How Do You Say Goodbye to Your House?
Well somewhat goodbye, we luckily are able to rent it out.
We still can’t believe we went from 1800sq feet to a lot less! But it’s been the coolest thing we’ve ever done. There’s no doubt that you have to purge some belongings. A lot of people wonder how we made the transition and what in the world did we do with all that stuff?
TRANSITION FROM HOUSE TO APARTMENT
Unlike some others, we didn’t go directly from our house to an RV. We had an apartment first but that was a transition from 1800sq feet to 700 sq feet. Our apartment had a small storage unit on the outside that we could store some stuff.
California Apartment
3 Bedrooms to 1 Bedroom
The hardest thing for me to lose was our walk-in closet. That did require getting rid of some clothes to make room in a much smaller apartment closet.
One bedroom of our house was an office and the other 2 were the master and guest bedroom. We trashed the guest bed since donation places don’t take mattresses anymore. We took the office desk with us and sold the office cube shelves. The guest bedroom furniture we kept for our apartment bedroom and sold the cube shelving in our bedroom. Luckily, before buying our new bedroom set, we were moving.
4 Bathrooms to 1 Bathroom
Honestly this was tragic. But we gave away a good amount of bathroom items and trashed a little more. We only brought bathroom items from one bathroom.
Living Room & Kitchen
We kept the living room couches and tv stand, the basement bar, kitchen table and stools. We got rid of our basement couch since it was pretty old anyway and we were planning to replace it.
Televisions
We had 6 televisions in our house(I know don’t judge us!). We took 3 with us. We sold the other 3 to family and people in the neighborhood.
Kitchen Appliances
We brought most of our kitchen appliances and gave the rest to goodwill.
Office Supplies, Keepsakes & Files
Our apt had a small outdoor storage unit that we put anything that didn’t fit in the apt, in containers outside.
TRANSITION FROM APT TO 18 FT RV
After living in the apartment for a year, we downsized from 700sq feet to 100 sq feet in our Winnebago Winnie Drop travel trailer.
Our Winnebago Winnie Drop travel trailer
Storage Unit
Moving from the apartment, we knew we would need a storage unit. In case we didn’t like living full-timing in an RV, we wouldn’t have gotten rid of our stuff yet. We gave ourselves 6 months to decide. We only took a couple kitchen items, our clothes, file drawer for important papers and our safe for super important items.
Kitchen Essentials
For cooking, we brought our utensils holder with all the essential utensils, a couple pans, pots and mixing bowls. We added grilling utensils since we knew we would do all the cooking outside since the smell inside a tiny space would suck. Most of the grilling items we could store in the outdoor kitchen storage compartment.
We set up the indoor kitchen sink with the utensils holder and spices rack.
Utilizing The Space Effectively
Every single spot in the RV was valuable space. We are talking an RV where the two of us barely can turn around! We turned our bunk beds basically into each of our “Closets”. Will had the top bunk and I had the bottom. We bought organizers from Ikea to put our clothes in, Walmart plastic drawers, added metal suction shelves to wall and put a hanging toiletry bag on the outside of the bathroom door.
We used the booth table folded down as our bed.
TRANSITION FROM 18 FT RV TO 38 FT RV
We went from the Winnebago Winnie Drop to the Keystone Outback 330RL. Gaining more square footage meant being able to add more items inside the RV from storage.
Sell Furniture
The bigger rig already came with furniture. We sold our couches and a TV.
Goodwill
We donated our kitchen table and chairs, and coffee table to the Goodwill. We also donated a good amount of kitchen appliances and pots and pans. Downsizing meant minimizing duplicates of items.
Storage
Even though we went up in size for the rig, we still needed a smaller storage unit. We kept items for the rig or personal items we wouldn’t need at the time in storage. When we aren’t traveling in season, it’s helpful to put items like big coolers, water hose bins, big suit cases, storage bins of keepsakes, etc. in storage.
While it can be a daunting task to drastically downsize, I have to admit that it’s liberating too. We have found that you really don’t need much to survive. A lot of items are just taking up space or they are of extreme luxury. We hope you’re able to free yourself and plan your escape to an RV.
Are you planning on downsizing to an RV or have you recently? Let us know!
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