We prefer to boondock, i.e. “dry camp” off-grid, usually in dispersed camping on National Forest or BLM land, usually for free. We have plenty of solar power to run our gadgets. Our composting toilet frees us from having to dump a black tank. But we still need water. So…

Where Do You Get Water?

Hose bibbs. They are EVERYWHERE. Whenever I run into town, I prep the jerry cans and load them into the truck, and find somewhere to fill up.

Here’s a few of my favorite spots.

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Parks and Public Buildings

I like getting water from parks since they’re public buildings intended for public use. As a member of the public, I’m happy to use them.

Parks with camping will often have a water fill near the ranger’s station or in the camping loop. Sometimes that’s past a gate, but not always. National Parks are notorious for having troublesome unthreaded faucets, so make sure you have a water bandit in your kit.

Day use parks most often have a hose bibb by the bathrooms. If you see a drinking fountain, look underneath or next to it, and there’s often a hose bibb there. Sometimes it’s under the sink behind a small utility door. Worst case, you might be able to use your water bandit to grab water from the bathroom sink.

Other public buildings like libraries can be good places to look. Fire stations definitely have water. Avoid anywhere with high security concerns like police stations and courthouses.

Commercial Buildings

Most commercial buildings have hose bibbs somewhere around the back of the building. Near the dumpsters is usually a good place to look, but just drive around back and see. So far this year, I’ve gotten water from the back of a drug store, the side of a veterinary hospital, and three different cell phone stores.

I don’t know what it is about cell phone stores, but they almost always have an accessible hose bibb outside.

My favorite commercial buildings to find water are 3+ unit strip malls. There are usually multiple hose bibbs around the back of strip malls, and I can usually find one behind a business where I’ve just bought something.

Gas Stations and Truck Stops

Truck stops, and less often, gas stations will have a hose bibb around the side or the back, so you can fill up your jerry cans while you fill up your gas tank. Some truck stops have a hose bibb at the pump.

A few months ago, I found the “air and water” station at a truck stop had a broken water fill. But there was a perfectly good hose bibb on the other side of the building.

Not every gas station has an accessible hose bibb, but lots of them do. Guess who’s more likely to get my gas money?

Water Retrieval Gear

Four Way Key

This cheap, handy tool allows you to open hose bibbs without handles commonly found on the outside of commercial or public buildings.  The business may be happy to let you take a few gallons of water, but they’re not going to call the maintenance man to help you open the valve.

What kind of faucet does a four way key open?

Like these:

Occasionally, it’ll be behind a small metal door:

Water Bandit

This tool allows you to connect a hose to an unthreaded faucet, like the ones found in lots of National Parks. While a hose is not strictly necessary to fill a jerry can, it can be helpful if you want to soften your water while filling, if you’re grabbing water from a faucet that you can’t fit your jerry can under, or if you want to run a hose to your RV to fill your tank directly.

If you want to be able to walk away from your hose while it’s connected, you’ll also want a couple of hose clamps to hold the water bandit in place.

Jerry Cans

I like these Rhino Pak jerry cans because they’re compact and rugged. I keep two (empty) in the rear compartment of the Airstream. When the COVID pandemic hit, I ordered two more to cut our trips into town in half.

I like to carry even numbers of jerry cans, so I can have one in each hand. When carrying something heavy like water for any distance, it’s easier to carry a balanced load, even if it’s twice the weight.

RV Water Softener

If you’re softening your water (and you probably should), it’s easiest to do that at the hose bibb when you fill your jerry cans. I attach a Camco Water Tank Filler tube directly to the softener, which makes it easy to fill a jerry can hands-free, and shut off the water while I switch cans.

If you’re not softening your water, I’d suggest carrying a short length of drinking water hose with the same Camco Tank Filler on the end.

Where Not to Get Water

Obviously, don’t trespass, jump a fence, compromise a lock, break anything, or otherwise be a jerk to get water. There’s so many places to freely obtain water. It’s really not necessary to make a nuisance of yourself while doing it.

RV dump stations have a rinse hose. You probably don’t want to get water from that hose. It’ll usually be marked as “non-potable” due to the likelihood it’s contaminated with somebody’s black water. If you’re following my RV water treatment method, you should be making the water safe to drink even from a contaminated hose, but still. Ew. Find the potable water hose, or if there isn’t one, find a hose bibb on a nearby building.

Don’t grab water from a system of large pipes or other mechanical equipment unless it’s marked “potable water.” There’s lots of equipment that recirculates chemically treated water (like cooling towers), and you don’t want to accidentally mistake that for drinking water. To be safe, only take water from hose bibbs.

Fitting a new small person and all his belongings into our space required quite a bit of thought and experimentation. Here’s what worked best for ages three to six months.

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Sleeping

Our portable bassinet worked great up to three months, but now that he’s rolling over and pushing up, it’s time for an upgrade.

Travel Crib

The Guava Lotus travel crib is a great fit for our space. It lives on the floor in front of the couch overnight, and on the bed during the day.

The Guava crib is particularly attractive for us, since it’s essentially a Montessori floor bed with a zip up side. Unfortunately, we can’t make our entire space safe for free roaming, but we can unzip the crib when it’s safe.

It folds up into a pretty manageable size if it ever needs stowed, though we haven’t ever stowed it.

It’s not practical to completely block out light from the Airstream windows, so we have a piece of blackout fabric that we drape over the crib when he’s sleeping.

White Noise Machine

White noise is great for helping a baby to sleep, as well as to mask the sounds of awake parents and click-clacking dogs in a small space. Our air conditioner fan is a great white noise machine when we have hookups, but it’s too much of a power hog to run off-grid.

We went through a couple of battery powered white noise machines before we found a good one.

The first we got was the Matone White Noise Machine, battery operated and rechargeable by a USB-C cable. It seemed good at first, but after listening to it for a few hours, it plays a 2 second loop of white noise, which has an obvious pattern to it. Drove me a little crazy, but I put up with it. Then, at 3:30 in the morning, the battery was about to die and it started beeping! What were they thinking?! Finally, the charge cable plug broke off the circuit board, and I happily went shopping for a replacement.

We replaced our noise machine with the Lectrofan Micro2, which so far seems to be a winner. There’s no discernible looping, and when the battery runs out, it just turns off. It has a surprising amount of bass notes for such a little speaker, so it doesn’t sound tinny at all. The speaker on top swivels, so you can point the noise in a particular direction if you want. It’s also a Bluetooth speaker, though I don’t expect to ever use that functionality.

Diapers

I admit defeat. We absolutely loved using cloth diapers when we had access to a washing machine, but washing them on the road is simply too water- and time-consuming. Bucket washing takes around an hour a day, and a couple of gallons of water, and then you have to hope for enough sun to get everything dry.

We’re planning to switch back to cloth diapers any time we have ready access to a washing machine. But for now, it just doesn’t work with our dry camping lifestyle.

Meals

Most of our child’s nutrition is still coming from milk, and we’re still loving the Kiinde Twist bottle system. There’s very little stuff to wash, and you pump right into the same bag you use for feeding. Heating up a bottle just requires swirling it in some hot water for a few minutes. But we’re so excited to be able to share solid food.

Low Chair with Table

We’re using the Hiccapop Omniboost Travel Booster Seat for meals. It’s a super compact “lawn chair” with a strap to help hold baby in place, and includes a snap-on tray table.

The booster seat includes straps, and is meant to be strapped onto a chair. But we mostly sit it directly on the floor for feeding.

We’ll also use it outdoors as a lawn chair, since it’s the perfect size for a small person to get in and out of.

The Best Baby Spoon

The Olababy Silicone Spoon is our favorite first utensil. It’s shallow, so it works great for baby sized portions of soft food. It’s easy to grip, and the tip is soft, so no worries about hurting sensitive gums. And the bottom of the spoon is a suction cup, so you can stick it to the table between feedings. It’s also a great thing for a teething baby to chew on.

Portable High Chair

We carry an Inglesina Dining Table Chair behind the back seat in the truck. It securely clamps to the table so our little one can sit and eat using the same table as the rest of the family.

We don’t have a table in the Airstream that the chair works with, but it’s great for picnic tables, restaurants, or visiting friends and relatives. Restaurant high chairs are way too big for a 3-6 month old, but this chair brings him right up to the top of the table and straps him in securely.

Teething

With his first teeth starting to come in at around 4 months, our little one needed a lot of new support.

Milk Popsicle

This silicone feeder is designed to help a baby eat soft food or fruit independently by gumming it through the holes in the tip. But what it’s really great for is making a milk popsicle for teething.

When we have just a little bit of milk left after feeding, we throw it in the freezer and use the milk ice cubes for the milk popsicle. Pop them in the silicone feeder, and it’s the perfect balance of cold, firm, and tasty for soothing teething gums.

We also keep a regular teething ring in the freezer, but he much prefers the milk popsicle.

Silicone Teether

Our second favorite teether is a Comotomo Silicone Teether, which we don’t bother putting in the freezer. It’s easy for small hands to grasp and manipulate, stands on its own, and is satisfying to chew. It’s also a generally interesting object to explore.

Activities

From 3-6 months, we don’t need a lot of toys. Just a few small objects are enough to encourage our little one to push up, scoot, and explore.

Yoga Mat

We keep yoga mats around for our own use, but they work great to provide a soft, grippy surface for our little one to explore his mobility.

Simple Toys

MontessoriGifts.com has a good overview of good toys for the 3-6 month age group. We have a couple of grasping toys, and a few that roll away slowly to encourage scooting.

Low Mirror

A child-height mirror is a great tool for exploration. We use a small acrylic mirror sheet, temporarily attached to the dishwasher at baby height with command strips. The acrylic mirror weighs next to nothing and is unbreakable, so it’s a great choice for a child’s mirror.

Board Books

We keep a small basket of board books by the bed. Books are heavy and bulky to carry, but there’s just no substitute for a physical book. Leanne finds great childrens’ books at thrift stores, so it doesn’t cost much to get new ones and donate them back when we’re done.

Our favorite books right now are Love Monster by Rachel Bright, The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, and Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton.

Out and About

The key to living in a small space is to incorporate the outside into your home. We might have a small house, but we have a HUGE, every-changing back yard.

Baby Carrier

We’re still loving the Ergo Omni baby carrier. It’s adjustable from newborn to toddler, with front, back, and side carry options, so it’s going to last us a long time.

