A Sunny Day... A Clean the Basement Day

Well the sun finally came out! What a beautiful sight and to make it even better the temperature was pleasant.. It is amazing how a little sunshine can change a person’s outlook and up their energy level.

We have been talking for some time about doing a really good clean up and purge of our basement and then continuing that purge to our storage building. When you move into an RV to full-time you really aren’t sure what you might need. It is, at best, an educated guess. The rule of thumb goes something like this, if you used it in the sticks and bricks you might use it in the RV. If you didn’t use it in the sticks and bricks don’t bother to bring it cause you most likely won’t be using it in the RV either. Now notice I said you “might” use it. Your lifestyle changes so much when you full-time. Example, I didn’t cook a lot in our other life. We both worked and it was easier most evenings to just grab something to eat out. Now I am doing more cooking. I have the time and it helps the budget not to mention the waistline. We are eating healthier and we like it that way. We have both lost weight, Mike more than me, isn’t that unfair?? We eat our biggest meal in the early afternoon and eat a healthy snack at night. I have found that I didn’t bring nearly enough kitchen items. So whenever we find the kitchen box in the storage building we will go through it and bring some additional items back to the motorhome.

We also brought way to many clothes and shoes. We have already purged our clothes and shoes once and we will do that again. We have found that we wear jeans, shorts and both long and short sleeve t-shirts. We each have a couple of sweaters and a couple of button shirts. Our shoes consist of hiking, tennis and sandals. We each have a dress outfit and shoes to wear to church or some event that needs to be dressier.. As we begin to travel more I hope to collect a souvenir t-shirt in various places. You just don’t need that much. When something wears out you just replace it.

Now the basement was a different story. We organize much of our stuff in clear tubs. We found that many of the tubs could be consolidated and this has really opened up more space. We actually emptied four tubs today. We usually store our Sea Eagle boat in its storage bag in the back of the Jeep. The hard floors for the boat are stored in the basement. Mike has most of his tools hanging on a pegboard in one of the bays. This is very handy. We opted to not have the slide out cargo trays in the basement. We had two of these in our last two motorhomes and although very handy, they take up some of the storage space We actually get a few more tubs in the basement this way. Mike is going to get a PVC pipe at Home Depot to slide the fishing rods in and suspend them from the basement frame. We tried to categorize the different areas in the basement so we would know where to look for things when we need something. Example, the driver’s side of the basement has the motorhome related items located there and the passenger side has personal and home items located there. We also store our chairs, patio mat and grill on this side.

This is an ongoing process. It is so easy to just accumulate stuff and in an RV, you have to be keenly aware of space and weight. As this lifestyle evolves for us, we will probably be finding that our needs will change and therefore make more adjustments. As the rule goes…..something in something out.

It has been a beautiful day and we have accomplished several items on our “to do” list. Now it is time to take our two mile walk while the sun shines.