Phaeton Prep Well Underway

Tuesday, November 13

Can’t say that we’ve settled our stuff into the Phaeton, but we made considerable headway these past 3½ days. I’m much too tired to write a proper blog post, so this is going to be a quickie entry — after all, wouldn’t want to leave the story of our fulltiming prep incomplete.

(We were too busy working; what photos we took were usually an afterthought.)

Phaeton Prep Day 1 was focused on the basement.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather during the long weekend that saw us working at the Phaeton. We had beautiful blue-sky days with temps reaching into the 68-72F (20-22C) range through mid-day Monday when the clouds started moving in. It was perfect weather to work outside — empty and vacuum the basement, sort through what was already there, and reorganize the compartments. It was also nice to have good weather to unload the toad and carry stuff inside. That we didn’t have to run the furnace to stay warm was an unexpected bonus for this time of the year.

November days that are warm enough to sit outside for our snack breaks — what a treat!

This morning, the temperature was at 40F (4C) and falling, and there was rain, sleet, and hail. But by then, the work outside was done and we had just a few plastic bins to carry from the toad to the Phaeton, so it didn’t matter.

Prep Days 2 and 3 found us working inside to organize the living space.

Our goal was to move most everything we plan to take with us into the Phaeton. We accomplished that. We even managed to get most of the cabinets and closets organized; that was a bonus. The good news is that we’re not bursting at the seams as I feared we might :-) There’s still plenty of room in the cabinets and basement compartments. We anticipate that our load will lighten further as our fulltiming lifestyle evolves and we become more comfortable discarding some of the things we feel we can’t live without at the moment.

Perfectly sized storage drawers make using the overhead cabinets in the bedroom much easier;
we can use the space between and on top of the bins to store rolled up spare towels and whatnot.
mounted on the back wall of the closet, one of Mui’s old tie racks is perfect to hang my purses.

The Phaeton has a lot of storage space, but not all of it is easily accessible. Our My frustration challenge was to organize stuff such that what we think we’ll be using regularly will be handy, and put nice-to-haves and spare items in the less accessible places. I think I managed to do that, but time will tell. I see “settling into the Phaeton” as an ongoing process. I’m sure we’ll find that we need to make some changes to what is stored where. So be it!

16 days and counting!!!