Sun Protection

Aside from baby sunscreen and a wide-brimmed sun hat, our favorite sun protection accessory are Baby Bans. Real, UV 400, polarized sunglasses for babies.

Yes, they are super cute, but they also provide real protection for our little one’s eyes.

They’re reasonably comfortable when adjusted properly. He doesn’t like getting them put on, but once they’re on, he’ll mostly leave them in place.

Picnic Blanket

It’s nice to have a clean, dry, bug-free space to lie down on the ground. We keep a waterproof picnic blanket with us when we’re out and about so we can have a comfortable spot for lounging just about anywhere.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you follow the link below to Amazon and buy something, we’ll earn a small commission and it won’t cost you any extra. You could also pick up the tubing at your local hardware store.

Water that is supposed to be going out of the drip tube is just running down into the bottom of the fridge. Removal of the drip tray shows the obvious problem.

The drain from the drip tray goes into a larger horizontal pipe in the back of the fridge. I’m not sure how this was ever supposed to work. There’s no seal, and the water doesn’t end up far enough back to continue down the drain tubing. It just backs up into the fridge.

Fortunately, the solution is easy. A short piece of 3/8” OD (1/4” ID) vinyl tubing (about 2-1/2” long) fits over the drip tray tube, and routes the water far enough inside the drain to prevent it from backing up into the fridge.

It’s been a few days since the modification, and the bottom of our fridge is bone dry.

Here’s what worked best for us during the first three months. If you want to see our full loadout, you can do so here.

There are affiliate links in this article, so if you click on a link and buy something, we might get a small commission, and it won’t cost you any extra. Neat, right?

Airstream as a Post-Partum Suite

The Airstream has been a great place for Leanne to recover from birth. There are only two steps to get inside, and then everything you need — kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, is all within a few feet.

Netflix and headphones were indispensable for the first few months. When you can’t move because there’s a baby sleeping on you, it’s nice to have something to do.

Parking in Leanne’s parents’ driveway was a wonderful choice. The suburbs might not be the most Instagram-worthy setting, but we had access to a washer and dryer, wifi, a 20 amp hookup, and TONS of help with general life things. And having the grandparents so involved with the earliest days of our child’s life was priceless.

We ended up sleeping in shifts to provide overnight care. I (Dan) am a night person, and Leanne is a morning person, so it worked out well. I’d stay up until about 3:00 AM, then sleep until 11:00. Leanne would go to bed around 9:00 PM and wake up whenever the baby needed her after 3:00 AM.

The only thing that didn't really work was the bed. We had an unplanned C-section, so getting in and out of a normal bed was a bit much. Fortunately, the couch with all the pillows (especially this support pillow) made a perfect nest for the first couple of weeks.

Birthing Day

We planned birthing day at a birth center, which turned out to be exactly what we wanted. Birth centers are run by midwives and set up like a guest room in a house, so the atmosphere is very comfortable. The birth center we used had a Jacuzzi, a birthing pool, and nitrous oxide if you wanted it. The midwives were also registered nurses at the hospital around the corner, so if medical intervention is needed (as it turned out to be), a transfer is pretty quick.

Here are a few things Leanne is glad we brought.

Music

Leanne had a birthing playlist picked out and downloaded on Spotify, so we had exactly the music she wanted to listen to. I also brought my Ukulele and played for her while we were resting in the hospital, but that may or may not be a good idea generally depending on how your partner feels about your playing.

Battery Powered Twinkle Lights

We keep a couple sets of battery operated twinkle lights around the Airstream for ambiance, and backup lighting in case we run out of power in the house battery. We brought a set along with us along with some command strip refills to stick them to the walls. They gave us great ambiance in the birth center, and a soothing alternative to the harsh lights in the baby hotel hospital.

Wall Tapestry

We brought a tapestry to the birth center to hang up and give Leanne something soothing and familiar to look at. When we went to the hospital, we hung it up on the wall again, which made the space feel less sterile while we were stuck there for several days.

Birth Plan, Backup Plan, and Backup Backup...

Transferring to the hospital was hard. Really, really hard. We spent months planning a birth center birth and trying to do everything we could to avoid a c-section, and we ended up getting a c-section. We’re so thankful for a healthy baby and mama, but it was still a very difficult thing to go through.

Having a birth plan really helped the process. We knew what choices we wanted, and had backup plans for what we wanted to try if the first plan didn’t work out. C-section was the last thing on the list, but we did everything in order, and that’s where we ended up. And because we had a birth plan, we knew we had done everything we could because we did all the things. This birth plan and podcast were immensely helpful in deciphering the options.

Topponcino: Our Favorite Baby Accessory

Our favorite piece of baby gear for a newborn has been our topponcino, a classic Montessori baby material. It's a thin oval pillow for the baby to rest on when being held (think "baby taco"). A topponcino reduces the shock of being passed from person to person by keeping the temperature, texture, and smell consistent, and provides a bit of extra support.

Especially for a brand new baby who needs lots of head and neck support, and relatives who are out of practice in holding a tiny baby, the topponcino makes for a nice warm, safe, comfy baby package.

Sleeping

Our portable bassinet has been ideal for sleeping, and we're also using it as our changing table. It sits on the kitchen counter, and I riveted a couple of d-rings to the wall with some latches to the bassinet frame make sure it can't fall to the floor. It also works as a co-sleeper for travel, or when you want to nap with the baby next to you.

White noise is less important for this stage, since newborns don’t tend to respond much to noise. But we have been keeping fan on our AC unit going for a soothing hum. When we’re on the road, we’re going to need to figure out some sort of 12v powered white noise machine. We might just use a cell phone app.

Our swaddles and muslin swaddle blanket was very helpful for the first few days. Like many newborns, Linden had trouble sleeping for any length of time without being swaddled, but would sleep like a rock when tightly wrapped. Our larger bamboo cloth diaper flats work well for this purpose. Montessori is generally against swaddling, but we think it’s OK to swaddle sparingly. After a couple of weeks, he doesn't need to be wrapped tightly anymore, but a loose swaddle under the arms can provide a nice extra layer for warmth without restricting his movement too much.

Diapers

We’re doing cloth diapers. You most likely either think that’s totally sensible, or totally insane. Our experience with disposables so far has not been good, so we'd prefer to stick with cloth if we can. Cloth diapers are cheaper than disposables in the long run, and aren’t any harder to use, except that you have to wash them. They’re easier on a baby’s skin, and they will make potty training easier down the road.

Since we’re doing diaper laundry already, that means we can use reusable fleece wipes, too. Leanne chopped up some fleece from the fabric store into little fleece squares, and we use a spray bottle with water and a few drops of baby soap for spritzing. Works great. We tried using flannel for the wipes, but they fell apart right away. Fleece is definitely the way to go.

Diaper Covers

We’re using Flip Hybrid diaper covers. They’re adjustable for all age ranges, (though they’re pretty bulky on a brand new newborn), and they’ve got some really fun patterns. We bought some of these new and some used, but found that replacing the leg elastic on the used ones wasn’t really worth it, and the used ones are less waterproof than the new ones. It took more time to refurbish the old ones than the money we saved would justify, and the waist is still pretty stretched out and snaps are wearing through the fabric.

If you’re buying used diaper covers, look for some in “like new” or “gently used” condition, or just spring for a new set.

Diaper Inserts

There’s a few different diaper insert choices, and we tried most of them.

Pre-sewn inserts are very convenient, highly absorbent, and usually our first choice when we pick a diaper to pull out of the drawer. The downside is that they take forever to dry, even in a machine. When we are doing laundry off-grid, we’re probably going to opt for diapers that dry faster.

Diaper Flats

A flat is just a large square of cloth that you fold into the shape you need. While these require a little extra work to fold, they dry quickly, and they’re versatile. We’ve used our OsoCozy Bamboo Flats as a newborn swaddle, an impromptu blanket, a changing table cover, and a burp rag.

You can fold together multiple flats for extra absorbency, or you can mix materials. For a very cost-effective and absorbent overnight diaper, we’re using 100% cotton flour sack towels folded around a microfiber cloth to hold extra liquid.

Prefold Diapers

Prefolds diapers are halfway between inserts and flats. They’re a few layers of absorbent material sewn together, which you fold a couple of times to make your diaper insert. They’re generally cheaper than inserts, but not as versatile as flats. We didn’t try pre-folds.

Diaper Laundry

We are doing diaper laundry daily, but we have access to a washer dryer for these first few months before we start traveling again. We'll see how it goes on the road, but we expect the frequency of changing should drop a bit by then.

A couple of general rules for diaper laundry.

• NO FABRIC SOFTENER EVER. Fabric softener will build up on diapers and cause them to be less absorbent.

• Soften your water either physically with a water softener, or chemically by adding borax. Hardness in your water combines with soap to form soap scum which makes the soap less effective, and will build up on diapers and cause them to be less absorbent. Using a mechanical water softener is preferable to using Borax, since it will also treat the rinse water, and you wouldn’t normally add Borax to the rinse cycle.

• No bleach for most washes. It won’t get stains out as well as a good enzyme diaper detergent, and if you combine them together, the bleach will attack the enzymes in the detergent. If you need to sanitize your diapers for any reason, soak clean diapers in warm (not hot) water with a little bleach, or hydrogen peroxide plus borax, and then rinse.

• Enzyme detergent takes time to work. Pre-soak soiled diapers if possible. Soak tough stains overnight.

Machine Washing Diapers

While we have access to a machine, we’re using a scoop of Rockin’ Green dirty diaper detergent, a generous scoop of Borax (a chemical water softener, because the water at Leanne’s parents’ house is hard), and a little bit of laundry soap. We found the deep water wash / warm / presoak / single rinse cycle seems to work best.

I check every diaper for stains when I pull it out of the wash, and there are usually a couple that didn’t get spotless white. I set those to soak overnight in a small bucket of 1 scoop of Rockin’ Green and just enough water to cover, which gets rid of any residual stains by the next day. Then I just dump the bucket, water and all, on top of the next load of diaper laundry.

Diapers go into the dryer on medium. Diaper covers get hung up to air dry unless we need a few right away, and then I throw however many I need in the dryer and air dry the rest.

Bucket Washing Diapers

I’ve completed a trial of hand-washing our diapers in a bucket, and it’s working well so far. It’s a little work, but it’s actually faster than a machine wash cycle.

