RV life is filled with change from the moving of the RV every few days, to the craziness of something breaking, and being fixed, to the need to rearrange to make life easier.
In a small space like the RV, being able to go about daily life as easily as possible is key to reducing frustration. When we have to open 7 cabinets and drawers, and move the couch just to do one task, it’s likely that task will either rarely get done or get done with a lot of cursing.
Therefore our RV is always changing inside to accommodate reducing new frustrations. Recently we came across 3 things that were really not working for us: having to lift the couch to access cleaning supplies, the crowded bathroom sink area, and our oven.
Building a Couch Drawer
Under our couch has space for longer items we need to store. Specifically our duster, swiffer, swifter pads, and some other cleaning supplies. To access these supplies, we needed to lift the couch, hold it up, and reach underneath to grab items. It was a pain.
Then last week, the couch broke. We were pulling in the slide when the front panel just fell off. Sadly common in RVs since most things are held together in here by the tiniest of staples. We considered just putting it back on and calling it a day but then it occurred to us that this was an opportunity for us to fix something we didn’t really like. So we brainstormed making the front a hinge, but quickly realized it wouldn’t open as far as we liked. And instead decided to make this area a drawer.
After some measurements and a trip to Lowes, Dave was able to build a simple drawer using drawer guides we already had, a 4 x 8 sheet of 8th inch plywood, and two 2 x 3s. Then we got permission from the RV park to do a little work outside since a lot of RV parks do not allow construction tasks. Three hours later, and we had a functioning drawer, big enough to fit what we were already storing underneath plus the addition of our toilet paper.
The Bathroom Sink
Despite having once loved our bathroom setup and even including it in our ‘Things that make sense’ video, we soon realized it just wasn’t working to have such a crowded area. The disorganization started making doing basic sink based self care tasks difficult and unpleasant.
We do have one bathroom medicine cabinet and one bathroom cabinet. However the medicine cabinet is filled with over the counter medicine, prescription medicines, bandaids, first aide supplies, and more. Then the bathroom cabinet is filled with extra shampoos, conditioners, soaps, TPs, toilet wipes, and more. All this stuff leaving very little room for our day yo day use items such as face care items, deodorant, hair care items, toothbrushes, and such.
We did some research of different options given our limited wall space for hanging, and found a shower shelf set on Amazon that seemed to meet our needs. Before installing the shelves, we spent time sitting on the toilet measuring the space we had to put in shelves without cramping the toilet.
We ended up installing 2 shelves behind the toilet, and one small shelf next to the medicine cabinet. This has proved to be a great solution to organizing our items and clearing up the sink counter area.
The Oven
Our oven has been our biggest frustration in the RV. It cooks very uneven, and often burns the bottoms of our foods. We did some research and found this is a common complaint in our RV type. Without the ability currently to replace the entire oven, we decided we would buy a counter top convection oven/air fryer combo.
This required we rearrange behind our stove top and our coffee nook area despite our love for our setup. We cut down our cutting board and oils box, donated our toaster, and rearranged the coffee nook.
Then we spent some time looking into different types of countertop ovens. We eventually decided on the Ninja WHAT TYPE. It has two cooking chambers allowing us to cook two different foods at a time. It has settings for toast, bake, broil, warm, rotisserie, airfry, and more.
The current fit is very tight and maybe some may say the Ninja is a little too big for the space. It’s installation creates a new problem to fix- the glass stove guard no longer opens fully. Currently we prop it open with a mug and can only use the front burner, however it is in our plans to remove the glass and replace it with a wooden stove top cover (maybe with a little candle holder built in).
But that is a change for another day because nothing ever stays the same in a RV.
