Living in a travel trailer while we build our home, what to store?

[ScarletBegonias]

we just bought 10 raw acres of land in oregon and will be living in a travel trailer for the next 2 years or so while we save for and build a straw bale home. in the meantime we will be storing some things, until we can build a small strawbale storage shed on our property, which will probably take at least a year. i'm going through all of our possessions and trying to decide what to store and what to give away/thrift. each family will have one duffel bag of clothing, we'll keep out a few games, books and some kitchen stuff.

here is what we will be storing for sure:

new fl w/d
armoires
3 bookcases
2 tiny dresser nightstands
new twin size mattress
dh's new office chair
small cat tree
new countertop dishwasher
30 large rubbermaid boxes of linens/clothing/books/kitchen items/deco/pictures/keepsake stuff from the kids and for future children and my midwifery practice etc.,.

it look like we could fit everything into an 8x10 storage which would be around $50/month. so we'll be paying potentially $800 to store this stuff for 1 1/2 years. my furniture and w/d alone cost around $6,000, so i feel that it is worthwhile to store them. but i would like to consolidate the rubbermaids even more. i still feel like we have too much stuff. i honestly think i'll want different clothes in 2 years, but i also know that we'll need thrasher clothing to build the house in.

what would you realistically save/pay to store for 1-2 years?

[reducereuserecycle]

i know this is unrelated to what you are asking, sort of, but i would be hesitant to store the mattress if you can help it because of bedbugs. i know they are alot worse and have heard that they can be just about anywhere. i would just hate for you to get something like that in your stuff and then move it into your new house. any they don't just hide in mattresses...i personall would not store anything that is not a hard surface that could be checked before moving it (even though i hear they can hid in the crevices of hard surfaces) sorry to bring this up; the thought of getting bedbugs scares me a lot since i hear they are so hard to deal with once you get them.

do you know anyone that has extra space? maybe you could pay them or do something in return for them storing stuff for you.

30 rubbermaids does seem like a lot. i don't think i would store any clothes unless it was like a fancy dress or suit you only wear every year or 2. the other clothes, i would not keep cause if you can make it for the next year and a half without them, then do you really need to keep them?

i am not sure how many rubbermaid containers it would take to store all my stuff. interesting experiment if i had enough containers to try it.

when we moved me moved so much stuff!!! (we didn't have to store anything) but just the money we spent on the moving truck ended up being a waste because in the past 2 years i have gotten rid of nearly everything we moved as part of my mega-decluttering.

sounds like a sort of an adventure living in the small space

[ScarletBegonias]

bedbugs?!? how would i know if we had them?

i keep our mattresses covered in waterproof covers and i wash ALL linens at least once per week, including the mattress cover, sheets, pillows, pillowcases and blankets. i even wash our curtains every couple months.

would that kill them if they were around?

i agree with you about the clothes - i think i'm going to get rid of more, (i only have 2 containers for each person) but save 1 bin for thrasher clothes when we're on our property. we can't afford to replace them, not even at thrift store prices.......ALL of our money will be going to the house.

i'm super excited and it feels GREAT to be getting rid of so much stuff!

[reducereuserecycle]

just do a little research on bed bugs...they are taking over the country at a fast rate and are nearly impossible to get rid of. i ran across some info online about them and got really paranoid about them so i researched alot and as you can see, i am always thinking about ways to steer clear of them. and warning others.

they are harder than roaches to get rid of and you can kill them in very, very hot water, but they hind in the walls, etc. so washing will not get rid of them. i'm sure you don't have them or you would probably know. most people get skin reactions to the bites.

i think one clothes bin per person is really reasonable.

what about the kitchen stuff...could you part with some of that?

oh, and the decor...is it stuff you will for sure use in the new place?

[Irishmommy]

For $800 you could probably buy a shed big enough to store that stuff. Then if it's not something you would want after, you could sell it.

[ScarletBegonias]

Originally Posted by Irishmommy

For $800 you could probably buy a shed big enough to store that stuff. Then if it's not something you would want after, you could sell it.

i know! that's what we want to do, but we can't put anything on our property (legally) until we have drilled a well, put in septic and submitted plans to the county.

we are doing it debt-free so it will take us a year to save to do all that. it stinks!

Originally Posted by reducereuserecycle

just do a little research on bed bugs...they are taking over the country at a fast rate and are nearly impossible to get rid of. i ran across some info online about them and got really paranoid about them so i researched alot and as you can see, i am always thinking about ways to steer clear of them. and warning others.

they are harder than roaches to get rid of and you can kill them in very, very hot water, but they hind in the walls, etc. so washing will not get rid of them. i'm sure you don't have them or you would probably know. most people get skin reactions to the bites.

i think one clothes bin per person is really reasonable.

what about the kitchen stuff...could you part with some of that?

oh, and the decor...is it stuff you will for sure use in the new place?

i will research the bugs. yuck. but i don't think we have them, no bites or itching going on.

kitchen stuff will be down to 2 bins, 1 bin once i put stuff in the travel trailer. i have 2 boxes of deco. 1 for my belly cast, and 1 for pictures i've painted, wood carvings, our "exotic" rock collection, and a few quartz and salt candle holders. all stuff i LOVE and will definitely use in my home or my midwifery studio. we don't have knick knacks or a lot of deco, i only buy things i really love or have made myself.

i think i'm going to weed out more linens - they are taking up 4 boxes, and more games/puzzles. i'm racking my brain to think of what else i could give away!

[delightedbutterfly]

FWIW I don't think she was saying you have bedbugs NOW

I think she ment storing your matteress in a storage place (where there are other peoples unknown "stuff" or a shed where they could come from outside) gives you a great potential to END UP with bedbugs when you finally bring the matteress "home"

[bender]

What about getting one of those large metal shipping containers...sorta like they have at construction sites? It's not built on the property, just left on the ground.

[infiend]

travel trailer rent america

I have pulled a 20ft. all steel car hauler with a car on it 3 times and a truck once with no problems so far with the kp 6 link. Have bagged 3 duallys that have towed stuff all the time with no problems. One of which was set up to tow a gooseneck and pulled a 30+ ft. trailer loaded with trees once with no problems. BOA is said to be the best set up for towing, two of the duallys where set up this way and one was bag on bar it only towed a car hauler occasionally. So I would say yes.

[kimmom]

We should exchange email addresses and chat OP
We have been in our 5th wheel with our 4 kids for 2 years and will be moved into our cob home we are building late this fall!! I can give you lots of great info on what we loved having etc.
We built a greenhouse for "cheap" over our 5th wheel you can see pics of it on our website www.canadianfamilyrobinson.com
It ahs been great, we put shelves in the back and can store rubbermaids there of what we need. The first year in our 5th wheel we were travelling before we bought our farm. So we stored some stuff at a good friends place. They have a crawl space and are both very tall, dh and I aren't so we had access to the back space.. We stored about 10 tupperwares with books, photos, memorabilia, SOME kitchen stuff, NO clothes at all. And we did store my husbands film and computer gear, that which he didn't take with us.. We are building his woodchip clay infill office this week so we will have room for his gear again
In our 5th wheel each child has a laundry basket sized shelf and all their clothes fit in that basket. We do switch out Summer and winter clothes though and put the rest (snow suits, lifejackets etc) in our 5th wheel under storage.
We have an upper book shelf in the trailer and the kids have their book shelf. The kids have 4 small bins that slide under the bunks for toys.. The hardest thing is starting to accumulate more stuff than you can fit. WIth 5 kids and holidays, birthdays we have had to purge alot of times in the past 2 years.