I finally decided to paint my tiny home little by little to truly make it my own. We have been living in just a couple hundred square feet for right about a year now and I still think it was a great decision. Yes it can be trying and at times everybody is in the way but most of the time it is perfectly sized for us. I was just so done renting and paying all that money for a house I wasn't allowed to do anything to and would never get a return on but we also didn't want to buy something we didn't truly love and become so house poor we knew we would be miserable, so buying a large travel trailer is what we came up with. When we lived in large two story houses with 3-4 bedrooms we really only ever hung out in two rooms most of the time anyway. It was all so much wasted space that we just filled up with crap to take up space. I do miss having enough room to host get togethers like the girl's birthday parties but I can still do them they are just mostly outside. In fact we spend a lot more time outside now and it is quite enjoyable in my hammock by the fire.
Anyway I have begun painting the kitchen area first, with white cabinets and I will be painting the walls gray. The paint will give it that much needed small home feel instead of just a camper. I'll be sure to post my updates as I paint each section. I will be working on it in small sections so I don't get overwhelmed by it considering we are currently living in the space.
I've been working really hard to get my 1971 Kit Companion camper in glamping condition for max family fun adventures. Only problem is between my husband and kids and work I only have so much time to work on it at a time. Apparently my family likes to be fed and such. Even with limited time and very little funds for this project it is finally starting to come together. I am so proud of myself for getting this far on my own. Behold the before and nearly after pictures.
It's been so long since my last post. I've just been so busy with so many things lately. We have started a small farm in the back property that we have our camper on. We now have a handful of chickens, 2 geese, and a pig.(the farm animals were not planned but were brought to us and then we got more and it just sorta happened over night it seems.)
I got a late start on our garden but now that we got the spot filled up and planted the seeds two weeks ago everything is sprouting and growing quickly. I love growing vegetables from seed! It is always remarkable how fast they grow and I can't understand why everyone doesn't grow their own veggies when they can. It is so much easier than I had ever thought.
cut red 1st, turn over to cut blue, then angled and done
My husband brought several pallets home that he found for use around the yard and to make a shelter for the geese and we had some extra. I've always wanted a picket fence and decided now would be a good time to make one for our garden. It was super easy with pallets because I just did a few cuts and didn't have to tear apart or reassemble anything and it came out perfectly. Especially for the price of free. I might paint it when I'm all done but I'm kinda liking the rustic look to it right now.
I was recently able to see Disney's new release called The Finest Hours which is based on the true story about the U.S. Coast Guards most daring rescue of the SS Pendleton in 1952. There were only a few members of the coast guard and a small rescue boat available to attempt to bring home the survivors of the SS Pendleton after the boat split in two in a storm that had also torn another tanker apart where all the other rescue teams were headed. These men were headed into a suicide mission but never gave up and are the very definition of an American Hero. If you have a chance I highly recommend seeing this movie in Real 3D as this was probably my absolute favorite movie that I have yet to see in 3D. Maybe because I have a special love for the 50's era but from the very beginning you feel like you are sitting with them in a diner and on that boat with those men the whole way. The rescue was intense and this movie left me wanting to do more research on the events that took place and the heroes involved.
We got our new home delivered last week and are officially moved in. So far I love it and do not regret our decision. It seems to be just the right size for us to live comfortably together. There have been a few moments when we have all been irritated and could use a little more space from each other, but in all honesty we have worked to make it work. Just yesterday my husband was in the kitchen with me when I was cooking and I yelled at him to go in the other room out of the way, so he took one side step into the dining area and all was good again.
We are getting used to the small space and getting creative with storage. I even found an out of the way space in the bathroom bottom cabinet to place the cat box where they can get to it so long as the door is open. Maybe I will add a cat door for it one day.
The funny thing is I packed four whole boxes of things I thought I could not live without and have only brought in maybe a box and a half of stuff and I don't miss all the other things. We just don't need a lot and we are happy with that. I'll post some more pictures of the inside once we get everything situated and organized.
While my husband has been working in Texas, our 2 girls and I have spent the last two months in Idaho packing and downsizing our possessions. Well at least I thought I had downsized enough. A couple weeks ago he flew back to help load everything we kept into a moving truck and it was a really close fit. We had to give some stuff away real fast so everything was out of the house by end of day. We did it just in time. The kids flew to grandma's house and my husband and I headed down with the kitties in tow in the moving truck. Downsizing from a 1700 sq ft house is a lot harder than I thought it would be and I feel like I sold, trashed, and donated a ton of stuff. I packed only four boxes of what I think will be useful or important for us in our new RV but I won't know until we move in. That's not including our clothes which for the most part I got down to a basket each but that will be the hardest to store in the RV especially mine and his I think. When we got to Texas we have all been living in the 21 ft vintage 1971 kit camper for two weeks while we wait for the new RV to get to the dealership. Its a good thing we all enjoy each others close company. The first night was rather stressful getting the small space all figured out and the kids were cranky and tired. I sat down with my 10 year old who was having a preteen moment and simply explained why we were doing this and what we are hoping to get out of it. In short I told her we are doing this by choice not necessity. We are choosing to live small with the option of moving if and when we want with our home instead of away from. We will have more money for experiences instead of just "stuff " We can go to NASA and Sea World and all the other places we want with out all the the financial worries. We talked and she thought about it and got excited all over again.
