Small Space Storage and Organization

Papa and I are no strangers to small spaces.  In fact, we kind of have a thing for them.    One of the things we have learned about small spaces is that you really need to think outside the box with them.  You really have to search out the nooks and crannies with them, unlike larger spaces.  Our current small space, the camper, is a work in progress, but I wanted to share some of the tricks we've employed to make three and a half months of five people living in about 300 square feet possible.

Let's start with this little corner!

This is our menu board, fruit basket, and the kids' art supplies.  The menu board was inspired by the one here.  The idea was great, but I needed it to go a step further.  One of my downfalls in life is that I have a ridiculously difficult time coming up with ideas for side dishes - or even remembering to think of them in a timely manner.  So, I set up the menu board to help me with this.  Each color of clothespin is one day.  There is a color for each day of the week.  The top row is for the main dish.  The middle row is for a veggie or fruit side.  The bottom row is for a starch based side.  I made the little strips of construction paper and wrote down all of our options on them. Red is beef, orange is pork, yellow is chicken, and green is main dishes with fish or veggies.  Blue is sides.  I store all of the strips in zip top baggies for now, but I would like to find some type of little cups I can hang on the wall for them.  At the beginning of the week, the kids and I plan out our menu for the week.

Next up is our fruit basket.  Don't mind that it seems to be a bit sideways.  We started out with a long, narrow basket at the back of the table, along the wall.  But with Elliott's reach getting longer and longer, we were growing short on tabletop space.  Then I saw this basket on pinterest, and my wheels got to spinning!  But I felt that the rigid metal in that basket might bruise delicate fruit.  So we found this basket with the wire frame wrapped in raffia, and it seemed to be just the thing.

Last is the under cabinet basket of art supplies.  I originally saw the idea here, and it was the perfect solution for the conundrum of where to put the kids' things that we didn't want the baby to get in to.  This one holds the coloring books, crayons, dry erase boards and dry erase crayons and markers.

The one on this side holds paper page books.  And just beyond it is our spice storage.  The top basket came from the bathroom section of Walmart.  It came with suction cups which we removed and then screwed it to the wall.  The lower one came from a thrift store and has two levels.  Honestly, though, we have more spices than we can fit in this set up.  We would prefer to have 3 of the larger ones.  We just haven't sprung for them yet.

This is some of our storage and organization in the dining area.  I'll share more from the kitchen and bath next week!

Things We Love

I am a declutterer.  When the tension is high, I start moving things out.  I really try to keep my life and my home filled with things that are useful, beautiful and that I love

Now that we are in the midst of a cross country move (again), I've gone through every item in our home again and moved on everything we can live without.  Yet, we had to rent two trailers and a moving truck to move all of our things here.

This is such a stark contrast to living in a camper!  And yet, we are not the least bit sorry about it.  On the contrary, our entire family has come to realize how much we love the possessions we have collected, because each item is carefully selected.

We have enjoyed our time in the camper, and we are grateful that we have been able to stay together during this phase of our move.  But we are happily searching out our own little farm now!

 While Walter is looking forward to having ALL of his things back, I am most excited about my favorite rocking chair again.

Mom Hacks Monday - Easy Glass Jugs

I wrote a few weeks ago about our goal to have a 90% plastic free house, and how we accomplished that goal with very little money.  One of our early challenges was our dishes.  We didn't want to use plastic for the things that we ate.  I drink a glass of orange juice every day, and drink decaf tea all day long.  We had a few plastic pitchers that needed quick replacement.  But the price of glass pitchers can be a bit high.  Even at the thrift store, they can be expensive.

And at the same time, we were trying to feed our child and ourselves good foods.  We did our best to buy hormone and antibiotic free milk.  We discovered a few great companies at the grocery store who produced a great natural milk product, and packaged it in glass jars!  Win, win.  We loved the milk, and the fact that they came packaged in glass was a total bonus for us, since it helped us keep the plastic in the house down and kept it away from our food.  When we finished a jug, we took it back to the store and we got about $1 refund for it!  Perfect!

And then we realized that $1 was a pretty inexpensive glass pitcher for our tea and juice!  So, we saved the jugs and reused them.  They came with plastic caps, but that still made the container at least 90% plastic free.  At least, that is, until the lids broke.  Then Papa, in his infinite wisdom and hardware store knowledge came home one day with giant corks from the hardware store!  Ding, ding!  Winner, winner!!  Now, all of our jug that touched the beverage was plastic free!

We've been dairy free for almost 4 years now, and those jugs are STILL the perfect solution for glass beverage containers.  Best of all, they fit right in the pocket of the refrigerator door, even in the camper!

Life at the Campground

My post about living in the camper was so popular last week that I thought I'd just share some images from around the campground this week.

Walter enjoying our favorite afternoon activity - splashing in the mini washtub.

Not that we mind swimming in the big pool, either!

Elliott doing some gardening.

And the fruits of our labors.

Walter, sporting his new haircut.  Yes, I said haircut.

Sofi has taken up photography!  A rare shot of me, enjoying a cuddle with my little man.

Walter hanging out in a play silk.

And this friendly toad that we found!