I’m using a plunger washer in a standard 5-gallon bucket. I found that plunging against the bottom of the bucket wasn’t very productive, so I added a false bottom to allow the water to squish through the diapers, not just against it. That seems to have significantly improved our wash bucket system.

We’re primarily using Rockin’ Green for handwashing, plus a little bit of lavender Castile soap because we like to keep our RV things biodegradable. Because we soften our water in our Airstream, we don’t need borax (a chemical water softener), or fancy detergent.

You need two buckets to do this. One wash bucket, and one rinse bucket, with a false bottom in each bucket. A two-bucket system will significantly reduce your water use, since you’ll use most of the water twice.

First, soak the dirtiest diapers in warm water with Rockin’ Green and a little bit of soap. Don’t fill the bucket past halfway with diapers—you need room for things to squish around. Gently scrub off any loose solids, plunge a few times, and walk away for an hour or so to let the enzymes in the Rockin’ Green do the work. Then plunge again, dump out the water and refill with fresh water, Rockin’ Green, and soap.

Add more diapers to the wash bucket and plunge for about a minute. Wait a few minutes, then plunge again. Pull out any diapers that look clean and put them in your rinse bucket (half full of clean water), and add more dirty diapers to the wash bucket in their place. Repeat plunging, waiting, plunging, and pulling out clean diapers.

When your wash water is dirty, dump it out. Plunge your rinse bucket for a minute, and dump the water from your rinse bucket into your wash bucket. Add new soap to your wash bucket and new water to your rinse bucket.

When diapers are sufficiently rinsed, squeeze the water out, but DO NOT WRING THEM. Wringing out any kind of fabric puts a ton of stress on the fibers and will drastically increase wear. Just squeeze out the water you can, and hang to dry. We’re using this portable clothesline (two of them, actually), which doesn’t require clothespins. Diapers dry best in the sun and breeze, but diaper covers shouldn’t be hung in direct sunlight or the sun will bleach the colors.

Gray Water or Black Water

It’s worth noting that your diaper wash water is sort of dilute sewage, so it probably shouldn’t go in the gray tank. But then, if you had a mechanical washer on board, where would the wash water go? Gray tank, right? And by code, the kitchen sink is technically black water, too, since it’s used to wash off raw food that could contain potentially harmful bacteria. Where does your RV kitchen sink water go? Gray tank, right?

My point here is really something you should be doing anyway—be responsible with your gray water disposal. If your diaper wash water is going in your gray tank, you’re theoretically adding potentially harmful bacteria to that water (or at least, food that harmful bacteria would like to eat). And if you’re also putting your kitchen wash water into your gray tank, that’s another source of potentially harmful bacteria.

In any case, you shouldn’t be discharging your gray water anywhere that people are going to come into contact with it, or anywhere near a body of fresh water. Ideally, gray water should be dumped at an RV dump site, or in a dry well or septic tank or somewhere else where it can safely percolate under the surface. Don’t use it to water food plants.

Feeding

Some babies have difficulty switching back and forth between bottle and breast this early. Ours is not one of those babies. Being able to feed pumped milk from a bottle means we can sleep in shifts and Leanne can get reasonable blocks of sleep.

We’re using the Kiinde Twist bottle system, which has been a perfect fit for our small space. The milk bags take up so little space for storage—we don’t use the milk storage rack, we just put the bags directly in the fridge/freezer. There are no separate bottles to wash since the nipple snaps directly on to the milk bag. It’s not zero waste by any means, but it’s a practical system, and the bags are at least theoretically recyclable.

Kiinde sells a bottle warmer accessory, but we’ve just been putting the bag in one of our sandwich sized Lunchblox, and pouring hot (but not boiling) water over the bag. Shake the bag under the water for a few seconds, and you’re good to go.

Newborn Clothes

All pajamas, all the time. In addition to onesies for a base layer, our favorite clothes for newborn sleep have been sleeper gowns, which are cozy and warm, but have easy access for diaper changes. As our child has grown and started to sleep more independently, we’ve transitioned to warmer long-sleeve fleece sleep sacks for cooler nights.

Baby On the Move

Our Ergo Baby Carrier has been fantastic. It’s very adjustable, and doesn’t require an insert for a newborn. It keeps him comfortable and secure while we’re out and about, and frees up both of our hands.

The Ergo carrier can be used on the front, back, or side, though we’ve only been using it as a front carrier so far. And surprisingly, it fits pretty easily under a day pack for hiking.

The downside of the ergo carrier is that it can be a little tricky to get on by yourself. I found the easiest way is to put the carrier on and latch it in the back, and then drop the baby into it from the front. Though, it’s also possible to put the waist belt on, then align the baby on our chest, and then put your arms through the shoulder straps which will support the baby as you snap the latch behind your head.

For the car, aside from the diaper bag and a car seat, our baby mirror has been our favorite bit of baby gear.

With a rear-facing child seat, there’s really no other better way to check out what’s going on back there. Was that a happy sound, or a sad sound? Is he awake or asleep? Still super cute? Yes.

One of the realities of living in a small space is that gunk and fuzz tend to accumulate much faster than in a larger living space. While we can surface clean and tidy our entire space in about 5-10 minutes a day, an annual deep clean is really a good idea.

Since we’re also making room for another person in our home, this is also a great time to re-assess our possessions. Am I ever going to buy an out-of-state fishing license so that I can use my fishing gear? Does this year-old can of sardines spark joy?

Over the space of two days, we removed all our possessions from the Airstream, deep cleaned all the nooks and crannies, and re-loaded and re-organized everything we decided to keep. Here’s a log of everything we put back in.

Clicking the image below will open it in full resolution, so you can get a better look at what’s in the picture. I haven’t listed every item in the picture, but I’ve tried to itemize the important stuff. The photos include pretty much everything we own, but there may be some duplicates (like dish towels) or other items (like the clothes we were wearing or other things listed as “not pictured”) that are not in the picture.

Many of these links below are affiliate links. So if you want to copy our load-out, we may earn a small commission for referring you, but it won’t cost you any extra.

Baby Wardrobe

This is the zero to three-month load-out for baby stuff. We expect to rotate some of this out once we’re past the brand-new baby stage.

Pictured

• Diaper Bag - Nice unisex design with lots of pockets and a built-in portable changing mat.

• Ergo Baby Carrier - Great for long walks or hikes. Lots of support, and includes a hood for baby to keep the sun or rain off their head. This one can be used right from birth with no added pillow insert (less things!)

• Kiinde Twist Bottle System - Super convenient and compact milk pouches and a matching baby bottle for feeding and storing pumped breast milk. The pouches are one-time use for sanitary (and sanity) reasons, but they’re recyclable. This isn’t a zero waste solution, but it’s the best thing for our lifestyle. We won’t be using the included shelf organizer in our tiny freezer, but this kit includes a starter supply of pouches, two bottles, and the adapters needed to connect it to most breast pumps.

• Folding Baby Bath - This amazing little device fits in a small sink and cradles baby for a bath. It weighs next to nothing and folds flat to take up hardly any space.

• Nursing Pillow

• Baby Nail Clippers

• NoseFrida- SO much better than those snot sucker bulbs.

• Forehead Thermometer

• Cloth Bins - For organizing Baby’s things, these fold flat when not in use.

• Collection of board type books: It’s hard to choose just a few books to bring with us, but thanks to the Indestructible series, a few more fit in our little box. These books are washable, chew and rip proof, plus they have beautiful illustrations and diverse characters.

• Flip Hybrid Cloth Diaper Covers - Fit both flats and inserts, are adjustable from newborns to toddlers, and rank highly for leak protection, ease of use, and durability. And when we’re done with them, we can sell them. As it turns out, there are entire communities for selling used cloth diaper supplies. We have a few used covers, but most of them are new, since we figured the time required to replace worn out elastic was worth more than the price difference between used and new.

• Swim Diapers - So that we don’t have to use disposables. Also, they’re super cute.

• Reusable Fleece Wipes - DIY, chopped up a piece of fleece from the fabric store. Along with a spray bottle of water and a little baby soap, these will substitute for disposable wipes, and get washed along with the cloth diapers.

• Cloth Diapers (various types) - We’re doing cloth diapers for a lot of reasons, but we haven’t found enough information to decide which types will work best for our lifestyle. So, we’re trying a few, and will report back on the results. We have cotton flats, hemp blend flats, and the flip hybrid inserts. We also made fleece liners out of fleece from the fabric store. We suspect the flats will work better for us, but we’ll see. If you want to learn more than you ever wanted to know about cloth diapers, Fluff Love University is a great resource.

• Bandana bibs - Nice easy-to-snap washable drool bibs

• Dining bibs - Stain and odor resistant bibs with a pocket to catch dropped food, and a super easy Velcro attachment.

• Onesies - The “Little Black Dress” for babies. Some thrifted, some gifted, all super adorable.

• Sleep Sack - For maximum coziness and safe sleep.

• Swaddle Blankets - Montessori is generally against swaddling (it restricts free movement in a way that Baby can’t choose to get out of), but some babies love it in the first few months. We’re planning to let Baby decide what Baby wants.

• Leg Warmers - These are the perfect compliment to a onesie for a mobile baby. They provide warmth and leg protection, but don’t need to be removed for diaper changes.

• Sun Hat - Great for outdoor activities without having to constantly reapply sunscreen. Adjustable for a wide range of head sizes.

• Booties - These are the best baby booties. When you unsnap them, the back opens all the way up, so you don’t have to try to wrestle a baby foot into a bootie, they just slip right on.

• Dry Bags - Good for all sorts of wet and/or smelly things.

• Topponcino - This pillow is designed to cradle an infant and provide a sense of consistency and security as they are passed from person to person, or from a person to a surface. It’s a classic Montessori material — did you know Leanne is a Montessori educator?

• Lamb Skin - Aside from a nice accent piece when draped on the back of the couch, this lamb skin will provide a comfortable surface for Baby when lying on the floor.

• Travel Bassinet - This is where Baby will sleep until it’s time to switch to the travel crib (around 3 months). We’ll put the bassinet on the counter next to our bed, though it also works as a co-sleeper. I’ve added some hooks to the wall behind the counter to make sure I can’t accidentally knock Baby off the counter. This bassinet folds up flat for easy storage and weighs next to nothing. Also, sheets.

