My mind has been working overtime lately, trying to figure out how to make our RV more to our liking. It was beautiful when we bought it but after living in it full time for a while I have discovered some things I really wanted to change. The first change was the day/night shades. I always thought they looked so pretty and were such a wonderful idea. That was before we bought our own RV. It didn't take long before I was hating them. Seriously, they are a big pain in the butt. It was difficult to get to some of them and when you tried to raise or lower them if you didn't get it just right they would slide off their track and you ended up with a big mess. I have always loved plantation shades. We had them in our past two homes and I thought they looked lovely and were easy to keep up. I decided that they would look nice in the RV but couldn't afford to have them done professionally. I wasn't sure if it would be possible for me to hang them myself or not so I was cautious. I first measured all the windows then went to Home Depot to see what they had in stock. They will cut them to custom fit your windows but much to my surprise they had ready-made ones in stock in the sizes I would need. I would only have to have one cut to fit. First I bought only one and brought it home to give it a try. I choose a small window in the dining area, one that if I messed it up wouldn't be too noticable. I was able to take down the cornice board, the curtain and the day/night shade easily enough. I then hung the new plantation blind and it looked great. I rehung the cornice and curtain and it looked beautiful. It was easy enough so I ended up going to HD and purchasing the rest I needed to complete the project. It's all done now and we both just love the look and ease of opening and closing them. Wow! What a huge difference. Job #1 was finished. On to the next project. It seemed we were always using the dining room table for our office. The table and chairs were perfect. The chairs have the lift up seats for storage and I put all the office supplies in there for easy access. Before long it was becoming more of an office than a place to eat our meals. I went to the Escapees RV Club forum and read how many other full-timers had turned their dining areas into an office space and just ate in their living rooms. The wheels in my mind were once again spinning. We have a rectangular shaped table with extension. I decided to rotate the table 90 degrees and put 2 of the chairs along side the front looking out the windows. We now have room for one laptop and the printer with space on each side. Right now I am storing the other 2 chairs on the short side of the table but we will soon take those to my Mom's second house where we currently have our furniture. The table makes the perfect desk area. We even have room for a 2 drawer file box to go there. Nice! If David is using his laptop we can actually sit side by side at the desk, each on our own laptop working. One nice thing about the RV we bought is the fact we have a nice kitchen island with overhang. Today I bought 2 small stools to go there, providing us a place to eat our meals without having to resort to the living room to eat. I also purchased a mail holder for our mail. It seemed to end up on the island each day and piling up there. Hopefully the mail holder will keep it more organized. So as time goes on and we become more used to our RV we find ways to make it more comfortable and usable.
the plantation blinds in the living room
the kitchen island with bar stools
the mail holder
the new OFFICE area with plantation blinds
