Small Space Storage

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Maybe you saw some of the videos before of our stockpile and storage areas and are wondering how we keep all that in our 400 sq foot camper? Today I’m going to show you how we make the most of our storage space and how we are still able to have a stockpile, even in such a small home.

So come on into our camper and see how we do small space storage…

In our camper we actually have very little undercarriage space. The majority of what we do have is taken up by batteries, propane tanks, and the water and sewer tanks. Our ceiling inside the rv is higher than normal so we have less space under neath because of that as well.

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We store a few random things in the bottom of the camper. The nice thing about this area is that it’s heated just like the main part of the camper because our camper has a true 4 seasons package. Nothing underneath will freeze so I’m safe to store foods and other items there.

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In the bottom we have a big tote of bathroom supplies (new toothpastes, deodorant, shampoos, ect). Extra bathroom tissue and facial tissue is actually stored in the bathroom where I have a very narrow (but still fits a lot) cupboard. We also have a couple big buckets from some of our bulk foods underneath the camper. Much of the rest of the storage space under there is filled with my home canned foods. These we have in totes and crates and Jar Boxes (we are replacing the crates with the JarBoxes so nothing clinks together while moving) and they are fairly easily accessible from the side. I do keep a couple jars in my kitchen so I don’t have to go outside in my pjs each time I want peaches on my oatmeal!

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Another thing we will store under the camper is water. Water storage will be very important to us in the winter just in case our heated water hose freezes. I plan to store 2 weeks worth of water for all of us. (1 gallon per person per day is recommended). I found these Reliance 6 Gallon Water Storage Containers at my local Walmart but they are a very seasonal item…I see that Amazon carries them too. For more on storing water you may want to read this post — Storing Water. A little more on water… we also have a Berkey Filter(HIGHLY recommended) in the camper to purify any drinking water AND we hooked up a whole house filter onto our house (we won’t be able to have that in the winter though).

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Moving on to inside the camper. We really only have a few main places for storage in here. The biggest being the loft. Our camper came with a loft (2 beds) which are above the bunkhouse room. We don’t use these beds for sleeping since it’s just the 3 of us but we do use them for storage! On one side I have some blankets stacked and our boxes of winter clothes (each of us has 1 tote of winter clothes). On the other side I have 2 large totes that are my “pantry”. Any food items that we don’t need right away or might have 2 of go up here. Instead of having to continually check what is up there, I made a list of all the items in my “pantry” and mark things off when I use them. This also helps for my monthly food budget orders because then I know exactly what I need when I make my meal plans for the month.

That’s pretty much it. Of course we have normal, everyday use items in various places around the camper but those are the places where we keep the majority of our “stockpile”. What happened to the rest of what we had? We got it of it. When I cleaned out the house in preparation to move into the camper we either gave away or sold all the food and health and beauty items that we were no longer using. It turns out that we had a lot still of things that we weren’t going to use and no longer needed (such as wheat berries…we are gluten free now!). I only kept what we were going to eat and as for health and beauty…most of that went since we primarily make your own everything now with a few simple ingredients.

How do you keep your stockpile in a small space? How do you manage it and keep it efficient? What small space storage ideas do you have?

merissabio

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11 Comments

  1. I love seeing how you can live in such a small place. My family and I are trying to figure out if we could live in an RV to save money and be free to live anywhere. It is nice to see how you can still stockpile and buy in bulk.
    My biggest concern is my freezer. We have an upright freezer that is always full. Where/ how do you store your meat? I would love a pic or diagram of your fridge/ freezer. Also how do you store the clothes you wear during the week if you didn’t have a closet? The RVs we have been looking at don’t have closets!
    I have a teenage daughter and all 3 if us at one time lived in a small bedroom cause we were living with my parents so I know we can live in a small space I am just worried about certain things about RV living and storage! We have lived out of storage totes so that wouldn’t be a problem. I guess I am needing any advice you may be able to give me!
    Thanks!

    1. Our camper has a closet that we hang clothes in, I do have a post coming up about that though, we just have very few clothes. And the freezer situation I’m in the process of working on, I can do a post on that once I figure it out too!

  2. This is really inspiring, particularly since it turns out your camper and our house have the identical square footage!

  3. I always appreciate seeing how others store extra things. Even though we haven’t gotten to the place where we have a ton of extra, with our plans to also move into an RV, I now have some ideas for that space 🙂

  4. We used the “suck bags” for our clothing storage. It worked great for storing seasonal clothes, extra blankets, special occasions clothes. We either stacked them in the closet or under the bed or in the storage compartments (the basement!). Other fulltime rv’ers would store their seasonally clothes with family or friends and then make a trip back to see them when they needed the change of clothes!
    I had the big closet and my husband had a closet about 8 inches wide. His button shirts were layered on one hanger!! He loved it, just peeled a new shirt every day without thinking about what to wear!!
    Fortunately our freezer was very roomy and often I would by bulk meats and freeze. We noticed in our travels some long term rv’s were allowed to have a small freezer outside.
    Hope these ideas help someone!

  5. I am so thrilled I found your site Merissa! We also live in our 5th Wheel full time and it seems that we have a lot of other things in common as well. This was a very helpful article about storage and I have a question for you. Where did you guys get the netting that clips to the ceiling to keep the totes secure?
    Thanks!!!