Our First Night as Full-Timers

Baby Steps Toward Full-Time Tiny Living

It was our first night in the RV, it was quite warm and terribly muggy. Everything was new, even figuring out how to open the windows and realizing what we hadn’t checked prior to purchase. We eventually got the window open for cross-ventilation, then got power to run from a nearby receptacle for the AC (whew). While there were challenges, we agreed that — overall — it was a great success!

Without the need to carry a rag around for wiping sweat from the brow, we moved forward with making the new rig our future home. This entailed opening every cabinet and amassing a pile of “stuff” we inherited but don’t need (scores of sheets and blankets, pots and pans, plus other personal effects left by the prior owners). After four hours, of cleaning, prepping, and downsizing, we made the bed with new sheets and fell asleep.

Midge’s current drive is 7 minutes to the health club (she’s a personal trainer), and the new drive was only 25 minutes. Having had it taken over 1.5 hours for the same drive in heavy traffic, we left with plenty of time to spare. We don’t have water hooked up yet, so the toilet is flushed with a small bucket, and showers a no-go. We’ll have this solved with all the other aspects of making the RV our “transitional tiny house.”

Seen from a Different Perspective

As a tiny house designer, I cast a critical eye upon architecture and potentially habitable living spaces. For our own needs as future “full-timers,” I’m going to spend a day out at the RV taking measurements and modeling it up in Sketchup. All the built-in cabinets are great, but there is lots of excessive space meant for temporary camping (our 34′ Arctic Fox sleeps 6). I’ve already dogeared spaces as holding the potential for conversion to suit our needs as a full-time tiny home.

As an 11 year old RV, many of the fixtures of our 5th wheel RV are out of date, and spaces without convenience of being design with more contemporary needs in mind. Case in point, the area for the TV is a deeply recessed space made for the ol’ tube TVs with spaces that are smaller (H x W) but deeper. I work from home with little need for more than a computer, internet connection, and mobile phone. Oh… and the juice to run it all!

The layout of our RV hasn’t changed much in the past decade, so the space is obviously sound from a recreational vehicle product standpoint. While originally an upscale well-insulated 4-season RV, it wasn’t built to be a habitable tiny house that was custom built to meet our needs. So it’s time to put on my professional architectural design crash helmet, and dive head-first into custom configuration.

Looking for Our Specific Needs

Since I have to consider integration of a home office, I’ll need enough for my day-to-day work and all the attendant items for running a growing tiny house startup and mobile-ready business. In addition to office space, I’m a photographer/videographer, which is an incredibly equipment intensive business. And that means a need for S.P.A.C.E. And space is where tiny houses are largely deficient.

Now I’ll admit that I have more gear than I need, and my kit is the “last man standing” where downsizing is concerned (add a small whimper and cross-arm lip-out pout here [>:-) Since I’m awaiting feedback on some tiny house design projects, my son and I are working on prepping our big house for a showing tonight. That means that today I’m attacking all the hard cases that currently sit on our built in couch. Woe to the heartache… oh the humanity.

Our Transition to the Tiny Life

So we begin our foot-in-both-worlds as we straddle the space between selling our contemporary home and squeezing our lives into an RV full-time.

To quote the song title “Time’s A-Wastin'” and the only way to git ‘er done is to GIT-R-DONE!

Wishing you all the best with your tiny transition. Here’s to figuring out how to…