We are be no means “camping experts,” (in fact this is the first time I have ever stayed in camper), but given that I want to provide the insight into how our non-camper family of four moved to full-time camper living. (Some affiliate links included for the products that work for us.)

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Portrait of Kate and Alex, sitting in-front of their RV. Each are wearing jackets, and hats.

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When we first purchased our camper, the intention behind the vehicle was to use it recreationally this summer and potentially buy or rent a house in the local area near our families. However, we are full of wanderlust and have been for years. My husband has asked about world traveling with our kids, Air BnB hopping around the USA, buying a tiny house and truck, dreaming of Airstreams and Mountain View’s— anything other than the rural farmland of Ohio/ the MidWest (because it literally all looks the same.) We had done quite a lot of looking into tiny living, and after having very flexible (shall we say) living arrangements for the last 5 years or so, we have done a lot of exploring regarding ways to live simply, live with less stuff, and be as self-sufficient as possible.

I started years ago, to learn about homeschooling, minimalism (we always recommend the book <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/essentialism/" linkid="297">Essentialism</ta> by Greg McKeown to everyone), and then simplifying our space with the <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/konmari/" linkid="298">KonMari </ta>method. While I did not adopt all of the philosophy of KonMari, I have held onto are the principles for folding laundry and making certain that every object we own is chosen thoughtfully and has a “home” in our space so that clutter basically doesn’t exist. I have to admit, that at the time I didn’t realize how necessary all of this knowledge and skills would be for our family, but they have proven essential for dealing with the space limitations of a 30 foot camper (with zero slides).

Coming into the purchase of our camper— for a steal, one day I just sat back and recognized that we had done all the things necessary to take our life in the romantic direction we had always daydreamed about. Our second (and final) child was 6 months old, my husband had full-time remote work for a company he loves, my oldest was about to start kindergarten in the fall, and I was in a yoga teacher training program but otherwise uncommitted to any work or location. So, I mentioned it...

Me: “You know, we could almost just pack up our life and take off with the camper and travel...”

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Alex: “You jump, I jump... you know I’ve been telling you I want to do that for years.”

So, I started thinking, planning, and he didn’t actually take me seriously until the day we did demo on our travel trailer.

We bought it in December 2019, we tore it apart in February, and we moved in May 1st, 2020. The interior layout was entirely my divination. I could see it the moment we walked into the camper. Then with a lot of shopping around, brainstorming, and <em>some </em>hands-on labor it came to be a reality and it has been so much better than I ever expected.

The first consideration that I had regarding the layout of our camper and the family we were about to put into it was opening up the space. We have a dog (English springer spaniel), cat, baby under 1, and a five year old. You cannot rely on weather anywhere to always be perfect, and here in Ohio you can’t even rely on it to be predicted correctly. Inside space is a necessity for play, school, lounging, and for my husband working. The first thing I did was take out the jackknife sofa that essentially split the main living space in half. The second thing to go was the dinette set. The third thing we removed was the queen sized bed platform. Sounds crazy right? We had nowhere to sit, nowhere to eat, and nowhere for the two of us to sleep, but we had plenty of open floor space.

Once we removed all the big stuff, we discovered the wheel wells under the dinette and a heater under the sofa. Thankfully, I was able to design our living space around them and we had very little manual work to do. Once the interior was gutted, I had my husband and father-in-law build our about 12 inches on two of the current walls, just to square them up for the changes we were making. There were a lot of things to consider.

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The queen bed was immediately visible walking into the camper for the first time, and the only privacy for the room was and is still a simple curtain. Not ideal, but it hasn’t proven to be a problem either. One thing campers lack is good air circulation, so the more open, the more comfortable the environment will be in just about every way imaginable. But, I knew that I didn’t want to walk in and see a bed every single day and my husband loves to lounge with his feet up on couches and furniture.

The bed platform in our camper was a simple frame with a hinged board for the mattress to sit on. My (brilliant) idea was to keep the board and the hinge (which folds completely flat when fully closed), tear our the platform frame to add floor space, and buy two storage <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/lr-benches/" linkid="305">benches</ta>. By day the benches live on opposite sides of the camper to provide extra seating and by night they are pulled to the middle of the room to support the mattress board. By day our bed is basically a couch, and by night it all unfolds for our sleeping area. Our mattress is a <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/japanese-mattress/" linkid="299">Japanese mattress pad</ta>, so we just fold it in half and sit on it during the day when it’s a couch. It’s simple, there’s no extra bedding or pillows to store and it really isn’t much more work to set up and tear down than simply making a bed.

I should also note that when we tore our the platform, I very carefully removed the front panel and some of the trim (one broke, however) so that when we removed the bed platform there wasn't a giant access hole looking into our storage area at the front end of the camper. We attached that salvaged panel with dual lock strips so that we could access the water heater and storage but otherwise keep kids and pets out of there.

Our five-year-old was relegated to the top bunk in order to preserve the safety of our youngest. His top bunk has custom bedding (I haphazardly made with the guidance of Sew Cutesy on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&amp;v=tO-Au8uVG8s" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" title="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&amp;v=tO-Au8uVG8s">Youtube</a>) that is similar to a “Beddy”. This makes it easy to keep tidy and removed the excess blankets hanging down to the bottom bunk. The bottom bunk has a <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/kids-storage-ottoman/" linkid="304">storage ottoman</ta> at the foot, which our oldest uses as a step to climb up into his bunk. Inside we store the diaper bag, extra toys, extra wipes and diapers.

