One month to go!

This morning we took another load of donations to town.  Seriously, I thought we'd have gotten to the end of things to donate by now.  But we had kitchen things to drop off at the Shelter, our old bathroom sink and vanity to take to the Habitat ReStore, and other miscellaneous things to give to St Vinnie's.  Brad thinks we still have another pickup load of things to take in to donate, but I'm not so sure!

We dropped off the truck at the dealer's to get an oil change and service to make sure it's ready for its first big trip, and spent the waiting time wandering down the Thunder Bay River and reading all the information signs about the history of the ships that have been down the river, in Thunder Bay, and sailing Lake Huron and the other Great Lakes, and how many of them are now settled at the bottom of Thunder Bay due to fires or shipwrecks.  Very interesting, and good exercise!

This afternoon I took some time to clean out our car to get it ready to sell.  I don't know if we're quite ready to be a one-car family, but we don't want to leave that for the last minute, either!  I also spray-painted a knob we picked up at the ReStore to replace a wobbly one on the sliding door in the RV that separates the kitchen/living room from the bathroom/bedroom.  It feels good to be just doing minor fix-ups now, instead of the major ones we were doing earlier.

More decorating and selling

I figured out today how to get our two favorite pictures of each of us with our kids up on the walls.  I had a couple of old frames that had never been used, that were the right size, but not right for the RV (the frames were made to look like rulers... probably bought from some school fund-raising project many moons ago).  I painted them with the RV wall paint, and now they're perfect!

Brad, Sean, and Seth were at Michigan Adventures amusement park.

Jordan, Abby, and I were staying in Key Largo... I think this picture was at Islamarado.

Brad sold a vintage motorcycle today, to someone who was excited to have a winter project.  I had no idea this motorcycle was even on the property... He had it stowed away in one of the outbuildings for the last 5 years!

We also have a couple on their way to buy our camper.  I hope they enjoy it as much as we did!

Slowly, slowly, getting things cleared out!

35 days to go!

This morning we loaded up the things that we are saving for later... A pie safe, rocking chair, a couple of end tables, and 4 plastic tubs full of keepsakes.  It sure doesn't seem like much!  And actually, the furniture is all for one of Brad's boys, so it's really not much at all that we are keeping.  These are all now safely stored at Brad's parents' house, ready for us when we're ready for them again!

We have also been trying to figure out how to have our kids' pictures displayed somewhere in the RV... Remember, there's very limited wall space!  While going through things in the attic, we found this picture cube, and decided it was perfect!  We may eventually figure out something for the more formal pictures we have of them (we could do it if we used smaller pictures than 8x10's) but this will do for now.

Adding some wall decorations

Today we hung a few things on the walls... It had to be just a few, because we have very limited wall space.  I don't mind that... That means there are lots of windows!  But with limited space, we had to be very picky.  We've gotten rid of a few things we had hanging in the house, and we're saving others to hang in our next real house.  This is what we got hung today, or have hung up in the last couple of weeks:

Had to have the red "B"

 And the "Bachelor Pad" sign!

 Our collage of lighthouses we've visited in Michigan (Lighthouses are kind of special to us) 

and the cross.

 A little message board, to post the information for the park where we are staying.  In an emergency, we don't want to have to be searching for the address.  Or pizza delivery number.

 We had quite the discussion about what clock to bring... I chose this one and hung it up one day when Brad was gone!

Everything is securely pinned to the wall... Can't have things flying around when we are traveling!  We used a combination of conventional hangers, and Command velcro strips to keep everything in place and hanging straight.  It's starting to really feel like home!

38 days to go!

After a fun weekend with friends (Our regular wings, burgers, and beer Saturday night, and kayaking followed by pizza Sunday afternoon/evening) we are back to work today.  We're planning on loading up another truckload of things to donate, and continuing to go through room-by-room to see what else we can keep, trash, donate, or give away.  I think we've come to the end of anything we might sell.  It sure has helped a lot that we began moving into the RV so early.  So much easier to get things taken care of in the house.  I wasn't sure about the whole "move into the RV now" thing at first!

