Campbell River

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Basket Bonanza

Miranda’s overhead cabinets provide a lot of storage space, but containerizing within them is key to keeping things functional. Finding the right containers has been a challenge. I like for things to match as much as possible as well as be aesthetically pleasing, so I didn’t want to buy some cheap plastic containers that would eventually end up cracking. No, what I really wanted were some pretty seagrass baskets.

While wandering around Canadian Tire the other night looking at furniture, I found three-packs of nesting rectangular seagrass baskets reduced from the high twenties to just 8.99$ per set!!! I scooped up four and am now kicking myself for not getting eight.

The upper cabinets in the study have two cavernous corners. The larger baskets are exactly the right size for the space! One basket holds cards, letters, and other sentimental paper and the other basket has water colour paper and other art supplies.

The upper cabinets in the study have two cavernous corners. The larger baskets are exactly the right size for the space! One basket holds cards, letters, and other sentimental paper and the other basket has water colour paper and other art supplies.

Two more of the large baskets stacked one on top of the other. One holds notebooks, the other blank paper. These are easily accessible when I open a cabinet door, and I need to pull them out to get to the baskets in the corner.

Two more of the large baskets stacked one on top of the other. One holds notebooks, the other blank paper. These are easily accessible when I open a cabinet door, and I need to pull them out to get to the baskets in the corner.

As an aside, this was another brilliant storage idea I had this week. I put linens, pajamas, exercise clothes, and work clothes in separate cloth bags that I can squish into two cabinets instead of having the whole mess spill into three cabinets. It's not an ideal storage solution, but it makes the best use of the space I have and I'm finding it to be easy to live with.

As an aside, this was another brilliant storage idea I had this week. I put linens, pajamas, exercise clothes, and work clothes in separate cloth bags that I can squish into two cabinets instead of having the whole mess spill into three cabinets. It’s not an ideal storage solution, but it makes the best use of the space I have and I’m finding it to be easy to live with.

Medium size baskets fit side-by-side in one cabinet and hold books.

Medium size baskets fit side-by-side in one cabinet and hold books.

Getting these upper cabinets into shape has become my priority for the weekend as I am still debating the rustic flooring option. Since I will be doing away with some storage space when I get rid of the dinette benches and the bed base in the study, I need to make room to move the items in those locations. I don’t think this will be too onerous.

One dinette bench holds only a few small kitchen appliances like the blender, and there is plenty of room for all that in the new over fridge cabinet. The other dinette bench holds journals and photographs I inherited from my dad. I will be able to fit the journals into the study overhead cabinets by the time I’m through with them. The pictures will be sorted into my photo album or, if they are too large, will find a place of honour on what little wall space I have. Finally, the bed base holds some winter gear I can transfer to a tote in the basement and some linens I am thinking of using as a lining for new curtains. So, really, there isn’t that much I need to make space for, but the space needs to be there.

I have begun the dinettectomy, but, being the tease that I am, pictures will wait until I aim further along in the process. 😀

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Home Depot-made Decisions

I went to Home Depot tonight to get the thingamabob that I’m missing to connect my dishwasher to the faucet. I don’t even want to admit where I put the dishwasher. 🙂 As I suspected, the missing part is not ‘common’, as the seller told me it was. But the price I paid was worth the finagling that will be necessary to hook up the appliance. The Home Depot plumbing helper told me to come back with the part I’m trying to hook up to the faucet seeing as the pics weren’t enough (he was impressed that I brought pictures!). The dishwasher has two hoses that screw into this part I’ll be bringing in, so the thingamabob might end up replacing the part altogether. Home Depot Guy and I are looking forward to MacGyvering a solution together. 🙂

Next, I went to flooring to ogle the Allure once more and gasped when I saw a new-old option. Turns out that Traffic Master got a bad batch of my third choice for the new floors. The colour’s apparently off, but it looks great to me. They really want to get through that batch and are selling the boxes for 36$ each. Regular price 56$. And I might need 10 boxes to do the rig end to end, for a total potential savings of 200$ by going with the flooring I like rather than the one I love! I checked with Home Depot and the price will stay until the entire batch is liquidated, and there could be millions of boxes of the stuff across North America. So, even if I were to buy only two or three boxes at a time, budget permitting, the price is guaranteed for a long time, and if the Home Depot here runs out they can get me some from another store.

