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