We're looking forward to this weekend when we take the recliners from the RV to get re-covered.  That'll be the last big part of the RV redo.

Another load... Success!

The thrift store has opened their overflow building to take donations in... That's probably due to everything we have taken there in the last couple of weeks!

T minus 44 days...

Wow, suddenly the time is seeming very short!!  We've still been slowly moving things into the RV... For me, that's mostly been weeding out clothes, bringing things out to the RV, weeding out more.  I think I've finally finished with the clothes, with another large group of things to donate, and a lot of things to just burn.  I've also slowly been bringing out more kitchen things.

A big thing we've accomplished is to list quite a few things on the local Buy, Sell, & Trade sites.  Just since the weekend we've managed to sell a couple of dressers, our bed, our kitchen table set, a free-standing cabinet, and Brad found people who wanted the sailing, farming, and home-improvement books he wanted to give away... That was several hundred books!!

Still a lot to do!!

Good-bye to these things!

The UPS guy and our mailman are our best friends...

We spent some time a couple of days ago perusing Amazon and ordering a few odds and ends we need (or want) for the RV.  Most things are just decorative items that we could use current things for, but I want **pretty**.

New bathroom soap dispenser, and toothbrush and toothpaste holders... Our old ones would have been okay, but they were lighthouses, red and blue, and we're kind of leaving that decor behind.  All reds and creams and beiges in the RV!


The new pillow covers arrived!  We liked these pillows, but what looked good with our old sofa is a little dizzying on the RV sofa!!  We couldn't find the exact color and material we wanted in the stores, so we found these covers.  You never know what you're going to get when ordering online, but these are a very thick fabric that doesn't let the old patterns show through.  Very happy with them!

Old pillows

And with new covers:

Cute little trash can that will fit in the tiny space in the potty room:

And a clothes drying rack.  It telescopes out to go wider.  Our washer/dryer does a really good job on most things, but heavy items like jeans or sweatshirts sometimes need a bit more time.  And this will be good for beach towels or swim suits that just need to hang out to dry after use.  Bo seems to approve (and probably wants to climb it).  It folds to store in the skinny space between the bathroom sink and shower.

Laundry closet/Brad closet

There's all kinds of things I could be working on this morning, but I decided to spruce up the laundry closet (bottom)/Brad closet (top).  Brad started to do it last night, but after about 15 minutes, I heard paper being wadded up, and he said he had decided he liked it the way it was.  It's not a huge deal... No one but us will ever see it, for the most part, but I will see it, so I decided to tackle it... Great way to kill a whole morning!

This is how it looked before:

And now this is after:

T minus 51 days

We are still slowly moving household things into the 5th wheel... clothes, dishes, food... We had a pretty difficult sidetrack a couple of nights ago.  My old Schnauzer mix "puppy" Hank... He's 15 years old... ran under the truck when Brad was pulling in Sunday night, and got his back legs run over.  I thought he was a goner, but we got an emergency call in to the vet, had X-rays done, and he didn't have any broken bones or displacements or internal injuries... Just a very swollen back left leg, and a lot of pain.  Getting out of and into the 5th wheel is a problem, but over the last 2 days he has been trying the steps, and can get up and down once or twice a day, before he decides it's too difficult.  It was a close call, but I don't think he's ready to give up yet!

Once we got past that, we continued with getting settled in the RV.  We've tried out the washer/dryer (well, Brad has!).

I added some squishy shelf liner to the shelves where the dishes go, and we've started putting things away where they belong.

Still a lot to go, but we still have a lot of time, right??  Bo, in the meantime, is still doing a lot of exploring... even to the big bad outdoor world, when Brad didn't latch the door properly while I was gone golfing this morning.  Luckily, Brad spotted Bo through the window, and got Curious Kitty back inside!  I prefer Bo exploring the inside, like the space under the fireplace.

Brad got the most important thing installed tonight... The coffee maker!!  We went with an under-the-cabinet model to keep the counter top free.  We've been making coffee in the house and bringing it out to the RV the last few days, so it will be nice to be able to make coffee first thing tomorrow morning!!