Seeing as I have four days off ahead of me, I am crunching the numbers to see if I can afford the three boxes it’ll take for me to do the front room. Once the new floor’s in, I’ll be able to get my counter extension in and do a few other cheap projects. My only concern is that the flooring I’m considering is not going to look good with the current cabinetry, so I’m wondering if I’ll be able to live with the mismatch until I end up painting. Most likely yes. 🙂

Getting the front room ready for new flooring is going to be a project unto itself. It involves taking the dinette apart completely, including sawing through a steel seatbelt frame, as well as sawing through the bolts holding the two bucket chairs in place. And, of course, I’ll need to pull up the hardwood flooring in the kitchen. So, this will be a much bigger project than it was the first time around, but I look forward to having unified, easy-to-maintain flooring from one end of the RV to the other, as well as no thresholds to bang my toes on.

So, there you have it. The renos I’m embarking on aim to turn a blah RV into a cute little cottage on wheels. Let’s see how I do. 😀

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Pay Day Surprise

My first pay day at the gas station is tomorrow, so I was given my pay stub today seeing as I’m going to be off the next four days. I knew that the cheque would be more generous than I had calculated because I no longer need to have extra money taken off to pay to Revenue Quebec (whee!), but the amount seemed really off. So, I looked at the hourly rate and discovered, to my great pleasure, that I’m being paid a dollar more an hour than I had been told at hiring!

A dollar more an hour might not sound like much, but it’s significant. At a 24 hour part-time schedule (which is what I’ve been having so far) paid at minimum wage I could not meet my fixed expenses. At nine dollars an hour I can. If I get up to 40 hours a week, then I’ll be able to live. It won’t be enough for the other things I need to be saving up for, spring travel and renos, but it would be enough to live comfortably for the winter and to travel. So, a dollar more an hour is extremely significant and I’m grateful. There was also a nice note on the pay stub from the owner.

Today is the start of a 4-day weekend that will end with a brutal 6AM start time next week. I had made a note to myself to come home with Doritos seeing as Croft and Norma left me tons of salsa, cheese, and refried beans, so celebratory nachos were in order. Well, ‘The Chip Guy’ came in today and pulled the out dated (still edible, but too old to sell) product, which we are allowed to take home. I scored four huge bags of Cool Ranch Doritos, more than enough to get me through all that salsa, cheese, and refried beans over the next few months. As Croft would say, life is good!

My happy mood was not spoiled by the fact that the auditor came in today. He’s the guy who goes around nitpicking everything and who gave me grief for a leaf on the floor. *rolls eyes*

Next week, I have two solo eight hour closing shifts to do!

It’s amazing what a difference nine days make.

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This and That

1) I stumbled out of bed at 9:30 this morning in answer to a knock on my door. It was the mail carrier with a registered letter for me. My foggy brain was able to make out the words “Wow, first time I ever got mail at home!”

Thankfully, I’d been previously introduced to the mail carrier and she knew a bit of my story.

2) Today’s shift was great! I worked once again with the colleague who trained me the first day and things are good between us now. We work super well together, finding it easy to equitably divvy up the sucky jobs, of which there are many. Tonight, she introduced me to the slushy machine. I’d been curious about the colourful swirls of ice named after big brand sodas, like Mountain Dew and Sprite, and was surprised to learn that we get those free, too! I don’t normally drink sodas, but I’m a sucker for slushies, so I decided to try an orange one. Let’s just say I’m going to have to put a note on my mug reminding me that those things are pure sugar! 🙂 But what a treat! Business was a bit slow tonight and we gabbed a lot, which made us late for closing up. Oops. 🙂

3) I have a childhood friend with whom I’ve reconnected through Facebook whose mother also friended me. This mother has a childhood friend of her own who happens to live in Campbell River. The friend and I will be meeting for coffee this week. Do I know anyone who doesn’t know someone who lives in Campbell River? 😀

*moves away from the light tone*

4) I found out yesterday that an aunt, my only one on my dad’s side (his sister) passed away suddenly on Sunday. Going back east for the funeral on Friday isn’t an option, unfortunately. My thoughts go out to my cousins and their families as well as my uncle.

