Travels With Miranda

Miranda’s overhead cabinets provide a lot of storage space, but containerizing within them is key to keeping things functional. Finding the right containers has been a challenge. I like for things to match as much as possible as well as be aesthetically pleasing, so I didn’t want to buy some cheap plastic containers that would eventually end up cracking. No, what I really wanted were some pretty seagrass baskets.

While wandering around Canadian Tire the other night looking at furniture, I found three-packs of nesting rectangular seagrass baskets reduced from the high twenties to just 8.99$ per set!!! I scooped up four and am now kicking myself for not getting eight.

Getting these upper cabinets into shape has become my priority for the weekend as I am still debating the rustic flooring option. Since I will be doing away with some storage space when I get rid of the dinette benches and the bed base in the study, I need to make room to move the items in those locations. I don’t think this will be too onerous.

One dinette bench holds only a few small kitchen appliances like the blender, and there is plenty of room for all that in the new over fridge cabinet. The other dinette bench holds journals and photographs I inherited from my dad. I will be able to fit the journals into the study overhead cabinets by the time I’m through with them. The pictures will be sorted into my photo album or, if they are too large, will find a place of honour on what little wall space I have. Finally, the bed base holds some winter gear I can transfer to a tote in the basement and some linens I am thinking of using as a lining for new curtains. So, really, there isn’t that much I need to make space for, but the space needs to be there.

I have begun the dinettectomy, but, being the tease that I am, pictures will wait until I aim further along in the process.

I went to Home Depot tonight to get the thingamabob that I’m missing to connect my dishwasher to the faucet. I don’t even want to admit where I put the dishwasher. As I suspected, the missing part is not ‘common’, as the seller told me it was. But the price I paid was worth the finagling that will be necessary to hook up the appliance. The Home Depot plumbing helper told me to come back with the part I’m trying to hook up to the faucet seeing as the pics weren’t enough (he was impressed that I brought pictures!). The dishwasher has two hoses that screw into this part I’ll be bringing in, so the thingamabob might end up replacing the part altogether. Home Depot Guy and I are looking forward to MacGyvering a solution together.

Next, I went to flooring to ogle the Allure once more and gasped when I saw a new-old option. Turns out that Traffic Master got a bad batch of my third choice for the new floors. The colour’s apparently off, but it looks great to me. They really want to get through that batch and are selling the boxes for 36$ each. Regular price 56$. And I might need 10 boxes to do the rig end to end, for a total potential savings of 200$ by going with the flooring I like rather than the one I love! I checked with Home Depot and the price will stay until the entire batch is liquidated, and there could be millions of boxes of the stuff across North America. So, even if I were to buy only two or three boxes at a time, budget permitting, the price is guaranteed for a long time, and if the Home Depot here runs out they can get me some from another store.

Seeing as I have four days off ahead of me, I am crunching the numbers to see if I can afford the three boxes it’ll take for me to do the front room. Once the new floor’s in, I’ll be able to get my counter extension in and do a few other cheap projects. My only concern is that the flooring I’m considering is not going to look good with the current cabinetry, so I’m wondering if I’ll be able to live with the mismatch until I end up painting. Most likely yes.

Getting the front room ready for new flooring is going to be a project unto itself. It involves taking the dinette apart completely, including sawing through a steel seatbelt frame, as well as sawing through the bolts holding the two bucket chairs in place. And, of course, I’ll need to pull up the hardwood flooring in the kitchen. So, this will be a much bigger project than it was the first time around, but I look forward to having unified, easy-to-maintain flooring from one end of the RV to the other, as well as no thresholds to bang my toes on.

And, now, for a bit of a spoiler as to the decorating style I’m aiming for:

One big advantage the rustic has over the country pine and hickory is that the planks are wider, meaning installation will take half the time.

So, there you have it. The renos I’m embarking on aim to turn a blah RV into a cute little cottage on wheels. Let’s see how I do.

Miranda has only a teeny tiny pantry, definitely not big enough for a full-timer who cooks at home! I ended up commandeering the three shallow upper cabinets in the lounge as extra pantry space. It’s enough. I don’t have room to really ‘stock up’ on anything, but I can’t really carry all that much extra weight anyway! When I moved the food from the house into the RV, it was at the last minute. My friend and I just dumped stuff where there was room and I promised myself I’d sort it all out ‘one day.’

Well, that day has come.

BEFORE

The issues I needed to solve were:

1) Like items were scattered all over;

2) I had no room for the rolls of plastic wrap, wax paper, and aluminum foil;

3) Items I use frequently weren’t accessible.

First step was to clear out the cabinets so I could start with a blank slate:

A mere ten minutes later, I got an overwhelming urge to cook.

AFTER

I was shocked by what I found in the dinette bench behind the driver’s seat: dozens of plastic hangers! I don’t know what I was thinking! Let’s just say I got rid of them quickly!

Here’s a shot of the drawer into that compartment that constitutes poor design:

The infamous dinette bench drawer

I’ll let you in on a secret: that drawer is so hard to open that I store my most often used plasticware in… the fridge’s vegetable bin!

I was able to put two small totes in there. One holds the blender and the other linens. The blender will still be accessible here. I had it in a basket over the fridge, but it made the basket so heavy as to be dangerous to pull down. It’s still not the best use of space, but better.

The other bench holds a lifetime’s worth of journals, all carefully sealed against potential flooding. And I thought they were in an overhead compartment in the study. Which leads me to wonder what’s in the overhead compartment?

I think I need to make a map of what’s where!

(I love the expression on Neelix’s face in this picture!)

I found an interesting article today about what makes an RV liveable. The author lists twelve items. Of those, four are items that I loved about Miranda from the get-go, two are things I was able to change, and three are things I’ve been hankering to change. That means that nine of the twelve items applied to me. I’d say the article was pretty relevant!

The four items I loved are:

1) Separate vanity and toilet (#8);

2) An accessible toilet (#10);

3) Real doors (#11);

4) Lots of windows (#12). I recently saw a class C that had no window in the back. I can’t imagine not having my great view… even if it means a chillier room in the winter!

The two things I was able to change:

1) Easy to maintain floors (#1). Miranda had hardwood in some places and carpet in the rest. I replaced the carpet with vinyl. The combination of the two is easy to upkeep;

2) A dedicated workspace (#7). I was lucky to be able to convert a whole room into a computer space.

The three things I’ve been hankering to change:

1) Adding a counter extension (#4), but the only place to put one would interfere with the drawers, so that will probably never happen;

2) The wardrobe (#6);

3) The pantry (#9); improving my food storage is my number two priority after figuring out what to do with all my clothes.

The three items that weren’t relevant to me:

1) A re-configurable dining area (#2) since I find the dinette useful (which is good because it’s not removable!);

2) An island style bed (#3) since I live alone and all I want is an unobstrusive flat place to sleep, so the loft makes me happy;

3) An adjustable television set (#5) since I don’t own a tv. I did have a lapse in judgement when I thought “Gee, I should get one since most parks include cable in their free hookups” and then I remembered that I didn’t watch tv most of the year I had free cable included in my rent AND that the reason I gave away my television was that I hadn’t turned it on in over eighteen months and was sick of dusting it AND where, praytell, would I store such an item?