For the most part living in the 21 footer hasn't been bad at all. {except for that night when my cat came in with a leech on her foot and all three of us girls were screaming and huddled together} I have started painting the bathroom walls and pulled up the nasty 70s carpet. I plan to fix it up then on weekend adventures we will just hook that one up and go glamping. Quick and Easy. I have learned already how little stuff we need to be happy. Though I am super excited to get the bigger one so we can start moving into it. It should be delivered tomorrow.
When my husband took me to look at the basic layout of the RV we ordered that wasn't going to arrive til January, I went in one very similar but only one slide out in the girls room and a bigger living/kitchen area that I instantly fell in love with and would give us all extra space. So my loving husband had them cancel our order and we ended up signing the papers on that one plus we will be in it before Christmas. :)
Today's topic is downsizing and organizing in preparation to move our family of 4 plus the pets into an RV full time. In about 3 weeks the kids and I will will finally be in Texas with my husband moving into our brand new RV. My husband is already there living in our cute itty bitty camper that I still plan to remodel and paint.
side note: if it isn't obvious I really like blogging with lots of pictures
Downsizing my junk
He just put the deposit down for our new camper that we will all live in hopefully for the next few years while we work on becoming debt free. The price of this unit was really reasonable plus the space seems great. Now for the hard part. I myself haven't been in this model because I am still in Idaho so all I have are the pictures from the website. I have packed up most of our stuff for storage and sold quite a bit of my furniture but I still have a ways to go. The last several houses we have rented were pretty big and the bigger the house the more stuff we obtained to fill up space. I know I can get by with much less, which is why we are even doing this. Right now it's all the drawers full of little things. I'm having a really hard time sorting through it all because I hate to get rid of it if I can use it again but will I? I mean how bad do I really need it? So for now I'm going to sort out all my drawer junk then move on to my next major dilemma of our clothes. As it is I have a hard time keeping my clothes neatly contained in a large closet so maybe downsizing and sorting into warm and cold weather clothes, keeping one in storage will help. Or I won't be able to reach my bed due to the clothes monster. Eh, we'll see.
Here's some pictures below of our new RV. I'm going to have to get really creative with what little storage I will have compared to a sticks and bricks house but I'm excited to see what I can pull off with the help of my favorite store. IKEA.
My two biggest concerns at the moment are...
1) Where am I going to put a litter box for the cats?
2) Where can I place a tiny Christmas tree?
That's right , we are going to do this, we are going to full-time live in an rv. So here's what happened to lead to our decision. We have been living in Idaho when my husband was given a job opportunity back in Houston where I'm from. It was a good opportunity doing what he loves so we decided to go for it but we were in the middle of a rental lease making things more difficult. We bought a cheap vintage camper trailer that he could park on my parents back property and stay for free in Texas and the kids and I would stay and ride out a few more months of the lease until thanksgiving break so during our final transition to the south there will be less missed school for the kids. Our original plan was to buy Our first house when we got there but looking more into it we just aren't ready for that kind of debt and commitment and I'm so done renting. With a lot of very stressful decision making we decided our best option is to buy a larger, newer rv that we can live in for at least a couple of years while paying down our debt.
This is our plan as of now. We have found our dream rv for under $27,000. It has a back bedroom for the girls with tons of space and storage for them. Plenty of kitchen and living space for us. We Will be able to park it at my parents for low rent to help them out a little. On holidays we will travel and have fun in our home :) we will work on paying the rv off quickly as well as paying off our other debts. After the first two years we will decide then if we will buy a house or continue fulltiming. This will give us plenty of time to decide if and where we want to permanently put down roots rather than making a hasty decision we regret later.
Originally I personally wanted to find a 1950s aircraft spartan rv to refurbish and live in but my husband really wanted something new so I caved for now. Although I fully plan on finding one to use as a guest house when we do buy a house one day. For now I will work on remodeling the little vintage rv the hubby is living in now for fun camping trips.
I gotta say I'm really excited for this. It will be ours for a fraction of the price of a brick and mortar home. I've asked my kids ages 10 and 6 over and over if they will be ok living in a small space and they are excited for it. So here we go, living the small and simplified life. I'm packing my belongings to be stored and selling off furniture we won't need.
Our vintage camper that I plan to paint and remodel
with a fun mermaid theme.
Have any of you done this or considered it? I would love to hear your stories.
Halloween might just be my favorite holiday. I just love the decorating and costume planing and watching spooky movies the whole month of October with my family.
