a white board for homeschooling. I miss my whiteboard.

I added small shelves between the dinette bench and my driver's seat. It fits many canned goods perfectly.

I replaced the (broken) gas/electric refrigerator with an apartment-sized electric one. It does run on the generator while boondocking but we just try not to store perishables. We generally boondock at Walmart so buying milk and yogurt and such isn't a problem. I also keep canned and boxed milk around for those occasions. I hung magazine rack pieces wherever I could find room for them and a violin bungied to the wall. I built a bookcase above the dinette bench behind my driver's seat, also. It gives the kiddos something to do at the table, besides homeschool work, while I drive. We have a game bag but I haven't figured out how to store the games so that they're within reach of the kiddos without unbuckling.

We gutted the entire rear and I built 2 sets of bunkbeds, one on either side of the hallway. The 2 bottom ones lift up. There is storage under the left one and the water holding tank is under the right one. I added 2 Lowes kitchen wall cabinets on both sides of the bottom bunks, installed under the top bunks. I used the metal magazine racks from Ikea and hung each section individually for storage of books at one end of the beds on the top bunk. I plan to add another one on each side under the ones already there. One just doesn't seem to be enough for their notebooks and reading books.

The Lowes cabinets on both sides of the bottom bunks consist of an 18x12x30 inch cabinet, which is short to allow ventilation for the cold air from the a/c to get to the rear. It also allows us to lay our head under it so we can use the entire bed to lay flat out since the cabinets did cut off some sitting room. No biggie, 2 people, instead of 3, can sit on each bed during the day. When we read the bible together at night, 2 sit on each bottom bunk, the 2 little boys go up in their top bunks, someone sits on a stool in the kitchen doorway, and someone sits on the toilet. lol. It makes a cozy reading circle.

The larger 24x12x30 cabinet on the rear side holds all of our clothes and we found a bunch of cans fit nicely on the little ledge on top of it! I added shelves inside plus a piece of wood along the bottom to keep things from falling out during the housequakes while I drive.

Under the right bed, and under the water holding tank, I installed some drawers. This boy can't have enough storage space for all of his STUFF! He did try to minimize but he's got a long way to go!

Under the left side, we have a shoe cubby, a shoe drawer, and an over-the-door shoe tree that I cut up and screwed on for yet more shoes. We each have a pair of sneakers and a pair of flip-flops or water shoes, although the hoarder still has a few pairs of sneakers he couldn't part with yet. That's 20 pairs of shoes!

The view below is from the bathroom looking forward. I have a curtain that separates the back bedroom from the kitchen for privacy when people get out of the shower to change. Plus, the top bunks slide in and out on a track between 2 2x2s. The first picture shows them pushed in while the second shows them pulled out. They pull out even with the doorway I added and with the beds below. When they are pushed in, it gives us about 6-7 inches of added space for shoulder room while walking down the hallway.

Here are the cabinets above and behind all 3 top bunks (these 2 rear bunks plus the one above the dinette).

  

We couldn't figure out where to put the 2 guitars so I just bungied them to the ceiling!

The picture below shows the front looking from the rear bedroom. I used an Ikea cabinet from the sticks and bricks house that didn't sell, cut it to fit, and installed it by the door behind the passenger seat in the cab. I keep my printer, paper, puzzles and various homeschooling supplies in there and my sons in the cab bedroom store their books in there.The ladder hangs straight down when not in use and, again, I used the metal magazine rack for books but I installed them separately on the cabinet so each had more storage space in it. On the other side of the door, I added Ikea spice racks on my microwave cabinet. They hold lots of little containers.

Above the cab is the queen or king size bed 2 of my boys share. I installed a wall cabinet up there, one on each side, for the boys' clothes plus a shelf that goes along the length of each side. I also used the very front shelf, enclosed it with a 2x8, to make a cubby of sorts across the entire front for the boys' guitars and ukuleles.

We have a tub/shower in our bathroom. I added the small wall between the tub and sink and much more storage space in the shower. (all storage stuff throughout the RV are from Ikea except the over-the-door shoe tree) I also have 2 shower bars going across the bathroom. One stays up always to hang wet things. The other is in the closet and can be put up when I want to hang laundry inside or when campgrounds make crazy rules like "no hanging wet laundry outside"! We can shut the shower curtain with the permanent one up, altho it can be removed, but we can't shut it with the second one up. We have Ikea towel hooks for towels: 6 on the closet doors and 2 on the bathroom door. I need to buy more of those.

That's our home and that's how we fit in it. It's basically a big bedroom on wheels, as we spend most of our time at libraries, exploring, or just outside.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

"I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18

For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. Ephesians 1:4-6

Have you Heard of Mesothelioma?

I was a teacher by profession and life-long learning has always been important to me. I now homeschool 8 of my 12 children; I hope to instill an attitude of life-long learning in them, as well. So, when I was asked to blog about mesothelioma, I agreed, not knowing what to expect, as I'd never heard the term before. I learned that mesothelioma, of which there are three types, is a rare, aggressive, deadly cancer of the thin lining of organs, such as the lungs and abdomen, caused by exposure to asbestos. It is difficult to diagnose, since the symptoms mimic other respiratory diseases and may not appear until 30-60 years after exposure to asbestos. It turns out that U.S. veterans have been affected greatly by mesothelioma. There is no cure.

Did you know cancer is an overgrowth of your own cells? Normally, our cells grow then reproduce to create more cells, then die. When we are growing children, our cells reproduce a lot. As adults, they mostly reproduce to replace dead or dying cells as they age. Sometimes, something causes our cells to change and to reproduce radically without dying. These cells can grow into large masses and even grow into other organs or break off and grow in other parts of the body. That's cancer.

Asbestos is a sharp, microscopic substance. It can wreak havoc in tissue.

When I bought my first house in 1998, my one and only next-door neighbor was a nice, kind older gentleman. Fit. Athletic. Took good care of himself. He had a grown daughter and a granddaughter that I knew of. Shortly after I moved in, he told me he had a doctor's appointment to have his lungs looked at. He later had a biopsy done, then got sick very quickly. He had been a veteran but he also had worked with plumbing and insulation his whole life. He told me he had lung damage from his exposure to asbestos insulation. He died shortly thereafter. I thought, "How sad to give your life for service and working for others only to die upon retirement. How sad that we didn't know the dangers of asbestos a long time ago (or did we?)."

I have worked with asbestos-filled insulation in my attic a few times. I did wear a mask, sometimes, but that stuff got stuck in my clothes and hair and settled on our furniture and it took days or weeks to get rid of it. It was sticky, itchy and irritating. It stayed lodged in my skin for days. Maybe there's still some lodged in my lung tissue, years later? I did think about my former neighbor and what it must've done to his lungs as he breathed it in. I wondered if his family suffered exposure to it since, clearly, it stays with you and on your clothes, hair and skin for quite some time. It must've followed him home.

I gladly share this information. If even one person is made aware, if anyone can be diagnosed early enough to prolong their life due to information gained here, it was well-worth sharing. Thank you, friend, for bringing it to my attention.