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• Medela Pump in Style Electric Breast Pump

• Travel Crib - This will be used after Baby outgrows the bassinet. We’d love to do a Montessori floor bed, but the only place we’d be able to close off to avoid trampling from the dogs is the shower, and … no. The travel crib will live on the couch/bed and provide a safe place for our child to sleep without getting aggressively snugged by the Bailey. I really like this model because it’s super lightweight and portable, and it has a bottom zipper that we could open for our child to crawl in and out on his/her own.

• Car seat - This is really the only thing you have to have before they let you drive away with a brand new baby. You’d think there’d be more things, but nope.

• Portable Changing Mat - A clean surface, even if nothing else is.

• Baby Spoon - The best first spoon in the world. Made out of soft silicone, it’s easy to hold and unlikely to hurt sensitive gums. It holds only a small, manageable amount of food at a time, and has a suction cup on the base to hold it upright between uses. AND it looks like a beautiful plant.

• Haakaa Silicone Manual Breast Pump - This item came highly recommended by the lactation consultant as a backup to the electric breast pump. Good for when your electric pump is unavailable for any reason, or you need an on-the-fly solution for other common issues. Unlike most manual pumps, you don’t need to repeatedly squeeze this pump for it to work.

• Radio Flyer Walker Wagon - We’re using this instead of a stroller for longer walks, or to double as a gear hauler. The side flap even folds down to make a loveseat!

• Comotomo Silicone Teether - This is my favorite teether because it stands up by itself, making it easier to babies to grab it.

• Black and White Art Cards - For the first few weeks, babies see high contrasting images best, like black and white. These cards from Wee Gallery are super cute.

• HABA Triangles Wooden Clutching Toy and Teether

• Pacifiers and Clips - Like swaddles, Montessori isn’t big on pacifiers, but we plan to let Baby decide what Baby needs, so we’re keeping a couple of these around just in case.

His Wardrobe

Pictured

• Rubber Boots - Baffin Men’s Enduro PT Rain Boot - Rubber boots are essential for our lifestyle. They work great when we’re set up somewhere muddy, since we can slip them on easily to take the dogs outside, then slip them back off just inside the door. And for farm work, they’re the only thing you want on your feet when walking through shin-deep manure.

• Brogues - My dress shoes are gray suede brogues, which are fairly versatile for formal to business casual affairs. When I replace these, I might go with brown leather instead.

• Flip Flops - Sanuk Mens Beer Cozy Primo Flip Flops. These are my second pair of Sanuks, and the most comfortable flip flops I’ve ever owned. Only downside of these is that they tend to soak up water, so they don’t double as shower shoes.

• Shower Shoes - I keep a cheap pair of flip flops in my gym bag for shower shoes. Mandatory equipment if you ever intend to use a public shower in a gym or campground (hint: you will).

• Trail Running Shoes - Altra Men’s Lone Peak. I like these because they’re extra wide in the toes and have zero rise in the heel, which allows you to have a more natural gait while running.

• Chucks - Good for casual, non-running/hiking wear

• Pants - Two pairs of Levi’s jeans, two or three pairs of chinos

• Shorts - Four pairs.

• Shirts - Mostly tech tees and golf shirts, plus some button-down shirts and a flannel shirt for layering.

• Gloves - Aerostich Elkskin Ropers. Part of my riding gear before I sold my bike.

• Jacket - Roland Sands Barfly. Pretty spendy since it’s an actual motorcycle jacket, not a fashion accessory. This was part of my riding gear before I sold my bike, and money becomes less of an object when compared to your actual skin. If you’re looking for a jacket that’s basically indestructible and will last forever, real moto gear is the way to go. This particular style is discontinued, but Roland Sands still makes quite a few styles of high-quality leather and non-leather jackets.

• Rain Jacket - Patagonia, discontinued style.

• Down Vest - Columbia Men’s Lake 22. Super versatile and packable vest for layering.

• Fleece Hoodie - The North Face Canyonlands Men’s Hoodie.

• Socks - Darn Tough Socks, various styles. These really are the best socks. If they wear out before you feel you got your money’s worth, Darn Tough will replace them for you, no questions asked.

• Underwear - Saxx Quest 2.0. While I have a few straggler pairs of Exofficio boxer-briefs, I find SAXX much more comfortable, and I’m particularly fond of the tech fabric in the Quest 2.0 version, which dries quickly and lasts longer than other styles.

• HBY Multifunctional Head Wrap. These are the incredibly handy accessory you never knew you needed. It’s a stretchy tube of tech fabric that works well as a neck gaiter, but I mostly use them as hats. As my hair gets longer—who has two thumbs and is saving a ton of money on haircuts?—they work great for keeping my hair out of my face at the gym and on the trail. And they work well for a less-feminine looking method of plopping. Leanne stole a couple of them from me the other day to use as pregnant belly supports. It’s basically a thneed.

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• Boots - Red Wing 1907 6-inch Moc in Copper Rough and Tough. Tired of buying new boots every year after my Sorel boots started falling apart, I decided to get a serious pair of work boots instead. I expect these to last me at least a decade. These boots run large, so Red Wing recommends getting 1/2 size smaller than your true size, which was the right call for me. I suggest trying them on in the store, and if the D width that they carry in store is too skinny for your liking, order the EE width online.

• Whatever else I was wearing when I took this picture.

• Sun Hat - Coolibar Men’s Beach Comber Hat. Constantly changing outdoor spaces are a huge part of what makes our lifestyle so great. That means we spend a lot of time outside. For farm work, foraging, and otherwise hanging out in the sun, a wide brim hat makes the difference between a relaxing day and roasting your face off.

Her Wardrobe

Pictured

• Rubber Boots - Great for rain and mud — two things we see lots of whether boondocking or in camp grounds.

• Trail Running Shoes - Altra Women’s Lone Peak. These are the women’s version of Dan’s running shoes, which I like for the same reasons. Zero heel rise and wide toe box for the most comfortable running and hiking.

• Flats - My work requires lots of business casual outfits, which means lots of shoes. Fortunately, women’s flats don’t weigh much or take up very much space. Almost all of the shoes in the photo fit in the black bin at the top of the picture.

• Capsule Wardrobe - It’s much more difficult to arrange a small, functional wardrobe for women than men, but it’s not impossible. My wardrobe is built on a few essential “staple” items that coordinate with one another, and that I can augment seasonally with various accessories. This is my maternity capsule wardrobe, and I have a few pieces here that are also nursing friendly. I’ll be swapping back in my normal wardrobe as my belly goes back down and things fit again. Almost everything I wear is thifted.

• Exofficio Give-N-Go - These bottoms pack small, dry super fast, and hold up for years.

• Socks - Darn Tough - Various styles.

• Rain Jacket

• Down Vest

• Fleece Jacket

Not Pictured

• Chucks

• Sun Hat

• Whatever else I was wearing when Dan took this picture. Probably pajamas.

Tech and Recreation

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• Gym Bags - Lives in the car.

• Lifting Belt - Schiek 6011. Stabilizes your core when squatting/deadlifting heavy. Leanne and I both lift weights at the gym, and think it’s one of the best things we’ve done for our overall health and wellness. Leanne is 9-months pregnant with zero back pain this entire time — imagine that! Training your body works. If you’re interested in starting a gym routine, I highly recommend Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, which is one of the items we removed from our Airstream today since we’ve both read it multiple times.

• Stoic Wrist Wraps - I (Dan) injured one of my wrists last year while squatting, so I aside from using a different grip for that exercise, I use these wraps during movements that might bend my wrist backward, but are not wrist training movements (i.e. squatting).

• Thera Cane Massager - You know when you have a knot in your back or shoulder (or anywhere) that you just need some direct pressure to work it out? The Thera Cane is the best thing in the world for that.

• Fractional Weights - Most gyms don’t carry weights for the Olympic bar below 2.5 lbs. So if you want to go up in smaller steps than 5 lbs at a time, you need a set of fractional weights. A must-have for most women lifters.

• Yoga Blocks

• Yoga Mats - Good for yoga or just general stretching. If you can get the dog off them.

• Lacrosse Ball - Good for trigger point massage

• Daypacks (his, hers) - For day trips, hiking, and foraging forays, to carry water bladders and other supplies.

• Bailey’s Harness - Atlas Lifetime Harness. Bailey hasn’t learned to walk with a loose leash yet, so we typically keep her in a front attachment harness, which keeps her from pulling very hard. The Atlas harness is nice since it’s easy to put on, and it stays put even if Bailey is trying to pull. Downsides are that it doesn’t have a back attachment, so it can’t be used with a car seat belt attachment, and the nylon webbing is a little rough for her sensitive chest skin, so we can’t keep it on all day or it’ll chafe her. We also have a Ruffwear Front Range harness for Bailey which is more comfortable for long walks, and has a top clip for the car, but I don’t like the way it twists around her when using the front clip. She also pretty well shredded it when we left it on her 24/7 for the first couple of months we had her.

• Bailey’s Leash - Bailey is a Treeing Walker Coonhound, a super independent breed with a laser focused prey instinct. She’ll come back eventually if she gets loose, but it’s going to be years before we have voice control over her. A normal leash clip can catch on the Ruffwear Front Range harness back attachment in a way that causes the clip to open. It’s hard to duplicate, but it happened three times in the space of a few weeks, with exciting results. So, we’ve switched to a leash with a locking carabiner, and our walks have been somewhat less exciting since.

• Luna’s Harness - Luna’s harness is nearly identical to the Ruffwear Front Range, but with some extra reflective stitching. We’re not worried about Luna getting loose, since we have voice control over her.

• Luna’s Leash - I really like how this leash performs when it’s brand new. A hands-free leash is super convenient, and so much easier to run with. Unfortunately, the elastic in this leash tends to wear out after a year, and we’ve had to re-stitch the handles as they’ve come apart with normal wear. At some point, I imagine I’ll be in the market for a better hands-free leash if I can find one.

• Dog Bag Holders - Both leashes have a dog bag dispenser attached, so we’re never without a dog bag when we need one.

• Treat Bag - This is one of the best investments I’ve made in leash training. Having a bag full of training treats clipped to my belt makes it so much easier to reward the behavior I’m trying to reinforce.

• CB3 Armor XL Bluetooth Speaker - While it probably won’t win any audiophile awards, this speaker has some pretty impressive sound from such a small device. It’s a great improvement over the phone or laptop sound, and all we need for home use at the moment.

