You can have too many shoes.... or cats

We're on the road heading back to Denver after our first long-ish term adventure in the Imp AND we've just hit 6 months of living exclusively in 162 square feet with all of our stuff and two rambunctious cats.

Here's all of our worldly possessions at the beautiful Trinidad Lake State Park: 

 

So, it seems like a good time to look at what our observations are so far.  

The biggest challenges that we encountered were actually all related to living small.  


When we lived in our condo, we had 998 square feet of space, and it was pretty empty. We didn't have a lot of "stuff", but we thought that we had more than plenty of stuff to be comfortable.  In preparing to move into the RV, we garage-saled, donated and pitched about 2/3 of our stuff so that it all fit in the available storage in and under the rig.

Once we got everything inside, we had to find a place for it.

Which leads to observation and caution #2:  Label everything.  I couldn't find the coffee for 3 days after moving into the rig - and then it took another 2 days to find the sugar!  (Ask the husband how well I handle mornings without coffee - I'm a complete knucklehead.)

It was in the storing process that we discovered that you really can have too many shoes..... or dishes or pinto beans or cats..... (We're sort of just kidding about the 😼.)


Once we were in and more or less knew where we had put everything, we learned that even if you have the most awesome comfy living space, if you don't leave it for at least a few hours every day (meaning at least 4 to 6), you will go completely insane.  

Right around Christmas/New Years, we both got the flu and ended up trapped inside for about 2 weeks.  (Texas weather didn't cooperate either so sitting outside wasn't even an option.)  By the time we felt well enough to leave the "comforts" of the rig, we were sick of the inside, sick of each other and sick of being sick!  (The cats were annoying too 😉 )


The last observation is one that we've already commented on a few times: RV designers and manufacturers totally suck at design and decoration. Do your own damn thing with the inside and outside of your rig.  Factory installed seating and upholstery - pitch it or change it!  Swoops and swishes on the outside?  Steam them off and order custom decals from sellers on Etsy!

Here's a preview of one of our new decals:

 

Finally, we've learned that this is a weird little life that we've chosen. There are a lot of, um, interesting people who've also chosen this life (and a lot of them make us look mainstream and normal!)