Kicking Things Into High Gear: Storage Rented

Saturday, 4 August

We were going to go camping this weekend.  We even had reservations.  However, when the forecast remained in the high 90F (32C+) range, and the weatherman threw into the mix high humidity and thunderstorms, we decided to cancel those plans.  After all, who wants to be out there in a 30A-site with no shade; especially if it’s going to be too uncomfortable to have fun outside.  Besides, plenty to do to keep ourselves busy at home.

We kicked full-timing prep into high gear this week.  Actually, Mui did; and I agreed it was time.  As I write this entry, our countdown clock shows us just hours from being at 117 days from retirement.

Sounds like plenty of time to get things organized.  But wait.  We have plans to visit family in October, and that’s going to shorten the prep time frame by another 21 days.  That puts us at 96 days and counting.  Definitely time to kick things into high gear.

So, the ball is rolling, and I’ll write about everything as each is completed.  For this post, I’m going to focus on what we did today — rent a storage unit for the things we want to keep for when we get off the road.  And also for things we’ll need for our non-Phaeton travels, which we’ll be continuing in parallel with our full-timing lifestyle.

This is where we’ll be storing our belongings until we’re ready to reclaim them.

After a bunch of research on Mui’s part, we decided to rent a unit in Winchester, Virginia.  We like the area and who knows, we might settle there someday.  Also, the prices are much better than they are in our immediate area — by enough to make the one-hour drive worthwhile.

Some might say that we’re jumping the gun by renting so early.  We thought of doing it later, but it turns out that climate-controlled units in the size we need are not easy to come by.  Why climate-controlled?  Well, I have all of my framed embroidery work that I simply can’t chance ruining in regular storage.  So, when this one became available, we jumped on it.  That this particular unit is on the ground floor, and has easy access for unloading stuff is a bonus that Mui’s very happy with.  The unit does not abut an exterior wall either; something that’s been on my mind since I read about the storage travails of Sue and Mo back in March 2011.

We can back in as far as the yellow pole; our unit is to the immediate right of that pole.

This should fit the bill nicely.

We did debate getting rid of everything, except my embroidery.  When we did the math, however, it became quite apparent that we’d not be able to replace the stuff we’re keeping for what it’s going to cost us to rent this space for the foreseeable future.  That we got a surprise 10% military discount off the monthly rate made the price of this unit over a smaller one more palatable.  Bonus — by paying for the first year in full, we got a month free, and the property manager waived the $18 set up fee and gave us a stainless steel, maximum security lock to secure our stuff.  Good deal, Mui!

We have plenty to bring over, but …

… this is all we stuffed into the Highlander today.

Guess who ends up doing the heavy lifting while the other one just locks up :-)

The packing has commenced, but we’ll probably just keep the boxes in the apartment unless we have occasion to come to Winchester for some reason; or we decide to do two runs in a smaller moving truck instead of one run in a bigger truck.  Either way, we will likely do the move ourselves since the ground floor unit is going to make it so much easier to unload and carry stuff.

Please, Sir, I Want Some More … Shelves

Tuesday, 6 March

More storage space — that’s what all we RV owners want.  Or perhaps I should say, a better way to organize the available storage space is what we really desire.  We’re not in a hurry to figure out how we’re going to make the most of the space available to us — yet.  After all, we’ve not really lived in the Phaeton for any length of time and we’d like to do that before we start adding storage solutions.

That said, one area proved to be a rather easy fix.  We have two medicine cabinets — one in the lavatory and one by the shower stall.  The cabinets are tall with only two widely-spaced shelves.  We really don’t have all that many tall things to put in these cabinets; thus, a lot of wasted space.

The lavatory has a medicine cabinet and a corner cabinet; the shower area has
a medicine cabinet only.

At first, Mui was going to build a stationary shelf with a lip for each of the medicine cabinets.  After nixing that idea, we talked about having Chris Berry in Red Bay, Alabama (home of the Tiffin factory) build custom shelves to match the cabinetry.  Then we came upon a portable solution that turned out to be ideal for our needs.

Removable wire baskets to the rescue.

The Elfa baskets, purchased from the Container Store, come in a variety of lengths, widths, and depths.  They lock securely in place on an easy-install track, so no worries about them popping off while we’re driving down the road.  Because they are adjustable, we can move them up and down as our needs change.

Installation was a cinch, requiring just a few self-tapping screws after Mui cut the tracks to size.  And by mounting them off-center we have space on one side for a few extra-tall items.