• Scansnap S1300i Scanner - Along with the included software, this is our paper filing system. We scan all of our important documents into a searchable format, and then shred the originals. That saves us having to carry around paper files, or having to worry about not having access to the papers we need.

• Logitech C922x Webcam - Much better than the built-in webcam in the laptop, we use this camera for professional video calls, or for filming things like webinars.

• Kindle Paperwhite - If you like to read but don’t like hauling around hundreds of pounds of books, an e-reader is the way to go. The Kindle Paperwhite has more storage than you’ll ever need, and a soft backlight for reading at night. And with the Libby app and my library card, I can borrow e-books from the library for free and send them straight to my Kindle.

• USB DVD Drive - We don’t own a standalone TV, but we still like to watch movies and shows. We watch DVDs on our laptops and Netflix on our laptops or phones, and since our laptops don’t have built-in DVD players, we use this USB drive.

• Dawn Simulator Alarm Clock - Dan has seasonal affective disorder, which responds best to travelling South for the Winter, but light therapy also helps when we have to be further North. This is one of the few SAD therapy lights (10,000 lux and the right blue wavelength) that is also an alarm clock, so it wakes you up with light rather than sound. And as an added bonus, it runs natively on 12 volt, so you can connect it directly to the RV electrical system with a 5.5 x 2.1 mm cigarette lighter adapter.

• Futurama the Complete Series Box Set - No explanation needed.

• DSLR - Good for high quality photos and medium quality video.

• Tripod

• USB Microphone - For video voiceover work.

• Laptop (2) - One standard cheapo HP laptop for general work use, and one “gaming” laptop for video editing.

• Laptop Case - Cheap protection for travel.

• DVD Binder - Filled with our DVD collection

• Canon iP110 Printer - Super compact inkjet printer. I’ve had several of these printers over the years (starting with the Canon i80) which I used for work, and they’ve all been excellent. There’s a battery available for this model so you can print on the go, but we power it with our house battery so there’s no need.

• Verizon Jetpack - Critical piece of equipment for remote work. Ensures we have dependable wifi wherever we have a good Verizon signal. Throttled after 15 gigs each month, but we can still use email and stream Netflix on a cell phone using the throttled connection.

• Bluetooth Sport Headphones (his, hers) - Good for the gym, work calls, or just to focus on work.

• Cordoba Concert Ukulele - My (Dan’s) guitar was just too big to bring along, so I carry a ukulele strung in Low G, which makes the intervals the same as the top four strings of a guitar.

• Harmonica - Hohner Special 20 in C - Good for harmonizing around the campfire, or making the dogs howl.

Not Pictured

• Cell Phone Booster - It won’t get you a signal if there’s nothing there, but often our cell phone booster is the difference between being able to work where we are, and either having to move to a different site or drive into town and work in the library.

• Wifi Booster - We use a Pepwave Soho router and a Surecall omnidirectional antenna as a wifi repeater. This setup is really only useful when you’re moochdocking in someone’s driveway and you have their wifi password. Campground wifi is really not worth the trouble. We moochdock or house-sit a lot, so this system allows us to work inside the Airstream when we couldn’t otherwise.

• Foraging tools - live in my daypack. An Opinel mushroom knife for cutting mushrooms and herbs, and a Hori Hori knife for digging and sawing. And a few of our mesh produce bags and reusable grocery bags.

Tools and Utility

Pictured

• Rotary Chimney Cleaning Kit - Adjustable rotary cleaning system that can be modified to fit small size chimneys (in my case, 4”), and attaches to your cordless drill. I use it midway through the heating season when I’m using the stove continuously, and once before stowing the wood stove chimney for the Summer. Thoroughly cleans the flue system in one or two passes.

• Trash Grabber - If you boondock much, you’re going to run into campsites with a lot of trash. People don’t seem to respect free camping areas much, which is a shame. But if you carry a trash grabber, you can clean up your immediate area in less time than you would have otherwise spent complaining about all the trash. Win-win.

• Rhino Sewer Hose - Camco RhinoFLEX 15’.

• Camco Aluminum Sewer Hose Support - Helpful to support your dump hose when you’re at a full hook-up site for an extended period of time. Was very nice to have last Winter while we were camp hosting at Greenbelt National Park. We kept our valve closed on our (heated) gray water tank, and just opened the valve intermittently to dump.

• Spare Propane Tank - Standard barbecue style tank. I had it when we started full-timing, and have kept it since it’s been reasonably useful. I use it as a backup tank in case our only option is a tank swap, and to plug the propane hose when I take one of our 30 gallon tanks for a fill. I also leave it by the tongue when we’re camping in case someone is looking to steal a propane tank, hopefully they take the cheap one.

• On the Go Water Softener - Keeps lime scale and iron out of our plumbing system, lets us use less soap for washing, and keeps our skin and hair soft. I (Dan) spent 10 years in water treatment before full-timing, so I’m particular about my water. Regenerates a few times a year with regular table salt.

• Water Filter Carbon Block - Pentek FloPlus-10 0.5 micron. Because we’re filling our tanks with potentially questionable water supplies, and storing that water in tanks for an indeterminate amount of time, I follow the CDC recommendations for back-country water treatment. I keep our tanks chlorinated (NIH guideline 1/8 tsp per gallon of water with minimum 30 minute contact time), and then I run all of our water through a 0.5 micron nominal carbon block filter rated for removal of protozoan cysts, which significantly reduces the residual chlorine and any organics that might be tagging along. Filter is installed using this housing attached to the pump with the adapters and one of the hoses from an extra pump silencing kit.

• Bleach - Chlorox, unscented. Used for drinking water.

• Furrion 30A Power Cable

• 50A Adapter - Not sure if I would replace this if I lost it, but I have it, so I’m keeping it. It’s pretty rare for there to be a 50A plug but not also a 30A one. I’ve encountered this situation once in two years of travel, and there was a 20A plug that I could have used, but I wanted to run the AC and the dishwasher at the same time.

• Air Compressor - I use this every time we hitch up to top off all eight tires. I also use it along with my blowout plug to blow the water out of the water softener in the Winter, and would do the same to winterize the rig if we ever needed to do that.

• Suction Cup Dent Puller - A surprisingly useful tool. Used for putting a handle anywhere you want on the outside of the Airstream. Also used for removing a plate that was stuck inside a bowl, and actually pulling a dent out of the truck body.

• 4-Way Silcock Key - I’m not saying that I’d steal water out of a keyed silcock on the outside of a commercial building under normal circumstances, but I could with this key, and I would in an emergency. There are lots of keyed faucets in public areas if you know where to look (hint: around back), and they all use the same square silcock key.

• Camco Water Bandit - If you want to connect your fill hose to a nonstandard faucet or one without threads, this is the tool you need to do that. Haven’t needed it yet, but water is important to me, so I’d rather have it.

• Adjustable Pressure Regulator with Gauge - A must if you’re connecting your rig straight to the campground water. I generally don’t, since I prefer to fill my tanks periodically to run the water through my filtration, but it’s nice to have the option.

• Storage Cap - This vented sewer cap is meant to be used for storage. I’ve never used it since we never store our rig, but I imagine I will one day.

• Hose Elbow - Useful if you’re connecting campground water directly to your city water supply.

• Jerry Cans - I keep two, empty, in the Airstream so that I can fill them when I need to haul in water. These are heavy when full, and aside from having twice the capacity, it’s easier to carry two full cans than one since it balances the load.

• Coco Coir Bricks - Used for priming the composting toilet. Seasonal item that sometimes can be found at Home Depot, or otherwise needs to be ordered online. Should cost about $3 each. If you can’t find them locally, try googling the UPC 816101002047.

• Spare Liquids Tank for AirHead Composting Toilet - You really need two liquids tanks if you’re using a composting toilet full-time. I mean, do you really want to hold it while you go find a place to dump the tank?

• Toilet Bowl Cleaner and Wipes - For emptying the liquids tank into a toilet. I like the Ms. Meyers Lavender toilet bowl cleaner, but you can use anything of a fairly liquid consistency - no gel. The Chlorox Scentiva Lavender wipes are purely an aesthetic choice. Inhale, dump the tank into the toilet (try not to splash), flush, exhale, spray down toilet bowl with cleaner as you flush again and breathe normally. Wipe down tank with a wipe, and if you splashed, wipe that up, too. All done, and you haven’t made the bathroom smell like a gas station men’s room. Unless you’re in a gas station men’s room, in which case, at least you haven’t made it any worse.

• Rem Oil - Gun oil is a great all-around oil for tools, squeaky hinges, and most things that need oiling.

• WD 40

• Goof Off - Good for removing adhesive gunk. Incidentally, works great for removing old Airstream weatherstripping.

• Electrician’s multimeter - If you want to have any hope of diagnosing electrical issues, you need this tool.

• Outlet Tester - Good for checking your work after you’ve wired an outlet, or checking someone else’s work before you plug in.

• Non-Contact Voltage Tester - Tells you if a wire is hot before you touch it. Another tool you should have if you plan to do your own electrical work.

• Stripper/Crimper Pliers - I’ve gone through a few sets of stripper/crimper tools, and these are the nicest I’ve had so far.

• Electrician’s Hammer - I need a hammer frequently enough that it makes sense to keep one with me. While it’s a lot smaller than most, this 12 oz electrician’s hammer is plenty of tool for my occasional use.

• Pop Rivet Gun - Pop rivets are the fastener of choice in an Airstream interior. If I was starting my renovation over, I’d probably invest in a nicer rivet gun, but this one is adequate for maintenance.

• Duct tape, flattened - There’s no improving on duct tape, but you can make the roll smaller if you take the cardboard ring out of the middle and flatten it.

• Allen Wrench Set - I keep looking at this heavy chunk of a tool set in my bag and wondering why I keep it. But then the very next day I need a specific allen wrench, and there it is. So, I’m keeping it.

• Electrical Tape

• Flashlight - I keep one by the door, and one in my tool bag.

• Sikaflex 221 - My favorite Airstream sealant. Aluminum safe, easy to work with, and isn’t tacky when cured. Incidentally, it’s also a pretty impressive adhesive.

• Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure - Good for plugging up leaking rivets.