Then I bought a<ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/bed-rail/" linkid="300"> “bed gate”.</ta> It sits under the mattress and is taller than a normal toddler guard rail for a bed. We slide it back and forth when we need to put the baby down or “lock” him into the bed area at night. So far, he can’t climb out but as any mother knows... it’s only a matter of time. The other changes we made to the kids’ bedroom was to add two <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/swing-arm-rod/" linkid="301">swivel curtain rods</ta>. At night they block off the bunks with a room darkening curtain. The added benefit is that when we want to take showers or change clothes the swivel curtain allows us to increase the size of our bathroom. Our bathroom is Tom Thumb tiny and only houses the toilet and shower stall. The sink is outside of the bathroom and directly across from the bunk beds. So, we just swing that curtain rod out from the bunk beds and instantly expand the private bathroom space.

I pulled out the dinette specifically to create an open floor area where the boys had access to their toys. Since we don’t have private bedrooms, it became extremely important to create an accessible playroom. I am happy to report that it has gone really well! Before we moved in, I did some considerable downsizing of the junky broken toys we have accumulated from years of happy meals and holidays. We still have A LOT of toys, more than I want honestly, but I was able to buy <ta linkid="303" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/toy-bins/">storage bins</ta> and ensure that we had room for all the toys we had left. I LOVE these bins. We actually ended up buying two sets. I use the 4 large ones for toys, two mall ones for binoculars and random home school supplies, and the other two hold my oldest child's clothes in his little closet. I also attached a face-out <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/book-shelf/" linkid="302">bookshelf</ta> to the wall to hold some of our books, the boys’ books, and especially our new, large stock of homeschooling materials.

The dining room/ office/ workstation/ kitchen.

When we removed the sofa we knew we wanted a lot more counter space. The kitchen only had once small 12x24 inch area of counter top. So I designed a multi-functional table that would fit and function in the space we have. It’s not an original design, but we had to make enough modifications because of the placement of the heater that we needed to build it custom instead of buying one. The table we built provides about 4 extra feet of kitchen counter, and when we “open it” it can give us another 24-36 inches of work space or desk area. So far we have used it as a office, a sewing table, a dining table, and a kitchen counter. Because it’s only 24 inches deep it isn’t ideal for games or puzzles, but we also managed to snag an amazing <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/card-table/" linkid="342">aluminum folding table</ta> that we store in the area under our bed and pull out to use in the “living room” when we want to do those kinds of activities.

Above and beyond all of the physical changes in the space, there were a million little decisions I had to make before we moved in here. So far (knock on wood) everything I conceptualized has born out perfectly. From our&nbsp;<ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/stove-cover/" linkid="308">stove top cover</ta> to our <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/aeropress/" linkid="313">aero press</ta> <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/aeropress-organizer/" linkid="312">coffee set-up</ta>, the <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/knife-block/" linkid="317">magnetic knife board</ta>, <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/utensil-caddy/" linkid="316">water-draining flatware organizer,</ta> <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/dishes/" linkid="328">shatterproof dishes</ta>, lidded drinking cups, stainless steel <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/wine-stainless-steel/" linkid="321">wine </ta>and <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/stainless-beer-glasses/" linkid="327">beer glasses</ta>, hanging microfiber <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/shower-towels/" linkid="329">towels</ta> for bathroom, <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/silicon-oven-mitt/" linkid="332">silicon oven mitts</ta>/drying racks... every little detail was calculated. We have made very few changes in the almost four months we have been here and we have added some things along the way.

One of the most integral parts to living out here was to create comfortable outdoor living space as well. We have a full outdoor kitchen set-up, chairs, the picnic table provided by the grounds, and a really good fire pit with <ta linkid="337" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/zero-gravity-chair/">anti-gravity chairs</ta> for lounging. We spend a lot of time outside just because we can, and it became apparent very quickly how much attention we needed to give to the comforts of living outdoors. We have an outdoor <ta linkid="340" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/outdoor-rug/">area rug</ta>, a bin for shoes (to keep as much dirt outside as possible), storage for outdoor toys, a <ta linkid="334" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/camp-chef/">cooking table</ta>, a <ta linkid="335" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/outdoor-sink/">outdoor sink</ta>, an area for our bikes and our portable <ta linkid="394" href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/disc-golf-basket/">disc golf basket</ta>, and I have a mini-garden here as well.

The homiest touch I have come up with so far  -- apart from using <ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/area-rug/" linkid="338">area rugs</ta> inside the camper, was to turn our outdoor<ta href="https://casualweirdness.life/recommends/tv-mount/" linkid="395"> television mount </ta>into a window box with flowers. I love it so much I have considered adding another one. The genius part is that when it’s time to move the camper, I just have to lift the box off the mount and set it somewhere safe for the journey— easy peasy.

The considerations for this lifestyle are vast and it is a direction which requires a major change in personal lifestyle in order for it to work. For our family it has gone really smoothly, a fact I attribute our making the lifestyle changes before we moved in. Our experience wasn’t jarring. It has always just felt like normal life for us but better. There’s a lot more I can say about the changes we made to prepare for full time camper living and also about <a href="https://casualweirdness.life/camping-with-a-dog-cat/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">how we live with pets in a camper</a>, but we will save those stories for another time. We aren’t experts, but we are very happy and I am eager to share more of our adventure.

Family of Four Moved to Full-Time Camper Living

Our bedroom.

The bunk beds.

The playroom.

The dining room/ office/ workstation/ kitchen.