Happy Hump Day everyone!
As you all know, we’ve been in the trailer for almost a week now and want to give you guys a few tips from what I’ve learned so far. I wouldn’t consider myself to be an expert just yet, but I do have a little wisdom on the subject! So here are my top 5 tips for starting life in a travel trailer!
First I highly recommend getting into the trailer or RV a few days before you move in/take it out for camping just to make sure nothing has leaked, or if it hasn’t been used in a while, give it a nice cleaning. In our case, we’re going to be full-timing in this for at least a month so I gave the entire place a deep clean that I finally finished yesterday. Our fridge was covered in black mold when we first came up to clean it and check on it, there were dead bugs everywhere, and there was a mysterious smell in the bathroom. So whether you’re going out for the next few days or for the next few months, I recommend giving it a good once over.
Second you really need to pair down on just the necessities; I’m talking like 14 days worth of clothes that can be mixed for different outfits (sheesh, that could be a post all on it’s own!). Since we live in a 4 seasons part of the country, we had to pack away all our winter stuff (along with almost all of our belongings) into a storage unit. Like I said this is more for full-timers, but really make sure you only bring the absolute bare-necessities. Unless you have a HUGE trailer, you’re not going to have room for everything. We’re lucky enough to have separate closets and drawers. But I was a little too optimistic so half of my clothes are in a plastic tote in my car and will most likely end up in storage.
Third I highly recommend that you measure everything. There are certain items that you cannot have in your trailer with you (like my blender or coffee maker) so you have to measure to make sure what items will work. We took measurements and the only appliances that fit in our tiny little home on wheels are a small crock pot and an electric tea kettle (I now live on instant coffee). I also recommend measuring because there are going to be important things that you’re going to need to buy but you wont know if they fit when you go to the store. I have a note in my OneDrive that has all the measurements of what we need; for example we need a tv wall mount above the fridge, we need baskets for the cabinets in our night stands, and we need to hang baskets in the bathroom for more storage.
Four invest in an outdoor rug. I cannot stress this enough! The first thing we purchased for our trailer was an outdoor rug. It doesn’t have to be a big fancy one like the fake grass ones, ours sure isn’t. We just got two (our trailer has two doors) durable door mats like you would use at your house and its made a world of difference! The first few days in the trailer, I found myself sweeping 4-5 times a day because there were little rocks everywhere, and that was with us taking our shoes off before we came in the house. So if you want to save yourself the trouble of having to clean your trailer multiple times a day, this is a necessity.
Five is to live with someone you love. If you decide to become a full-time trailer/rv person, chances are you’re not going it alone. You’re going to find yourself confined to one seriously tight spaces all the time. It’s one thing to live with your significant other but its another to move into place that can easily be towed behind a truck. M and I aren’t perfect, we have our arguments here and there, and finding the balance of how to keep this from affecting your living situation i not easy. Luckily, it’s summer time and one of us can be outside if we’re feeling over whelmed. Or we can do something that we both enjoy. Like yesterday, we were having a particularly tough time (it was like a thousand percent humidity in the trailer) so we decided to get outside and try out some new bait we had gotten. It was a great way to blow off steam and it’s something we both enjoy doing. If we didn’t love each other as much as we do, living in a trailer full-time together would NOT work.
I’m still learning as the days go by here so I will be back very soon with more tips!
In the meantime, if you want more tips head on over to Local Color XC where Carson and Mel travel around in a trailer just like M and I! She has some seriously great content and tips for anyone interested!
Much love!
-DF
Real Talk with Dee 