• 3M VHB tape - Tape for when you absolutely, positively, never want something to let go, ever, but you don’t want to have to drill a hole, either. This stuff has been holding my solar panels and antennas on to my roof for years. AM solar has used it for thousands of RV solar installs and hasn’t lost one yet. Serious, permanent tape.

• Zip Ties

• 8 mil Nitrile Gloves - Full-time RVing offers lots of opportunities to do things that you don’t want on your hands.

• Trailer Aid Ramp - Ramp for jacking up a tandem axle trailer without a jack. Good for changing tires and packing bearings.

• Drain Cleaner Tool - A side-effect of water conservation is that if you don’t run lots of water through your bathroom faucet, it tends to get gunked up with hair and soap and fuzz and who knows what. We keep a drain cleaner tool around to clear the drain when it starts to slow. No chemicals needed, just something to remove the accumulated skuzz in the trap.

• Plastic Organizer with Various Small Parts and Spares (fuses, screws, electrical crimp connectors, spare screen for toilet, spare bumpers for barn door, spare latches for cabinets)

• Bearing Packer and Bearing Grease for annual bearing maintenance. Also pictured, the grease seals I will use when I finally get around to repacking my bearings.

• Dewalt 18V Drill/Driver - NOT an impact drill. Used with the Camco Jack Socket Adapter (or any 3/4” hex socket) to raise/lower the weight distribution jacks and the stabilizer jacks. Important not to use an impact driver for that job, since it would thrash the gears in the weight distribution jacks. Also useful for other drilling/driving tasks. To be honest, I’ve had my eye on the Dewalt 20V Max Drill/Driver for some time, but my 10 year old 18V set is showing no signs of slowing down, so I probably have a while longer to wait.

• Tape Measure - Part of my set-up/take-down kit. Used to set my weight distribution jacks to the right height, which I’ve determined by taking my rig to the truck scales.

• Torque Wrench - Used for torquing hitch bolts and lug nuts to spec.

• Breaker Bar - Used for hitching up the ProPride Hitch

• Speed Bar - Came with the Airstream. Manual backup for power drill, fits stabilizer jacks and weight distribution jacks

• Lynx Levelers - Used mostly under stabilizer jacks and tongue jack to protect the pavement from damage, but also works under the wheels as a backup for Anderson levelers.

• Pro-Pride Hitch - The most expensive trailer hitch system you can buy, and worth every penny. Eliminates the “tail wagging the dog” phenomenon of trailer sway through some interesting physics. Incorporates weight distribution so all the weight isn’t on your back wheels. Lifetime warranty (my life, not the hitch’s life), and top notch customer service. This one is not an affiliate link, I just really love my hitch.

• Driving Cap for Wood Stove - Blocks off my chimney for driving after I’ve removed the detachable section.

• Outdoor Rug - for our “porch” area.

• Zero-G RV Hose - Super flexible and collapses down small. Only downside is that it’s not made for continuous pressure, so you’re not supposed to use it for a direct city water hookup.

• Camco Tank Filler Adapter - Super handy fitting gives you a valve on the business end of the hose, so you can shut it off without running back to the faucet.

Not Pictured

• BAL X-Chock - These are the best chocks for a tandem axle trailer. They lock the two wheels together to prevent any movement, which makes for a a less “bouncy” feel inside the trailer.

• Anderson Levelers - I’m not going to link to this product because of this. But it’s a good design, and here’s another product that’s basically identical, just black instead of red.

• Ratcheting 3/4” hex wrench (comes with X-Chocks and fits X-Chocks, stabilizer jacks, and weight distribution jacks)

• Gray Water Hose - For routing gray water into the bushes when it’s OK to do so.

• Furrion 30 to 20A adapter

• 20A Extension Cord - 50’

Pantry

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• OXO storage containers - Fantastic for pantry storage. You can often find them cheaper at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or Homegoods.

• Misto Oil Sprayer - Like aerosol oil, but you get to pick the type of oil, and don’t have to get the other garbage they put in aerosol oil. Refillable and washable.

• Salt and Pepper Grinders - Freshly ground pepper and salt in the exact grind size you want is worth the trouble.

• Food - I’m not going to list all the food we carry, since that’s a question of personal taste. I will say that Stadium Mustard is totally worth sending away for. We tend to carry 1-2 kinds of something, like pasta, vinegar, or grains and choose a different one when we eat one up. Our pantry may be small, but we can cook almost anything from scratch with it.

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• All the food that was in the fridge when I took this picture.

Kitchen

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• Whirley Pop - The best stovetop popcorn maker. You can frequently find these at thrift shops. It looks like it takes up a lot of space, but the bowl nests with our cooking pans and the top folds flat, so it’s a little bulky, but we like popcorn enough that it’s worth it.

• Plates - We carry six 8” plates. The ones we have are from IKEA, but if I was buying them again, I’d get Corelle. Corelle is lighter weight and hard to break, while still being “real,” not plastic.

• Blates - Four. Again, the one’s we have are from IKEA, but I’d suggest Corelle.

• Bowls - Two from IKEA (I suggest Corelle), and three vintage pyrex because Leanne loves her some vintage pyrex. Most of her collection didn’t make the travel cut.

• Allclad Sauce Pans - One medium, one small. You can often find these cheaper at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or Homegoods.

• Cast iron dutch oven - Yes, it’s worth the weight. We use it all the time. I like the ones with enamel inside, which protects the cast iron from acidic foods.

• Cast iron skillet - Also worth the weight. We use it every day. I like the ones with enamel outside but bare cast iron inside so we can build up a layer of seasoning. If you’re not sold on the weight of cast iron, consider getting a carbon steel skillet, which has a lot of the same properties as cast iron but at a fraction of the weight.

• Small nonstick skillet, excellent for making eggs or one grilled cheese.

• Quarter sheet pan (2) - These fit nicely in an RV oven, and you can use them to make an insulated pan by stacking them. If you’re cooking something like cookies or biscuits in your RV oven that you don’t want to burn on the bottom, using an insulated pan underneath your baked good is the secret.

• Silpat - Washable, reusable nonstick mat. This size perfectly fits a quarter sheet pan.

• Boston Shaker and Jigger - For cocktails.

• Silicone Ice Cube Tray - I like these large ice cubes since they don’t melt as fast in drinks. Silicone trays are easier to get the ice out of, and I like the more compact size of these trays compared to standard ones since they fit better in a small RV freezer.

• Blender Bottle - We have two. Used for making protein shakes. My super protein shake recipe: 8 oz milk, 4 oz pasteurized egg whites (comes in a carton), 2 scoops chocolate whey protein (I like the Trader Joe’s brand), 2 tbsp peanut butter.

• Contigo Travel Coffee Mug - We have two. Spill-proof, and keeps hot drinks hot practically all day. If you had one of these years ago and liked it but found the top hard to clean, you should give the new ones a try. The new design is a cinch to clean.

• Duralex Tumblers - We have six. Real glass, but practically indestructible. These live in a drawer, separated by the cardboard insert from a case of beer.

• Wine Glasses - Schott Zwiesel Titan Crystal. Real crystal that’s surprisingly resistant to breakage and dishwasher safe. We started with six which was more than we needed. We’re down to four because I broke two, but both were due to me accidentally smacking them on the sink while washing them — none broke while we were moving. Four is the right number if you ever want to entertain.

• Tulip Pint Glasses - I carry two of these for beer. Not totally necessary, but nice to have.

• Insulated Low-Ball Glasses - We carry two of these, and they’re surprisingly versatile. They work well for whiskey or strong cocktails, and the glass won’t sweat if you use ice since it’s insulated. But they also work great for hot drinks like coffee and tea.

• Steamer Basket - Essential equipment for steaming veggies or anything else. Lightweight and nests nicely in our mixing bowls.

• Nesting Steel Bowls - We carry two stainless mixing bowls that nest in each other. We’ve seen others suggest getting collapsible mixing bowls, but they don’t seem to actually save any space when stacked, and rigid sides are a pretty important feature for a mixing bowl. Having metal bowls is excellent for softening butter in the oven, or making an impromptu double boiler to melt chocolate.

• Collapsible Colander - We like the mix of stainless and silicone in this collapsible colander, and it does indeed save space over a normal colander.

• Silicone Popsicle Molds - Dan likes popsicles, but they’re expensive and often full of stuff we don’t really care to eat. So, we freeze orange or other juices in these popsicle molds for super cheap and healthy treats. I imagine these will also be handy for toddler snacks.

• Anova Immersion Circulator - This is Dan’s favorite kitchen gadget, used for “sous vide” cooking. It heats a water bath to the exact temperature you want, within a tenth of a degree. You put your food in a bag, and put it in the water bath to cook it, then usually sear the outside when you’re done. People rave about how amazing sous vide steak is, but its most valuable food trick may be elevating cheap cuts of meat. Braised-all-day and then grilled pork butt or ribs are incredibly delicious and so easy to cook it feels like cheating. Cook a chuck roast at 131 degrees F for 18-24 hours and then sear it on the grill for something resembling prime rib, but at 1/4 the price.

• 12 Quart Cambro Bin - Used for Sous Vide, along with a silicone lid and neoprene jacket (and wrapping the whole thing in a towel) to keep the water in and save electricity. But I also use it for hydrating coco coir, as a bucket for cleaning, and as a bin to store stuff in the Airstream trunk area.

• Zerowater Pitcher - Along with softening, chlorinating, and filtering all the water in our house, we also run our drinking water through the Zerowater pitcher, which removes anything else that might be a problem. Zerowater is a deionizer, not just a filter — it actively removes nearly all the dissolved solids in your water that things like Brita filters don’t. I like that it includes a TDS meter so you can measure its performance, and know when it’s time to change the filter. It won’t remove bacteria, viruses, or cysts, but the chlorination and filtration steps mentioned above take care of those before the water reaches our faucet.

• Probe Thermometer - The key to cooking fantastic meat is as follows: buy meat, then don’t ruin it. 95% of making meat delicious is in the art of getting it hot enough to be safe to eat, but not so hot that it’s dry and overcooked. There’s all sorts of tricks that sort of work, but a good instant read probe thermometer is the only way to know for sure when it’s time to pull that meat off the heat.

• Spoonula - This spatula/spoon combo is a great fit for a tiny kitchen that doesn’t have room for a ton of stuff.

• Whisk - For whisking.

• Potato Masher - For mashing.

