SEPTEMBER HAPPENED.

Pictures mostly didn't.  I made curtains for the rearranged van, to cover the closet and both new shelf units,.  The visual clutter is much hidden but taking pictures inside the van never goes well.  Trust me, it's a major improvement. 

I went to a camp out in Cherokee North Carolina and did a bunch of music and took no pictures. Someone else got one of me. 

I hauled off a trailer load of stuff to the flea market and the thrift shop. There is practically nothing left in the old unit, but it includes an inversion table that I'm hoping someone will actually buy. 

My friend smashed apart the pallet racks and hauled them off. I took apart the metal rack.  The unit is getting closer to empty.

I went to my campsite and burned a bunch of old journals. I paddled my kayak and visited with the local deer. 

I sorted all my tools, and organized the hardware. That doesn't sound like much but it was little groups of three or four or 10 or 40 screws, lots of bolts, washers ,all the usual stuff that you don't dare throw out because you know it's going to be useful. It's all in little tiny baggies and in that green toolbox and the two lucite trays next to it. All on a couple of shelves in the new storage, neat and findable. 

My daughter and son in law and I went to visit Thomas Jefferson's retreat house, Poplar Forest, in Forest VA.

Now I'm headed for storage to see what I can get done this evening.

gulf of Mexico, 1.29.2020

So after several Winters in Florida, I at last got to the Gulf.  

around sunset.

I win!!!

I'm going home and maybe paddle around the lake, or maybe curl up with a fan and a good book.  It's done. 

Ok, not completely.  I still have to take a bunch of stuff to the flea market, and a bunch to the dump.  My new unit has a long long list of projects attached to it, with room to work and all materials where they belong. All the things fit in their assigned places.

And everything I'm keeping (and some things I'm not) is out of the old unit.  Everything that's still in there is going away. Phase one, mission accomplished.

Some Stuff Goes Smoothly, Other Stuff Not So Much.

Tuesday, I discovered that the shelving I had ordered for the curbside door area would not work at all. So, instead of installing shelving, I did a return and searched every local store possible for an alternative that would work. I had specific items to store in that location and wanted them accessible from both inside and outside the van.

Eventually, I realized I would have to build it myself, and the result would be better than off-the-shelf shelves ever could have been. I bought plywood, had it ripped down to the widths I needed, and texted my friend in hopes of borrowing a sander. I have tools, but not all the tools.

Yes, he had a belt sander! Even better, he said I could work in the shade of his carport with his help on Thursday.

On Thursday, I showed up at his carport with all my measurements and ideas and got to building. We got it all done, in place, and secured by the end of the day, and it fits and works wonderfully.

Here are pictures of work in progress.

My van was once a handicap bus, so the entrance is where the passenger seat would normally be. It's very tight and was always awkward when carrying anything in or out. Now, the items that have to be removed often—water, laundry, cooler, shower bag—are on the new shelves, and I can just open the side door and grab what I need.

I bought curtain rods, so today, while resting up from moving the library, I worked on curtains. To my great pleasure, I had exactly enough fabric for all of them!

That Van Redo I Keep Mentioning

I've had this van since 2019, and it's been rearranged quite a lot—it's always a work in progress. I used to have the bed across the wheel wells with a lot of storage in the back, but not much space in the living area. This accommodated my folding kayak. Last year, a friend and I completely redid my cargo trailer, and the boat lives there now.

​I was totally fed up with my cot-width bed, so it was time to start a major redo. Rearranging required me to have a place to sleep while doing the work, a place to put my things out of the weather, and a friend with muscles, tools, and a willingness to help. The old bed and loft needed to come out and a new bed built. In February, the stars aligned and all of that came together. The new bed is standard twin width and sits across the far back. There's storage below it, as well as in a storage step forward of the bed.

​The next project was a closet. I thought I would have to build one from scratch, but I found a bamboo clothes rack on Amazon that fit perfectly with only minor adjustments.

​So that part of the van had been redone and decluttered to a level I can live with—but forward of that, chaos still reigned.

 I had redesigned it in my head enough to know what I wanted, but again, the same van-life issues applied: where do you put things while rearranging and building?

Before I moved a lot of stuff into the new storage unit, I took a week to do the front of the van. On Monday, everything came out from the front area except the freezer and battery bank. Cleaning happened. I put the desk in place and screwed crates together to make shelves next to it. The fit was perfect. I had ordered a six-drawer bamboo bureau that matched my closet, and I assembled it. I put my things away in the drawers and on the shelves. It was one of those days where timing, measurements, and everything just lined up perfectly, and voilà! The driver's side was DONE!

i have since removed the spider web of bungees in favor of more aesthetically pleasing methods of keeping stuff in place while traveling.

I moved the library!

Today I'm staying in camp, enjoying the excellent weather and catching up on a few things—like the blog. Since my last post, I've mostly finished the van redo and moved the library, so where to start?

​In the old storage unit, books were on bookshelves, on wooden crates stacked as shelves, and tucked into odd nooks and crannies. Four of those crates hold up the desk box at desk height, so I emptied and moved them last week, then spent the rest of the week working on the van.

​This week, I spent Monday afternoon making sure the area in the new unit was ready for the library to move in. Yesterday (Tuesday), I got an early start: emptying shelves, moving shelves, and sorting and arranging books. I discovered I am about eight books shy of a complete Louis L'Amour set, and I found about that many duplicates to put in the "go away" pile, along with a decent number of other books.

​I also set up a whole shelf of books to read. I'll take a few at a time in the van when I leave here, read them, and either pass them on or put them in their proper category back in storage.

​I have a platform cart on wheels that's great for moving totes. It's an old leftover from my merchandising days, but still highly useful—except that after moving my stuff across the rough pavement between storage units, the rubber on the wheels is completely worn out. I hope I can replace them.

​Anyway, the entire library is moved.  Looking back at the stack of empty totes, I realized I even have extra shelves left over—a rare victory in any storage reorganization. To wrap things up, I leaned some wall art along the tops of the highest shelves, snapped a couple of pictures to mark the progress, and finally called it a day.