After spending the winter and much of the summer of 2013-14 in the nice, big RV (28-foot), it was finally time to move into the 14-foot tiny trailer full-time. One nearly full-size bed was not going to be sufficient for long. The boy needed his own bed. First we had to relocate our cubbies from their present location between the dinette bench and my bed.
Shelves over my bed seemed the best solution. I pondered how to accomplish this and decided the best option was the ShelfTrak hang tracks and brackets found at Home Depot. I got 24-inch hang tracks, thinking that’s what I needed but when I got started, I realized I would need to cut them down to 12 inches. My space is 80 inches long, but my luana board shelves were only 48 inches long, so I made two staggered shelves. That works well for us, one on his side, one on my side. Even enough extra shelf for kitty to curl up on. Once I got the shelves on the brackets, I found they tilted too far forward, so I took some 1x3s, which seem to be one of my standard supplies for the trailer, and attached them across the front ends of the shelves. The finishing touches were some brightly colored scarves to cover the bare wood and metal and our cubbies.
Now we were ready to make the bed. The boy had been sleeping on some luana boards we had laid across from the dinette bench to my bed. It was OK, but unsteady. So we got some 3/4-by-24-by-48-inch particle board from Home Depot and laid that down. It was almost there. We cut the second piece of particle board in half lengthwise and laid the extra 12-inch next to the 24-inch wide board. We procured a small mattress from a fold-away bed and voila! The boy has his own bed. My 2-inch foam mattress was not giving me much comfort, so on a stop at the Homestead, we moved a regular twin mattress onto my bed. Ah, much better.
We still have to paint, replace the flooring and some of the paneling, but here’s an idea of what the mobile homestead looks like now. We’re living pretty comfy, especially since we’ve made it to warmer climes for the winter.
For more mobile homesteading adventures, come see us at Mrs. D’s Homestead. Don’t forget to check out my new book, “The Working Parent’s Guide To Homeschooling.”