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Home Office in an RV

Post updated on July 9, 2011: go to this post to see my current home office in an RV.

I was tidying up the study tonight and realised that it was the perfect time to post ‘before’ pictures of my home office.

This is pretty much what it usually looks like (give or take a cup or water glass and a few sheets of paper) when I’m stationary. When I’m on the road, everything is put away. It’s therefore very hard to work effectively when I’m on the move. The makeover’s aim in this area is to make the home office area of my RV functional at all times.

Just about the only thing that works in the current set up is the cubby hole of sorts at the end of the ‘sofa’ where I have my all-in-one laser printer/scanner/copier/fax machine and my box of files.

The first change I want to make is to put the bookcase on the other side of the desk to free up access to the electrical panel. You can’t see it in the pictures, but I have a shredder stashed away behind the bookcase. It’s easily accessible when I need it and tucked away when I don’t.

The second change I will make is to mount my UPS under the desk and make a hole in the desk through which I will feed all the wires. Changing to a wireless mouse and keyboard option is not an option, so the amount of wireage is here to stay. The other wires are for the USB hub, the iPod charger, the camera, the cell phone, the PowerBook, the calculator, the printer, and the main power cord for the iMac (whew!). What I would like would be to not have to unplug and put all those wires away every time I pack up but rather have them sticking neatly out of a hole in the desk ready for use with either the Powerbook or the iMac when I stop.

The third change will be to find a permanent home for my supply cubbies. As you can see in the pictures, each little drawer is labeled so I can find what I need easily. The top three drawers have ‘pens’, ‘pencils’ (as well as erasers and sharpeners), and ‘markers’ (everything from highlighters to sharpies). The middle two drawers have ‘tape’ (and related fasteners like glue and staples) and ‘scissors’ (and related cutters like X-acto knives). The single bottom drawer has ‘rulers’ (including a tape measure, and also a three-hole punch). My overstock office supplies like notepads, envelopes, the label maker, and paperclips are in bins in an the overhead cabinet. When I move, I have to put the cubbies under the desk, facing the wall, and wedge them in place with the over-turned chair otherwise the drawers fly out. I think that nuts and bolts would secure the cubbies to the desk while elastics in an ‘X’ formation will keep the drawers in place but I’m still pondering the aesthetics of this plan.

Fourth, I want to set myself up an in and outbox system, which will simply be a two or three pocket filer affixed to the wall between the old lounge bar/new study cabinet and the window. I don’t like to keep a lot of paper lying around, trying to deal with it as it comes in so that I don’t get a huge mountain, but I occasionally have some things in progress that are better being left out than being filed right away.

Finally, I  will be sticking my family photos to my walls rather than have them sit on top of the cubbies where they must be put away every time I travel. I have thus far avoided sticking too many things to my walls, but now that I know I’ll be here for a while, I don’t mind. I’m just going to wait to paint first. I have used 3M command picture hanging strips (check out my comments to this post as ‘TravelingRae’) with great success and will continue to use them during my renos.

These pictures show that it is possible to have a complete functional office in an RV if that is something which is a priority to you. I’m lucky in that I have a whole room to devote to my home office (even though the office is concentrated in a third of the room), but I can imagine a similar set up in a spare closet (class As actually have those!) or a dining area.

My study is the room in Miranda that works best for me and which will need only very minor structural tweaking, with the most major changes planned being cosmetic. I’m very glad that I had the good sense to buy an RV with this room in the back rather than trying to do double duty in the living room or bedroom of a class A.

I’ve thought a few times about how a queen-bed layout in this room would have given me some better storage options (like mini-wardrobes), but, ultimately, the twin-bed layout with overhead cabinets has given me a much more open room better suited for conversion to a study. Behind the desk, on the opposite wall, is currently the base for a twin bed over which I have a drawer in which I keep printer paper. That drawer will soon be sent to another part of the rig (and the paper relegated to an overhead cabinet) while the base (which is like a big storage trunk) will be dismantled to give me space to put in a dresser. A Queen-bed layout with cabinets against the back wall only would never have given me so many options for the room’s layout!

This room’s fantastic functionality has inspired me to do great things with the front room’s tiny footprint. All in good time!