This year I am on a strict budget due to trying to ultimately save money. So I have been getting creative so we can still enjoy our traditions and have fun. Plus it's my daughter's birthday so the party must go on.
The other night I found myself on the website of the folks who made the spooky unliving portraits that come to life er... death right in front of your eyes and found that they sell both scary and family friendly Halloween scenes that can be played on a projector in a window from the inside of your house to create a really cool affect. You can purchase a DVD for $39.99 that can also be played on the TV or you can purchase the individual scenes to download for only $9.99 which is doable for me right now plus I already have this awesome movie projector that has lasted me several years now and I absolutely love. So last night I put a white sheet on my curtain rod over the large picture window in my living room and created this for just about $10.
So hurry and go check out all the fun videos AtmosFEARfx has to offer on their website. You can preview them all there. Some are cute and fun maybe a little spooky and some are really kind of freaky.
This Optoma GT200 is the projector I personally have and it has been amazing. I love it because I can use an old iphone that I saved for playing movies from netflix, hulu, or download and it becomes easily portable to play off of a giant white sheet anywhere outside or on a blank wall inside and it is crisp and clear and like bringing the movie theater home. With the price of going out to the movies with my whole family it has paid for itself after only 2 movies on it because man has the theater and concession stand gotten expensive.
Disclaimer: Amazon affiliate link posted above for the projector P.S. all excited thoughts and opinions are my own and I am not in anyway affiliated with AtmosFX I just really really like them.
It's been a while since my last post due to being super busy with life. At the beginning of summer this last year my husband and I decided I would quit my job for a bit for several reasons but boy, have I been busier than ever getting things done and taken care of around the house and keeping up with the kids. We had a pretty great summer this year. My girls have been really interested in all things science lately so my 10 year old went to a Discover Technology STEM summer camp in Nampa, Idaho.
It was pretty awesome. She was able to build her own Kano computer and learn all about using and writing code.
Also, earlier in the summer I helped my daughter apply for the NASA girls summer mentor-ship where if chosen she would be mentored by a NASA employee using Skype for an hour each week for 5 weeks. Well to our surprise she got it! Her mentor's name was Katrina and she was amazing with emailing us all kinds of information and facts and working with my daughter over Skype teaching her about the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math used in NASA today. #STEM
It was an amazing opportunity that both my girls enjoyed and learned from. With all the New Horizons Pluto fly by excitement I made myself this special skirt this summer. :)
We got our new home delivered last week and are officially moved in. So far I love it and do not regret our decision. It seems to be just the right size for us to live comfortably together. There have been a few moments when we have all been irritated and could use a little more space from each other, but in all honesty we have worked to make it work. Just yesterday my husband was in the kitchen with me when I was cooking and I yelled at him to go in the other room out of the way, so he took one side step into the dining area and all was good again. 
While my husband has been working in Texas, our 2 girls and I have spent the last two months in Idaho packing and downsizing our possessions. Well at least I thought I had downsized enough. A couple weeks ago he flew back to help load everything we kept into a moving truck and it was a really close fit. We had to give some stuff away real fast so everything was out of the house by end of day. We did it just in time. The kids flew to grandma's house and my husband and I headed down with the kitties in tow in the moving truck. Downsizing from a 1700 sq ft house is a lot harder than I thought it would be and I feel like I sold, trashed, and donated a ton of stuff. I packed only four boxes of what I think will be useful or important for us in our new RV but I won't know until we move in. That's not including our clothes which for the most part I got down to a basket each but that will be the hardest to store in the RV especially mine and his I think. 
When we got to Texas we have all been living in the 21 ft vintage 1971 kit camper for two weeks while we wait for the new RV to get to the dealership. Its a good thing we all enjoy each others close company. The first night was rather stressful getting the small space all figured out and the kids were cranky and tired. I sat down with my 10 year old who was having a preteen moment and simply explained why we were doing this and what we are hoping to get out of it. In short I told her we are doing this by choice not necessity. We are choosing to live small with the option of moving if and when we want with our home instead of away from. We will have more money for experiences instead of just "stuff " We can go to NASA and Sea World and all the other places we want with out all the the financial worries. We talked and she thought about it and got excited all over again.
The other night I found myself on the website of the folks who made the spooky unliving portraits that come to life er... death right in front of your eyes and found that they sell both scary and family friendly Halloween scenes that can be played on a projector in a window from the inside of your house to create a really cool affect. You can purchase a DVD for $39.99 that can also be played on the TV or you can purchase the individual scenes to download for only $9.99 which is doable for me right now plus I already have this awesome movie projector that has lasted me several years now and I absolutely love. So last night I put a white sheet on my curtain rod over the large picture window in my living room and created this for just about $10.
So hurry and go check out all the fun videos AtmosFEARfx has to offer on their website. You can preview them all there. Some are cute and fun maybe a little spooky and some are really kind of freaky. 
