Serious downsizing

I don't usually post personal stuff on my blog, mainly because I devote my space to papercrafting.  But, occasionally I mention a little about my life.  I've had quite a few requests from friends and followers to tell more about how hubby and I have been living since selling our home in July 2011.  We closed on our house sale and had our truck all packed and ready to leave with our camper.  Since then we've traveled in our RV around the country and seen lots of wonderful sites and visited lots of friends and family.  At first we went north to the quintessential summer vacation harbor of East Tawas, MI on the shore of Lake Huron.  We stayed there until early September.  Then we started traveling south.  We stopped in Manassas, VA which was the closest town to where our son lived.  He's a U. S. Marine in charge of a recruiting station near there.  We were anxious to get the chance to visit with our youngest grandbaby who had been born in May.  He is the spittin' image of his daddy.  Then we went to Raleigh, NC and visited our youngest daughter.  A little farther south we visited with some of my husband's family.  Then we headed for one of my all time favorite places in the country, Savannah, GA.  By that time it was early October and we were getting a little weary of traveling.  Mid-October we decided we were a tired of constantly towing and moving around.  I was tired of going to a different grocery store every week and trying to find what I wanted.  Such a simple thing you tend to take for granted.  I must admit, I was not a very good passenger.  I was a nervous wreck being on the road and we had a few close calls.  It's amazing how many drivers don't realize you can't stop on a dime when you're in a big truck with 40 feet of trailer behind you and cut in front of you and then slam on their brakes.  So if you've never thought about it---leave plenty of room around big rigs and don't pull in front of them and slam on the brakes.  The stories I can tell about people who don't know how to MERGE onto a freeway, a big pet peeve of mine.  Here's a picture of our home on wheels.

So we decided to head to Florida for the winter.  We just picked a campground from a big campground book we traveled with.  We ended up in Lakeland, FL.  Being from the metro Detroit area we grew up as Detroit Tiger baseball fans.  Go TIGERS, we hope they win the World Series and will be watching as it begins next week.  Lakeland, FL is where the Tiger's do their spring training so it seemed like a good place.  Little did we know when we arrived how our lives would change.  We had so much fun and made so many new friends.  Most of the people at this campground are "permanent" winter residents.  The RV's they live in are permanently left on the sites.  There are people like us that stayed for the whole winter but lived in an RV. 

After a lot of thought we decided that this area just felt like home and we decided that we wanted to have a permanent place here so that we wouldn't have to tow our unit down here every winter.  We purchased a park model RV.  It was very much like buying a house as far as picking out the model and how we wanted it finished on the inside with cabinetry, flooring and such.  It was built to our specifications at a factory and we had the opportunity to go and see it during production.  It was a really fun process, though it took much longer to get it than expected.  It was delivered to our site we picked in the campground only a couple weeks before it was time to go back north at the end of April.  Here's a picture of the day it was delivered.

Now, we lived in a very large home (because we had five kids).  We had five bedrooms, three bathrooms living room, family room, finished basement, dining room, etc.  We had about 3,000 sq. ft of living space.  It was a wonderful family home and we raised our children there.  But as is always the case, the kids grow up and move out and there we were with all that space for just hubby and I.  WE DON'T MISS IT AT ALL.  The upkeep was tremendous and took a lot of our time.  We sold some of our belongings to the WONDERFUL family that bought the house, had a garage sale to get rid of other stuff and then we put stuff into a storage unit not knowing what we were going to be doing in the future.  After making the decision to buy the park model RV we had to return to our storage unit this summer and decide what to do with everything.  In June we had a garage sale at the subdivision my daughter lives in and sold most of the remaining big pieces of furniture.  We kept a hutch cabinet, our king size bed and assorted household items, like kitchen things and linens.  The last week in September we closed up our camper in Michigan and winterized it.  It will stay on a lot in the campground up in Michigan through the winter.  We rented a moving truck, loaded the household items we wanted to bring down to Florida and drove for three days to get back down here.  We arrived on October 1st.  Then the work began.  We had to unload the moving van, get everything unpacked, put away and organized.  It was quite a process, but we're happy with the progress we've made so far.  From the moment we picked out our home with that cute little front porch I envisioned two white rocking chairs sitting on that porch.  I love to sit on the porch in the morning with a cup of coffee and the newspaper.  Every morning I open my front door and there is the newspaper right outside the door for me to pick up.  My dog loves to lay out there in the morning in the sun basking in the warmth.

As you can see, we added a covered patio on one side and a small storage room at the back.  Hubby wanted to bring his tools down and have a little work area along with some extra storage.  Notice my dog proudly sitting by the front door of his new home.  (Such a little guard dog).  We are planning on doing some landscaping around the front of the house, but haven't gotten to it yet.  Next is a picture of the living room.

