The bits! Cold on the bits!

We are still working out the kinks of living in the camper. That means that you get to experience the good, bad and hilarious right along with us! So on that note, I present this video for your viewing pleasure. Don't worry, it's safe for work and rated PG.

Stay cool, readers!

The day has come!

    On Friday July 29th we made the decision that we were ready to move our new camper home to the property. There were many hours of hard physical labor that went into making this dream a reality. All of us were teetering on the edge of exhaustion and decided it was worth pushing for the last few days to be in 2 days early. There are a few last touches that need to be done but I assume this will always be a little bit of a work in progress.

We had a dream, we set a goal, we worked our asses off, and with a lot of help from our friends and family we did it! Now the real fun begins!

A Magical Forest

    Once upon a time (a few months ago) my little sister Heather made a big leap. She sold or gave away all her earthly belongings, packed up her family and moved across the country. While this may not seem like very large feat to some of you, I assure you it was a big deal to our family. We are a HUGE tight knit group and none of us have ever moved more than 2 hours drive from each other. It was quite a shock to most of us and missed every minute.
    A lot of good life lessons came out of that experience. A major lesson for me was that things don't matter and family really does. I also learned that big scary things are actually doable! You can do something wild and crazy and you will always have the safety net of friends and family if your adventure doesn't go as planned. So I looked up to my little sister (for the millionth time in my life) and decided to make the big change to camper life.
    Fast forward to today. Heathers journey has brought her back home and I'm so happy to have her here. As soon as I heard she was coming back I knew I wanted her to do a mural in the bathroom of the camper. She is an amazing artist! I have a piece she did of a girl standing in a rainstorm that I couldn't bring myself to part with so it has a special place in the camper. My other painting that she made just for me was only handed over to my other sister with a guarantee that I would take it back at some point in the future. Nothing would make this crazy adventure better than being able to look at a beautiful masterpiece every morning.
    When we removed the toilet from the camper and opted for a compost toilet (more on that later) I thought it would be a little funny to have trees painted on the wall. In my brain I pictured it as a little inside joke about all the people who just can't believe we are gonna live in a camper and potty in the woods. Now we really could potty in the woods even while parked in the suburbs! Awesome!
    So Heather came over last Friday and in just a few hours whipped up this beauty. I can't believe how great it turned out! She took my vague idea and made it amazing! She included our initials "carved" in a heart which is just super adorable. My children's initials are hidden in there as well. And the best part? The top of their initial is their height when we started this journey. She just thought to include that special touch! I will cherish it forever.
    Long blog post short, my sister is an amazing artist and the greatest of sisters and you should all be jealous!

Finally Something to Talk About!!

    The blogs have been a little few and far between in regards to the camper. There are 2 reasons for that. The first reason is that we are seriously just so busy! We wake up at 6:30 and work until we go to bed around 10:30 every night. The second reason is that it just really doesn't seem logical to give you guys the update "Painting AGAIN for the 10th day in a row!" Ha ha ha
    Things are finally moving at a pace that you can see in pictures. All the painting is done, the cabinet doors have been hung, flooring is down (and gorgeous!), Grandma Trish finished sewing all of our awesome polkadot curtains, and today Richard hung the valances to polish off the window treatments. The colors all look so bright and happy! We put in some baseboard to make everything look just a little more polished and we are working on replacing the vent covers as well as the outlets and light switches to a better matching color. We put together our Ikea sofa/bed and moved in our old buffet which will be used as an entertainment center/storage space.
    We are hoping to be in the camper this weekend to have a bit of a practice run in our driveway for a week before moving to our official landing space. Ideally this will allow us to work out any kinks and also make it a little easier to clean out the house. Check out the mini tour video Richard filmed below and stay tuned for more updates!

Marathon Ikea-ing (yes, that's a verb.)

    We lugged all of our belongings out on to the front lawn and had yet another downsizing yard sale on saturday. It's exciting to make money on things and see other people finding joy in your old things. However it's exhausting to yard sale all day every weekend. By Saturday evening I was trying to convince Richard we should just give everything else away. Guess what?! We did! And it is feeling oh so great to have less junk to deal with.
    Sunday morning we got up and started painting the camper (again. . .  The painting never ends!) In an attempt to be green and also frugal we have decided not to turn the power on in the camper until we are living in it. That means the 90 + degree afternoons in Utah often require that we find other ways to work toward our camper life goal. This lovely Sunday led us to Ikea! We needed a couch/bed and quite a few other storage solutions. You guys, we spent 4.5 hours in Ikea. I love me some Ikea but that is an emotional event not many can endure. Half of that was spent testing couch softness and debating space on a couch vs space for storage. There was so much measuring and cursing the Universe for making standard couches 78 inches when we only have 76 inches of space. Then there were the dishes. You gotta have smaller drinking glasses, smaller plates, everything smaller. It was weird and emotional to be buying so many things in attempt to move toward being less consumerist and more minimalist.
    I digress. When we got home it was obvious to me that we wouldn't be meeting our timeline goal to finish painting. I was a little bummed to say the least. Do you know what happened? My sweet sweet Richard stayed up until 1 am finishing the painting still that I could check off a stupid box in my dayplanner. He's the best one of the best ones.

It takes a village.

