British Columbia

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Dressing Room Resolution

While I pondered the bucket chair problem, I decided to make a run into Courtney, a decent-sized community size between Campbell River and Nanaimo. Courtney has something that I miss a lot when I don’t have access to it: Walmart. For someone who used to be 100% anti-Walmart, I am now incredibly reliant on them. Where else can you go for a good quality selection of household goods at such fair prices? Canadian Tire and Sears, and sometimes Zellers, have the same stuff, but for about 30% more. There’s no date yet for the opening of the Campbell River Super Walmart and I got sick of waiting since I found on the walmart.ca website the solution to my dressing room problem.

I have mentioned that I wanted to put a lingerie chest next to the shower but was having a problem finding one the right size. As I searched, I tried to figure out how the heck I was going to secure something that massive and heavy. I thought of just sticking with my super ugly plastic tower, but that’s not securable, either, and it always crashes down at some point during my travels.

The solution isn’t as nice as a wooden dresser, but it looks a heck of a lot better than does plastic. It’s lightweight, durable, and flexible, and I have at least five ideas of how I can secure it for travel:

I bought two of these ‘ClosetMax 3 drawer storage units‘ and stacked them one on top of the other (so, no casters). The frame is metal and the drawers glide much better than I would have expected. They fit perfectly width and depthwise into the corner by the shower and there’s a couple of feet between the top of the second one and the ceiling.

Now comes the best part; getting my wardrobe organized once and for all. I’ve said that a few times, but I think that this might finally be the big IT. Except for my wardrobe needing new doors… There are not enough hours in a day. 😀

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Bucket Chair Dilemma

I put an ad out on Craigslist offering my bucket chairs free and, to my surprise, I got a few responses, with one being serious. Okay, now I need to get the bucket chairs out of the lounge, and fast!

I thought the chair nearest to the cab would be easy to pull out since I was pretty sure the bolts were accessible from the battery compartment. Ha ha ha ha ha.

As you can see in this picture, two of the bolts are hidden behind the compartment wall. I pulled as much of the wall as I could and was able to remove the nut on the bolt closest to the door. The fourth though, is a nightmare. I’m not a small gal and I simply cannot get both arms in there, one to hold the wall down and one to loosen the nut.

And let’s not get into the other chair. The bolts are hidden behind the fresh water tank.

Croft’s suggestion was to remove the bolts from above by grinding them. Nice in theory, but I tried that today and am certain that it will result in my burning my house down. I really don’t know if I should be doing anything that shoots hot metal sparks in all directions in such a small space.

The only good that came of this part of today is that I discovered that the top portion of my narrow pass-through is practically empty. I have space to put patio furniture!

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Visitors

Norma’s worst nemeses were wandering around the front yard when I stepped out of the rig this afternoon.

Don’t worry, Norma, there’s plenty of green stuff left! Pictures of said green stuff is forthcoming. I just forgot to snap some so in awe of the deer was I. 🙂

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I frequently see these two wandering around the grounds of the gas station. They lived up the hill that climbs behind the property.

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Being Stared At

People were staring at me while I was out running errands the last few days. While Campbell Riverites were bundled up against the double digit temps and sunny skies, I was out and about in a tee-shirt, light sweater, and sandals. Nothing says “I’m not from here!” like wearing what locals consider to be seasonally inappropriate clothes. 😀

The nights have been cold, however. I went to the house for my shower at about 3:30 this morning before going to bed and there was frost on the car. It’s still not cold enough to warrant putting the electric heaters on full blast, much less firing up the furnace.

With all that sunshine in the last few days, I’m due to post an update about Norma’s gardens!

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RV Bathroom Organization

I’m blessed with an RV bathroom that has a decent amount of storage. The cabinet over the vanity has plenty of space for bottles and small containers, and there is a decent amount of space under the sink, too. What’s missing are drawers to hold all the little pieces a woman tends to accumulate in her bathroom, from hair accoutrements to nail files. I’ve been using a plastic storage bin by the shower, but that space has slowly been encroached upon by clothing and I want to replace that ugly plastic thing with a proper dresser.

From almost day one, I knew exactly what I needed to perfect the storage in the bathroom, but finding the item was incredibly difficult. It needed to be see-through and preferably mesh rather than vinyl or plastic. I couldn’t find a see-through one, never mind mesh, and I started to just look for long slender boxes to fit into the over-sink cabinet.

While wandering aimlessly around Liquidation World today after looking at their furniture offerings, I found IT!!! And for just $10 to boot.

I’ll need to make some adjustments since it’s a bit too big for the space, but behold the ‘over door pocket organizer’!

I’ve obviously set it up so that the pockets face into the toilet room so as to not spoil the aesthetics of the dressing room.

It’s made to hang on hooks that go around the top and bottom of the door, but once I make the necessary nips and tucks I will screw the organizer to the door so that it lies more neatly and also to not have those hooks protruding on the other side.

If your RV has a solid wood door, this is an excellent storage option.

Having found the pocket organizer, I’ll be able to move all the bathroom stuff out of the storage tower and move clothes into it. Hopefully, I’ll find a dresser soon. A very helpful guy at Home Depot told me to poke around the website seeing as some things available in larger stores could possibly be shipped to Campbell River. And while at Home Depot, I figured out exactly what I’m going to do to reduce some of the condensation problems in both the study and the loft. Stay tuned for the next riveting chapter of Extreme Makeover: RV Edition! 🙂