Baking--Camper Style

Ingenuity.  I think you have to have it to survive living in such a small space.  We have to crate one of our dogs, Joey, during the day due to his severe separation anxiety.  The shelter had told us he was rescued from an animal hoarding situation.  He freaks if you leave him alone without the safety of his crate.  Fred, our other rescue, does great without the aid of the crate.  So, every morning, we put Joey in his crate with some toys, and go to work/school.  Breaking it down every night, just to have to put it up again during the day got old, fast, so I'm working with it.  I have limited counter space, so I put my chopping block on the top of the crate and have created an island work space.  Since I'm a midget 5'2", it's the perfect height for me to prep my meals. 

 

Mornings with kids are hectic regardless of where you live or what you live in.  Now that we are getting into a groove, I thought I'd prep breakfast for the week on Sunday night.  I made these yummy egg muffins.  Full of peppers, onions, ham and cheese, they were delicious.  My kids hated them, naturally.  It called for 8 eggs, which we have in abundance since we raise pastured chickens and eggs. But, I share this with you because I finally used my little oven!  It did great!  I did have to open the door to the camper because it got a bit smoky since the oven was set at 400 degrees. 

I also installed this magnetic knife bar because of the limited drawer and counter space.  I love it!!!!

No more major disasters in the camper since the flood.  Our slide out did leak during a particularly heavy rain, but my camping guru friend has shared how to fix the issue. 

Seriously blessed to have this life!

My Husband is a GENIUS!

I say this half jokingly.  My hubby is very bright, I like to think a bit brighter than bright, but when he came to me about 6 weeks ago and suggested we buy a camper to live in while we build our home, I thought he was an idiot.  I remember that I was at the sink cleaning up dinner dishes and he made this announcement.  "Hear me out before you say no."  I hate it when he prefaces ideas like this.  Then he dropped the bomb.  "What about buying a camper, living in it while we build the house, and that way, we put the money we'd pay in rent somewhere into an asset we can benefit from? We can have the camper paid for in 9 months and it's OURS.  We won't be paying someone else's mortgage.  We will have a place to vacation in for years."  I was silent.  I remember just looking at him, batting my eyes like a frog in a hail storm.  Then, I realized that what he was saying made sense.  So, we bought a camper.  We bought a nice camper.  So nice that it even has a leather couch, surround sound, and outdoor kitchen (with an additional fridge!) and bunk room for the kids.  If I'm going to live in something that will test my sobriety and sanity, it needs to be worth it. 

I thought I'd take you for a tour.  It took us several days to get it set up for occupancy, and I'm going to give you my honest reviews of living in a camper with 3 kids under the age of 7, 2 dogs, and keeping our sanity. 

Here we go!

 35.5 feet long... which equals less than  300 sq ft of living space.  We were excited to start our new adventure!

 Our little kitchen.  We call kitchens like this "one butt kitchens" because that's all that will fit. 2 drawers, 3 cabinets and a micro fridge.  It's taken a lot of adjustment to work in here, but we've done it!  I have to grocery shop weekly instead of every 2 weeks, and we have 2 big freezers at our business.  We've also set up a "pantry" of all our canned goods at the business for storage. I have to plan ahead on dinners.  Just last night I had to tell Shannon to bring home some chicken breasts and ketchup for dinner tonight.  Not a big adjustment, but an additional step for meal planning and prep. 

 Our living room.  The couch folds out to a bed and so does the kitchen table.  We haven't used them for such but the dogs enjoy the couch bed. 

 This is the kid's bunk room.  The two smaller kids pull out the futon and they sleep there.  There are no railings on the side of the bunks, and they don't want to sleep up there yet.  lol  So, every day, we make up the bed and that's where they saw logs.  The top bunk is used for storage and we've kept the plastic on the mattress so it doesn't get damaged. The green bin has toys, and the drawers hold the girl's clothes.  This is a slide out so we have to shuffle some stuff when we're traveling. 

 This is our oldest daughter's bed.  She loves to read and has her own reading light above her head.  Underneath, they have their TV and DVD player.  This is a God send when Shannon and I want to watch something and they can watch Trolls for the 538th time.  The cabinets underneath hold diapers for the little guy, and his clothes. 

 The "One Butt" bathroom.  It's small, but we have really utilized vertical space by incorporating the over door baskets.  They are now full.  You don't realize how much stuff you need for a family of 5 until you downsize.  The factory shower head was replaced with a water saving one we bought at Camping World.  We only have 6 gallons of hot water at a time, so this is a great upgrade I would recommend!

 The sales person was VERY excited to share that this is a real CERAMIC toilet.  I don't really know why that's so impressive.  lol  What is more impressive is the genius of Command Strips!  Those white baskets looking at you?  Command Strip baskets. AH-MAzing! Holds lots of goodies in there. 

 I bought a Command Strip hand towel bar to hand my hair dryer and curing iron basket on. I bought this awesome contraption at Target.  I also really like the door in the bathroom.  No, seriously.  It's genius.  If your kids are like mine, they go potty 90 times a day.  Not to mention a potty training toddler.  So, while they are out playing, they can go in and out all day long without going through the whole house.  I mean camper.  Also, if you want to check the weather while your doing your morning constitutional, open the door!  It's great I tell you!

Under the kitchen sink is a LARGE space for all your kitchen gadgets and such.  I ordered on Amazon the shelving with drawers on the left and the pot/skillet rack on the right.  Great space savers.  I went minimal when deciding what to bring.  And I can't live without my crock pot.  I do want to put a light in here though.  It's dark as a cave. 

This is our tiny pantry across from the bathroom.  Again, I ordered shelving, and have had to organize our needs.  No crazy bulk shopping for us any longer!  We buy what we need.  It's actually liberating. 

This is evidence that the dogs have a great life.  Fred and Joey sleep on their bed every night.  Rotten, I say.

So, that's the grand tour!  I'll do a separate post on our room, and other storage spaces.  It's not large by any means, but it will make you appreciate your master suites!