See that ottoman, it's utilized for my papercraft supplies.  I store my 6x6 paper pads, Copic markers, Zutter binding machine, and a few other things.  The next photo is the dining area. (Like you wouldn't be able to figure that out).

The cabinetry on the top holds dishes and other kitchen stuff.  The bottom cupboards are where I keep the rest of my crafting supplies.  I do my crafting on the dining table.  The next picture is the kitchen area (also self-explanatory, I know). 

After living in a camper, one of my favorite things about a park model is that it has full size kitchen appliances, even a dishwasher.  It was difficult to cook in the camper, but I find I'm enjoying being in the kitchen again.  Especially being able to bake.  A few days ago I made six mini loaves of pumpkin bread.  I'll be giving them to our friends as they arrive back at the campground.  We were pretty much the first winter residents to arrive, four other residents on our street have arrived this week.  Most of our friends will arrive by the first week in November.  We have a very roomy bathroom for such a tiny place.  Tons of storage between the large cabinet above the sink and the sink cabinet itself.  I do feel rather strange showing a picture of the bathroom and it was hard to get pics in such a tiny spot.  I hope I don't offend anyone with these photos.  We have a full size shower and next to the shower is more cabinetry.  I keep my linens (towels and sheets) and other misc. toiletries in there. 

Besides my full size appliances in the kitchen, my absolute favorite thing about my new place is it has room for our custom made king size bed.  We had only gotten this bed a few months before we sold our house.  We went to a furniture store and had it custom made with a firm side for hubby and a soft side for me.  I really missed that bed and I'm so happy to be sleeping in it again. 

Now granted, there isn't a ton of space after the bed got into it's place, but I'm more than okay with that just to be able to have it again.  As you can see we have more cabinetry above the bed for storage.  Hubby claimed four of the cupboards and I have the two on the right.  In my left cabinet I have storage containers that hold my Cricut cartridge manuals (I missed them a lot, too.  I'm a total hold it in my hand, visual kind of person).  I also have two containers of ribbons and trims. 

On the other side of the bedroom are his and hers closets with a chest of drawers in between.  We also downsized our wardrobes in this process.  This storage is more than enough room for our clothes.  In fact I use one drawer to collect dirty laundry in.  I was surprised at how many things in my closet I hadn't worn in years.  Of course, I no longer needed all the clothing that I wore to work in, being retired, so that took care of a lot of it.  We donated all our clothing that we didn't want anymore.  In the hallway we have a full size washer and dryer.  Most people down here hang their laundry out on a clothesline.  We found we especially enjoy putting our bed sheets out on the line.  It's so warm and sunny here most of the time that we rarely use our dryer.  (Except for undies, I refuse to put my underwear outside for the world to see. LOL)

This home has a total of 500 sq. ft.  It has everything we need.  A living area, a kitchen, bathroom and a bedroom.  When we think back to our house before we sold it---those are the only areas in the house that we used.  My husband says what we had was a five bedroom storage unit.  Our life is so much more simplified now.  I don't have to clean every single day for hours at a time, never catching up.  I can clean this home in an hour, including washing the floors.  It gives us more time to enjoy our retirement years and live an active lifestyle.  One of the first things we did after getting our Florida IDs was head to DisneyWorld and get a Florida resident annual pass.  We live about 35 minutes away and will head over there every couple weeks for a few hours at a time.  It's so much fun to know you don't have to cram everything in like you do on a vacation.  We feel like we are vacationing every single day.  Sometimes I don't even know what day it is.  Weekends are no different than weekdays.  I'm telling you, retirement is fantastic. 

I hope you've enjoyed my little tour.  Next week when my papercrafting supplies are a little more organized I'll be sharing my craft space and how I've organized and store my supplies.  I admit, I slightly miss my craft room I had in our house, but most of the stuff I had in there was many years old and never used.  Now I have only the things I use all the time.  My only purchases tend to be 6x6 paper pads and new Cricut cartridges (much to hubby's chagrin, LOL).  Thanks for coming by and I'd love to hear what you think of our successful downsizing.  I know some of you will think we're crazy.  This lifestyle wouldn't work for everyone and to do it, both spouses must be on the same page and you can't be the type of person that has to have a lot of things to feel successful.  But, I promise you, it's the most liberating experience.  I must also say, we save tons of money not having a big home with all the associated expenses (utilities, taxes, insurance and upkeep).  We don't owe any money to anyone.  We paid cash for our park model RV using the money from the sale of our house.  Living in the campground we don't have to pay utilities or property taxes.  We do, of course, have insurance on our home.  Before we leave to go back to Michigan next summer we will be purchasing a new vehicle and paying cash.  We've saved money for this because we aren't paying all those other expenses.  We know we are very blessed and we're very thankful.