    We have always been blessed by the Universe with an amazing circle of friends and family. I honestly think we are the luckiest people in this arena. My favorite part of this journey so far has been all the support from our loved ones!
    The weekend of July 4th our amazing friends Mark and Kim convinced us it was time for a break. I was really hesitant to take time away from our project. I have full blown nightmares that we won't finish everything in time. It turns out that they were completely right and I really did need the break. Having a weekend of beautiful views, delicious food, and awesome conversations in Park City really refreshed our energy level. We came home ready to get shit done!
    Monday we dragged basically everything we own out onto our lawn and had a yardsale. It wasn't as successful as we hoped but we are keeping a positive mindset. We have still been lucky that selling our belongings has paid for all our renovations thus far. We are hoping we will be able to maintain that through the end. Our super sweet friends, Jake and Terrisa, helped us clean up all the yardsale leftovers and then were kind enough to feed us when we were overheated and overworked.
    I lucked out big time on Monday the 4th. While Richard was slaving away on the yard sale I was searching across the valley for the perfect fabrics for the camper. My mom was a lifesaver showing me around the fabric store, teaching me which fabrics were best and why, and helping navigate the wild world of fabric store coupons. Not only did I find the perfect fabrics for everything, my mom offered to sew all the curtains and cushion covers. She is the best mom I could ask for.
    On Tuesday night my bestie Rose came over to help me paint the kitchen cabinets. Do you see that gorgeous red?! As usual she was better at the whole process. However the chit chat was amazing and I'm happy to have had her help.
    I can't wait to see what more memories we make with our tribe on this journey.

It's hard letting go!

    We did lots of research before making the decision to go tiny. Everything we read and watched said that getting rid of your things is extremely emotionally difficult. I understood how that could be possible, we put a lot of emotional value in the objects we acquire over time.
    I don't feel that I have many belongings that I'm emotionally tied to. A few pieces of jewelry, the bench Richard made for me after we lost our last baby, and some photos. I figured I could take a few of the small things with me and probably store a couple of others. Everything else in my 7 bedroom house I was thrilled to sell and see what we could get for it. Once we started posting things for sale I was so excited to see all the money roll in.
    It turns out I was wrong. For a few years I've been collecting owls, I really like them and have fun collecting different ones. I love them but didn't think I placed much emotional value in them. When a woman was at our house buying some other things she mentioned that she also collects owls and Richard proceeded to show her my owls that were up for sale. I stayed in the camper working on renovation and soon found myself crying. It turns out I wasn't as prepared to let go of all my things as I thought.
    We are each having our tender moments of adjusting to this new life and letting things go. For me it's the owls, for Richard it was his dragon collection, for Caydance it was the clothes. It will be interesting to see what other belongings have their claws in us.

Losing a few hundred pounds!

    Due to the short timeline we made for ourselves to be in the camper we are having to become professional multitaskers. The renovations take up much of our spare time but when we find a few extra minutes we use it to downsize our belongings. Clothing has been the elephant in the house since we decided to embark on our journey. We just have so much of it! There was a point in time where our family really relied on hand-me-downs to dress the kids. After a while the donations just kept coming and it felt wrong to say no to perfectly good clothes when people were trying to be kind. So we'd take on more and more until it literally filled a whole room in our house.
    It was time to break the cycle. I have been looking into capsule wardrobes for myself and figured it would be a great way to thin out the kids clothes as well. So each of the 3 kids took turns picking their best and favorite clothes keeping in mind that it's best to have things that all work together and can be worn in multiple ways. Some tears were shed. Caydance, my oldest, is quite the fashionista and is a highly emotional soul. She can remember something great she did in every single scrap of clothing she had. But we talked through it and she ultimately agreed that fewer clothes would make life better for everyone and the planet.
    A few hours later we had 8 big garbage bags to donate to local charities (plus 3 other bags we had already filled). Each kid got their full wardrobe down to the size of 1 standard laundry basket. I think Richard is already relieved with the hundreds fewer pounds of laundry he will have to do. Laundry and limited wardrobes will sure be an adventure!

Nothing is as it seems.

    Demo in a camper is harder than you would think. It took us days to remove wallpaper that was already removing itself in many places! We got helpful hints from everyone about the best way to remove wallpaper (ex. Steam, water, heat, dish soap, scoring, etc.) It turns out that the reason we had such difficulty was that campers aren't even made with wallpaper! When a camper is built they take a prefab wall and put a giant vinyl sticker on it! So it took us days to peel the damn stickers off these walls.
    The next fun discovery was the order in which a camper is built. All the linoleum and carpet was laid down and then walls put up on top of it. This means that all the carpet went underneath the walls. It was an adventure to be sure! But now all the demo is complete. We made it to bare bones!
    Saturday afternoon we started priming the entire interior with Kilz. We got a lot of opinions from loved ones about whether painting a camper interior was a good idea but after considering all the options we decided it was best for us. It will be more cost effective and easier than wall paper. And while removing the "stickers" left a few less than beautiful dings in the walls we have decided to embrace their crafty charm. Having the best things in pristine condition is not a major part of this journey for us.
    As of right now we have 1.5 coats of primer in the kitchen/living area. The size of the camper is deceiving! You think it won't take much time because of the small space. We soon realized that a smaller space just meant smaller brushes and a bunch of tight corners that must be edged in by hand. We are scheduled to be completed with priming by Wednesday June 29th but that may require an extention. Stay tuned!

Wallpaper is a ****

Richard worked on the wallpaper removal while Kayleigh was at the day job and made his first video.
https://youtu.be/L6ktmiG33sk

We set up an official timeline for the work on the camper. We are aiming to have the major work done in 2.5 weeks which will leave us time to empty the house and prep the property. Fingers crossed!

A couple of firsts!

We made our first YouTube video today while doing our first day of renovation on the camper! Getting super excited!
Check it out!
https://youtu.be/vEiRCOe2B6A