T minus 54 days...

Yesterday we decided to start slowly moving things into our RV, including ourselves and the dogs and cat.  We figured it would make it easier to see what we still needed to sort through and get rid of in the house, and also allow us to see if everything we think is going to fit in the RV will actually fit!  Last night we just moved the basics... bedding, pet dishes, cat litter box.  Today I started to move some clothes in while Brad continued working on the tires, getting water going to the RV, trouble-shooting a few things.

The dogs settled right in... The cat is still doing some exploring!

Brad's Handiwork

Brad wanted everyone to know that he's been doing more than just helping me with decorative stuff... Today he was repacking wheel bearings and fixing drum brakes and getting new tires... All important things when you've bought a used 5th wheel that has basically sat in one place for 10 years.  Here's his before and after from today:

Looks beautiful, doesn't it?

Making Plans... Not our strong point!!

We set aside the day today to make our plans for the first 7-8 months on the road.  We already had March planned, meeting friends at a RV park in Florida where we have stayed before in our little back-of-the-truck camper, so we needed to fill in the rest of the calendar from October until the beginning of March.  We mixed it up a bit between familiar places we've stayed before, and one-night stays at new places so we don't have to travel more than 5 or 6 hours each day.  Neither one of us are great planners, so this is going to be the most challenging part of our new on-the-road life, until we get to the point that we want to stay more than a month at any one place.  We also need to work in family time in Alabama and Kansas around the holidays.

We have a few reservations made, some penciled-in places we still need to call, and an open calendar after March!  My head hurts!!

In The Beginning...

My husband Brad and I are cleaning house... completely!  Selling or giving away almost everything, moving into a 5th wheel RV, and hitting the road.  Less than 2 months to go before we hit the highways and by-ways.  Rather than continue to clutter my facebook page with posts, I decided to start this blog... We'll see if I know what I'm doing!

We bought a used 5th wheel RV, and have spent the summer updating it and customizing it with our tastes, which has sometimes been an exercise in compromise... Just like when we updated our old farmhouse.    It's been a lot of fun!  We have a few things still left to do in the RV, a few things to do in the house to get it ready to sell, and still quite a bit of purging to do, but we're getting there!  First, some pictures of a few of the updates in the RV!


A few pics of the outside:

One of the first things we did was remove all of the old faded mauve carpeting from the living room and bedroom areas.

We replaced it with Allure vinyl flooring from Home Depot.  It was the brand we saw recommended most from other RV renovators.  We will be traveling with 2 dogs and a cat, so no carpeting will make for easier clean-up.  And we chose the lighter color because it blends well with the dog and cat hair, and also brightened up the place!

We also repainted all the walls, from this swirly green and purple, to a nice light cream color.

All the window valances got an update too!

The bathroom and kitchen areas needed an update... Time to start adding in some color!

The kitchen table was in good shape, but the chairs needed some work.  They were all a little wobbly, so we decided to just replace them all.  The new chairs fold up, so 2 can be stored away most of the time.

One of the things we really liked in some of the new RV's we looked at was the electric fireplace.  We thought of it as a luxury at first, but it will heat with electricity instead of using up the propane... And it looks pretty!  We thought the location of the old TV was perfect for it.  We mounted a small flat-screen above on a swivel arm.

All of the cabinet hardware and light fixtures got an update from gold to brushed nickel.

Another thing we initially thought of as a luxury... A washer/dryer.  But we'll save time and quarters, and there was a spot all prepared for one!

The living room furniture was all in good shape, just out-dated as far as fabric.  The sofa-bed is done, and the rocker-recliners are coming soon!

So that's where we are at this point.  Now back to the work of sorting, pitching, selling, and donating the things that won't fit in the RV.  Our boys have benefitted from some of the tools, furniture, and family keepsakes that we wanted to keep in the family.  We are trying to keep it down to one large storage tub each of things we want to keep for later, when we decide where to put down roots next.

-Janine