• Aim-a-Flame Style Lighter - the piezo igniter on our Atwood range is dodgy enough that it’s worth keeping one of these next to the stove.

• Waiter’s wine key - Gets you into a wine bottle with minimal drama. Also has a bottle opener.

• Nesting Steel Measuring Cups and Spoon Set - We’ve seen collapsible silicone measuring cups, but they don’t take up any less space than a nesting set. We’d rather have stainless.

• Can Opener - No way around having one of these if you want to get food out of a can.

• Peeler

• Kitchen Shears

• Champagne Stopper - Takes the urgency out of an opened bottle of sparkling wine. Unless you like to feel obligated to finish the bottle before it goes flat.

• Microplane

• Tongs (2)

• Fish Turner - This is my favorite spatula, and the one I would keep if I had to pick just one. The flexible design and angled tip makes it easy to use, and the slots help keep food from sticking to the spatula when turning. This is the best spatula for fish, eggs, and anything fragile.

• Solid Spatula - There are a couple of tasks that a slotted turner won’t work for, like making smashed burgers on the cast iron skillet.

• Steel Reusable Straws - We keep a set of these for smoothies and our other straw related needs. Comes with a cleaning brush. Silicone straws might be a bit more comfortable to use—a steel straw against my teeth gives me a visceral feeling of unease—but we haven’t tried those.

• Lunch Blox - Nice, modular system for storing leftovers or packing lunches. These containers nest neatly together, and come with a cold pack that mates with the containers. There’s lots of different kits to choose from.

• Capresso Burr Grinder - Fresh ground beans make a huge difference in the quality of your cup of coffee, and a burr grinder gives much better results than a blade style grinder. Instead of pulverizing the beans to inconsistent sizes and shapes, a burr grinder produces size and shape coffee grounds for better extraction.

• Bialetti 6-cup Moka Pot - Our coffee maker works on the propane stove top, or on top of the wood stove. The “6-cup” model makes two small mugs of strong coffee.

• Oster Blender with Mason Jars - The base of the cheap model Oster blender jar unscrews and fits perfectly on top of a standard mason jar. We don’t carry the blender jar, just the motor part of the blender and mason jars for smoothies. A small personal blender would probably also work for our purposes.

• Mason Jar Lids - If you’re using mason jars for food storage, it can be nice to have one-piece lids.

• Cutting Board - This cutting board has a flat side and a channel side for catching juices when carving. It’s a “best of both worlds” material, using natural wood fibers but in a nonporous dishwasher safe material. It also happens to perfectly fit as a platform in our kitchen sink.

• Cutting Mats - However much I prefer our cutting board, we often find ourselves preferring to use these flexible cutting mats instead. They’re just easier to wash and handle in a small kitchen than a large rigid cutting board.

• Chain Mail Scrubber - I used to use salt and paper towels to scrub my cast iron, but this chain mail scrubber with a silicone core works better with just a little water. You need to scrub gently to avoid damaging the seasoning on the pan, but with a little water to dissolve stuck-on food, you can clean your pan in no time without having to waste paper towels and salt. Be sure to thoroughly dry the pan before putting it away.

• Plastic Scraper - This is a great tool to save tons of scrubbing and water when washing dishes and pans. Just scrape stuck-on food right off.

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• Baking Stone - Evens out the heat from the oven burner and (in conjunction with a double-pan), makes the oven behave much better. Lives in the oven on top of the wire rack. Ours cracked after two years on the road, but we haven’t bothered to replace it because the crack doesn’t negatively affect its usefulness.

• Silicone Food Storage Bags - We’ve tried several types of reusable food storage bags, and these have been the best. While the idea of having a separate plastic piece to seal the bag was initially off-putting, the longevity of this design makes it the hands-down winner. Other reusable bags with integrated zippers tend to wear out over time, and are often not usable for the high temperatures used in sous vide cooking. These silicone bags, however, are showing zero wear after years of use. We use the gallon size for most sous vide tasks.

• Reusable bags for shopping. Mesh bags for produce, and these reusable shopping bags.

Cleaning, Bath, Dogs, Grill, Wood Stove

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• Zymox Otic - This is the cure for itchy, gunky, or smelly ears. Luna periodically gets ear infections that cause her to repeatedly scratch at her ears. This over-the-counter treatment includes hydrocortisone to soothe the itch immediately, and an enzyme to break down bacteria and yeast when used daily for a week. Luna knows how well this stuff works, and will ask for her ear medicine if her ears are starting to bother her, days before we realize there’s a problem.

• Zymox Topical Spray - While not quite the miracle product that Zymox Otic is, topical hydrocortisone spray helps when Luna is munching her feet. We spray the affected foot and then put on a dog sock so she won’t lick it off.

• Heartgard - Heartworm is awful. This monthly treatment keeps our pups safe.

• NexGard - We’ve tried various topical treatments like Frontline, and aside from being gross, they really don’t work. NexGard costs twice as much, but it actually works. Both dogs will do tricks for this soft beef flavored chewable. Since starting with NexGard, almost every tick we’ve found on the dogs has been trying to escape. The rare times a tick actually bit the dog, we found it dead before it was able to feed. If only they made this for humans…

• Furminator - Very effective de-shedding tool for medium hair dogs like Luna. It’s a little aggressive, but works great if you’re gentle. Doesn’t work at all for Bailey’s short hair.

• Undercoat Rake - Great tool for gently removing the Winter undercoat from most dogs. Works great on Luna, but doesn’t do much for Bailey. I made great friends with the rottweilers when we farm-sat in Kentucky using this rake to remove itchy clumps of Winter fur.

• Clicker - This is a very helpful device for dog training. It’s sometimes difficult for your dog to identify exactly what action you’re looking for. A clicker makes a distinctive sound that you trigger at the exact moment that your dog completed the action you’re looking for. By associating the clicker with a treat (and treating every time you click), you can use it to mark the exact behavior you’re looking for, which helps your dog learn faster. When you are training “sit,” click the instant the butt hits the floor. When you’re training “shake,” click the instant the paw hits your hand.

• Musher’s Paw Wax - Great paw protection for snow and ice or long hikes when we’re not using the dog shoes.

• Dog Seatbelt Tethers - These are more to keep the dogs in place than for their safety in the event of a crash, but I imagine with a padded rear-attachment leash, these tethers would be better than nothing. Certainly don’t attach one of these to a collar.

• Pizzles - Made from a part of the steer that most people would refuse to eat, pizzles (a.k.a. bully sticks) are our dogs’ absolute favorite treats. They’re good for several minutes of intense chewing. They’re expensive ($1 a piece would be a very good price), so we save them for special occasional treats.

• Dog Nail Clipper - Clipping dog nails without hitting the quick is tricky business, but it’s an important skill to be able to do yourself. We’ve found that if one person holds a peanut butter spoon for the pup to lick while the other clips the nails, our dogs are far more cooperative and even excited to get a pedicure. And if you screw up and accidentally cut too deep, which happens occasionally, a dog nose-deep in peanut butter is likely to be sufficiently distracted to stay relaxed.

• Dog shoes - One set per dog. We get lots of comments every time we walk our dogs with shoes on, but we don’t have them because they’re cute. Paw injuries are seriously debilitating for active dogs, so some protection is warranted when walking on sharp rocks, around broken glass, or on hot pavement.

• Weber Jumbo Joe - A full sized Weber grill in a compact size that works great on the ground or on a picnic table. I’ve modified mine with a hinged grate for easy additions during slow cooking and smoking, and the one-touch cleaning system, which needs to be slightly modified to fit, but works better than the standard damper.

• Weber Compact Chimney Starter - For starting charcoal without lighter fluid. If you feel you need to start more charcoal than fits in this chimney starter for an 18” grill, then I question your cooking methods.

• Kingsford Kaddy - For holding bulk charcoal. I have the standard size, but there’s a smaller one available, too, if that’s your speed.

• Grill Tools

• Probe Thermometer Set - A must for low, slow barbecue and smoking. One probe goes in the meat, the other one goes on the grill, so you can monitor both the cooking temp, and the internal meat temp.

• Frog Mats - Nonstick mesh mat, cut with scissors to fit the grill. Great for cooking smaller foods on the grill that might slip through the grates, or fragile foods like fish or citrus that might stick.

• Water Pans - Small aluminum pans to fill with water and place on the bottom grate next to the charcoal, for smoking.

• Chunk Wood - I keep a small bag of chunk wood (usually cherry) for smoking, or adding smoke flavor when grilling.

• Firewood Carry Bag - I use this canvas tote to carry firewood, and store it once it’s cut. I like the closed sides, so I can use it to store store shorter logs short-ways.

• Kiln Dried Firewood - While bulk cordwood is cheaper and foraged wood is free, transporting air-dried firewood can bring wood boring insects along with it that devastate local forests. When we’re traveling, I exclusively burn kiln dried firewood, which has been heated enough that any bugs inside are dead. As an added bonus, it burns super-clean.

• Firewood Chopping Block - After always looking for a piece of wood to chop against, I made myself a chopping block out of some spare butcher block and an old leather belt. I’ve been using it for a year and a half, and I think I might need to replace it in another year or two.

• Heat Powered Stove Fan - This sits on top of the wood stove and helps to distribute the heat into the air, rather than just heating the immediate area around the stove. It doesn’t blow air very hard, but it does make a big difference in the heat distribution in the Airstream.

• Camella Oil - I keep a small bottle of this oil around for coating my carbon steel knives and axes to prevent oxidation. It also makes a good lubricant for the bow saw.

• Bahco Bow Saw - 21” model with dry wood blade. I use this for cutting cordwood down to size, and cutting logs when foraging for wood. It’s a serious tool that can zip through logs faster than you might think, but it’s small enough to be reasonable to store and carry around. The dry wood blade is the right choice, since if I’m going to be using the wood immediately, it needs to be dry anyway. If I had time to cure the wood after cutting it, I wouldn’t be using a bow saw to cut it.

• Gransfors Bruk Small Splitting Axe - Do you really need a hand-forged artisan Swedish splitting axe to break down your firewood for your tiny wood stove? No, there are decent cheaper options available. But what other excuse are you ever going to have to buy one?

• Gransfors Bruk Small Forest Axe - Not as good as the small splitting axe at splitting, but much better for cross-cutting. This is a much more versatile camp axe.

• Telescoping Marshmallow Roaster Sticks - For the true campfire enthusiast. Works great for sausages and campfire donuts. You heard me. Donuts.

