Last updated on March 21st, 2010 at 07:46 pm
Coachmen Yahoo group member Carol offers these storage tips:
I’m not a neat freak at home but having a few things out of place in the smaller confines of an RV bothers me. I found a short trash can with a lid at the dollar store. Plastic grocery bags fit perfect and the thing sits under my
kitchen sink. It fit under the sink in our last RV as well. It’s short enough that if I needed that space under the sink it could sit out under the fridge and the door would clear the top of it.
I keep a laundry basket in the shower for dirty clothes. It’s no trouble to set it out to use the shower. We have used a laundry bag hung on a hook that fits over the shower door but I’d rather have it out of sight in the shower.
You could probably fit a laundry basket in the bottom of a bedroom closet.
I’ve solved the problem with books! I got an eReader. Mine is a Kindle and I’ve loaded up with books and can even upload books on the road.
For papers and things like that just get a manila envelope and stand it up in one of your overhead cabinets.
I like using baskets and plastic containers in cabinets for small things that might normally go in a drawer. I also found a nice basket (oblong box) to set beside the door, behind a chair to keep flash light, dog leashes and things like
that handy and out of sight. Have fun, as time goes on everything will find a place.
And from the same Yahoo group, Marj Vincent offer more tips:
We have two mirror sliding doors in our clothes closet. My closet goes floor to ceiling. The closet is about 4 1/2 feet long. There is a lot of wasted space in the closet once the clothes are hung up. One thing we did to have more storage in my clothes closet was to build a low shelf. The shelf is the same dimensions as the floor and is about 12″ off the floor. I put all our shoes under the shelf and because my clothes only hang down about half way to the floor, I can put two stackable plastic white drawers on each side of the closet on the shelf. I needed a place to put my laundry basket, so I took out one plastic drawer and placed the laundry basket on top of the other one. It fits in there perfectly under the hanging shirts.
I have to admit the shoes are a little difficult to reach without getting down on the floor, but most of the time the shoes I wear every day I don’t put in the closet. So the few times I want different shoes is no big deal considering the extra amount of space I have now for storage. Those white plastic drawers are very big and hold a lot of stuff.
I am a complusive organizer and since we live in an RV full time it is so important to be able to have items we need stored neatly away.
I use bins in all my cupboards so that when we move the RV I do not have to worry about items shifting.
But the main concern is the Kitchen storage space, I am an avid cook and spend alot of time in the kitchen area. Most RV Kitchen cupboards are not shelved and it makes it difficult to store multiple items for easy access.
To eliviate the storage I bought 2 Ltr short rectangular storage containers at the local dollar store that stack very nicely on top of each other and labelled them with all my ingredients. I can now shop at the bulk section of the local grocery stores and keep my bins filled without having to find storage area for 24 different items and I don’t have to worry about the items shifting when we move the RV.
I also did the same thing for my fridge, flatter square storage bins work well for keeping vegetables separated and stored for lasting freshness. I no longer have to move items around to get to something, I just pull out the container I need at the time.
Storage bins are a great way at saving space and keep areas neat and accessible in any RV. It is a realtively inexpensive way when you shop at your lcoal dollar store for the containers.
Great tips RJ… thank you for taking time to share.
I like to use the green bags in the ref for the fruits and vegs do not mix fruits and veg. We have the perfect place for the laundry bag in our Big Horn closet. They left the space under our side cabnit and the laundry bag was included.
Re: Kindle
Good for you! Even though I don’t have stock in Kindle (I should for as many as I’ve “sold”.), if you’re an incurable reader as we are (wife has her own Kindle), this little marvel saves space & weight! Last winter we took what I surely thought was 500 lbs of books (well, maybe not quite that much weight). We bought Kindles while away (South Padre Island) and donated the books to church libraries. Came home and cleaned off shelves and did the same. If you’re a hard core bookie who likes the feel of paper, the heft of a book etc., you need to progress beyond this. Kindle stores 1500 books and space and weight factors don’t even come close to having the lug around all those books. And this is from a writer and columnist who was a hard core bookie who liked the real thing! Bah! I’m hooked on making life more simple.