• Dyson Cordless Vacuum - This is the perfect vacuum for us. It’s compact, bagless, and battery powered. Some reviewers complain that the battery only lasts 5 minutes of continuous use, but that’s long enough to vacuum our entire house a couple times over.

• Seventh Generation Powder Dish Detergent - We try to use biodegradable soaps and detergents so that we can percolate our gray water into the ground where appropriate without causing any damage. This powder dishwasher detergent works great.

• Flour Sack Towels - Used for kitchen towels and light cleaning, and will double as burp cloths. We have lots more than what’s in the picture.

• Gray Wash Cloths - Used for cleaning messier stuff. We have lots more than what’s in the picture.

• Handkerchiefs- these replace the need for tissues

• Bottle Brush

• Dish Brush - This dish brush from IKEA is our favorite, with a suction cup on the end so you can stick it to the side of the sink.

• Broom/Dust Pan Set - Along with our vacuum, this little dust pan and broom set is all we need.

• Braided Elastic Clothesline - Great for hanging clothes to dry without the need for clips. One end can attach to the Airstream awning anchor, and the other end can attach to a tree, or the truck if necessary.

• Turbie Twist Towel- to help wet hair dry faster.

• Electric Hot Pad - For aches and pains.

• Spray Bottle (1/2 water, 1/2 white vinegar, small splash of Ms. Meyer’s toilet bowl cleaner) for spraying down composting toilet

• Neti Pot - Sometimes the best thing for a cold or congestion is a neti pot. If you’ve never used one, you’re going to be skeptical. This involves pouring room temperature salt water in one nostril until it runs out of the other. Done properly, there’s no feeling of pain or drowning like you’d expect, and it can put a stop to nagging sinus symptoms. Takes a little practice to get used to. Make sure you use previously boiled water so you don’t get brain eating parasites. No, really.

• Safety Razor with Feather Blades - Dollar shave club has got nothing on me. The best blades in the world at about 22 cents a piece. Takes a little extra practice to get the technique down (hint: you’re pressing way too hard), but totally worth it. Both of us have a razor.

• Alum Block - The only aftershave you really need. Helps prevent razor burn and ingrown hairs. And one block will last a looong time.

• Body Groom - Gentle, battery operated trimmer for sensitive areas. Safe to use in the shower.

• Wahl Clippers - Good for people and dog grooming.

• Sonicare Toothbrushes - Try it. You won’t go back.

• Incense - Nag Champa - Delightful smell. Burning the sticks is a bit much unless the windows are open. But if we’re using the wood stove, setting an unlit stick on top of the stove fills the air with that wonderful scent without any smoke.

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• HEPA and VOC filter

• Dog Food Bowls

• Dog Water Bowl - Slopper Stopper. Keeps the dogs from getting half their water on the floor when drinking, and basically impossible to spill. Kinda spendy for a plastic bowl, but totally worth it.

• Dog Busy Toys - We keep a couple of busy toys around to give the dogs something to do on rainy days when they’re antsy but can’t run around outside. We carry one Busy Buddy Barnacle, which Bailey prefers, and one Busy Buddy Waggle, which Luna prefers.

• Dog Bones - Benebone Wishbone. Dogs need to chew, but Bailey is able to reduce natural chews to an unsafe size surprisingly quickly (often in one sitting!). The best chew we’ve gotten her is a Benebone, which stands up to aggressive chewing for a long time. And it doesn’t shatter into sharp pieces like bones and antlers do. It’s not edible, so it’s important to monitor chewing and take the toy away if it gets anywhere close to a size that could be swallowed, but we’ve had great results with the large sized Benebone. We’ve tried a few different styles and our dogs prefer the wishbone shape.

• Slicker Brush - Good for regular maintenance or de-tangling after a bath.

• Curry Brush - This brush works great for Bailey’s short hair, and also getting hair off the couch upholstery. Unfortunately, the rubber nubs wore out after a couple of months of use and it no longer works. We’re going to try metal curry comb like the kind made for horses instead.

• Gransfors Bruk Ceramic Sharpening Puck - To maintain the edge on our axes.

• Bottle brush - for cleaning the composting toilet.

Books and Furniture

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• Stool/Desk Chair

• TV Tray (thrifted)

• Edible Wild Plants - Eastern/Central North America by Lee Allen Peterson

• A Peterson Guide to Wildflowers: Northeastern and North-central North America by Margaret McKenny and Roger Tory Peterson

• Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods by Thomas Elias and Peter Dykeman

• National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America by Bruce Kershner

• National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms by the National Audubon Society

• National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region by the National Audubon Society

• Mocktails: The Complete Bartender’s Guide by Kester Thompson

• Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling by Meathead Goldwyn and Greg Blonder

• Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons

• Ukulele Aerobics by Chad Johnson

These are the pregnancy books we’ve been carrying around, soon to be swapped out:

• What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel

• What to Expect the First Year by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel

• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

• What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by Lise Eliot

• Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood - and Trusting Yourself and Your Body by Erica Chidi Cohen and Jillian Ditner

What were we thinking?

Clearly, we’re insane. Living in 180 square feet with two dogs and a baby on the way couldn’t possibly work. We get that a lot.

Fact is, living in a small space with dogs is wonderful. They keep us safe, reinforce healthy routines, and shower us with unconditional love.

And with a few tricks, sharing a tiny space with dogs is easy.

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Dog Puzzles

Small spaces don’t give dogs as many opportunities for stimulation. So, it’s helpful to have some activities available for rainy days when long walks aren’t practical, or just when your pup needs something to do. There’s a ton of different busy toys available for dogs. Our current favorite is the Busy Buddy Barnacle, which dispenses treats or kibble when it’s dropped, pushed, or rolled. We keep two busy toys around so both dogs can play at the same time without competing.

Splash-Proof Water Bowl

Our dogs are messy drinkers, especially Bailey, our jowly hound. With a regular bowl, she tends to get at least as much water on the floor as she actually swallows. The Slopper Stopper Water Bowl solves the problem perfectly. It has a small opening in the center, so she gently licks up her water rather than splashing it all over the floor. It’s also spill-proof, so if it gets kicked or flips upside-down, the mess is minimal.

We still get occasional drips on the floor from Bailey’s jowls after she’s finished drinking, but the huge pools of water on both sides of the bowl are gone for good.

Long-Lasting Chew

For their dental health and general sanity, dogs need to chew. Pizzles are by far our dogs’ favorite thing to chew, but they’re gone in one sitting. So, we reserve pizzles for a special treat. Antlers last longer than bones, but a heavy duty chewer can get an antler down to an unsafe size fairly quickly.

Our favorite chew for our dogs is a large nylon wishbone style Benebone. Nylon chews last a long time (months in our experience), and they don’t break into sharp shards that could be dangerous if swallowed. They aren’t digestible, so like all chew toys, you need to monitor your dog’s chewing and take the toy away before it gets small enough to swallow. Larger is safer, so get the largest one your dog can handle.

Gear for Walks

The outdoors is one of the best parts of our tiny space. Since we’re mobile, it’s always changing, and if we don’t like where we’re at, we can always move. Our dogs love long walks, and it’s as good for them as it is for us.

Bailey and Luna both used to be serious leash pullers. Using a harness with a front attachment or a gentle leader helps keep walks manageable, but won’t address the root cause of the problem. The solution is loose leash training.

The best thing I ever bought for training was this treat bag. Having a separate pouch for training treats makes it easy to reinforce good behavior while we’re walking. The treat bag easily clips onto your belt or pants, or you can use the included shoulder harness to wear it like a satchel. It also has a pocket for dog bags.

I haven’t found a leash or harness that I love, but I have some preferences. A hands-free leash is incredibly helpful for hiking and jogging. We’ve been using this one, but it’s not ideal. The elastic in the stretchy bit wears out after a year, and when paired with the matching harness, it’s possible for the clip on the leash to tangle with the harness attachment in a way that causes the leash to unclip. We had a few exciting episodes of Bailey escaping on a walk before we bought a different leash with a locking clip.

For longer hikes, it’s helpful to have a dog water bottle. We used a flip-down style water dispenser for a while, but it tended to leak and it eventually broke. We replaced it with the LumoLeaf water dispenser, which we’re much happier with. The LumoLeaf seals tightly so it doesn’t leak in our bag, and it fits all kinds of water bottles, so you can change out the bottle if you like.

Gear for Cold Weather

While we had hoped to follow 70 degrees as much as possible, cold weather living has been unavoidable. When camping off-grid or on a 15A power supply, it can sometimes get cold at night.

Since the dogs can’t cover themselves with blankets, we bought them dog coats to keep them warm on cold nights. I’m generally not one to dress up my dogs in cute outfits, but coats are very practical when they need a little extra insulation. We also got Luna a cave bed, so she can tuck herself in if she wants to.

Medicine

Aside from regular vet visits, vaccinations, and heartworm treatment, our dogs need a couple of extra medicines regularly.

For periodic itchy or gunky ears, Zymox Otic is a miracle solution. The hydrocortisone works immediately to help sooth the ear and stop the dog from scratching, and the enzyme treatment breaks down the bacteria or yeast in the outer ear that are causing the issue. Luna has gotten to the point that if her ears are bothering her, she will beg for her ear medicine.

We spend a lot of time in the woods, so ticks are a problem from Spring to Fall. In the past, we used topical tick medicine like Frontline, but it was kind of gross, irritated our dogs’ skin, and it didn’t really work. We’d still find ticks biting our dogs after treatment. When we started using NexGard, we’d still find ticks crawling occasionally, but not biting. The dogs love to take it because it’s a tasty chewable, instead of a gross topical treatment, and it doesn’t wash off. NexGard is expensive, but it’s worth every penny because it actually works.

Keeping Clean

Keeping the dogs clean is always a priority, but it’s even more important in a small space.

Regular brushing helps to keep the fur problem under control, and to keep the pups comfortable. Different coats require different brushes. For Luna’s medium hair, The Furminator works wonderfully for annual shedding, and a slicker brush is best for a gentle brushing fresh out of the bath. Bailey is a hound, and her short coat responds best to a rubber curry brush for shedding. For dogs with longer and thicker hair, an undercoat rake is best for gently removing clumps of their Winter coat — I made great friends with the rottweilers at the Kentucky farm by raking out their itchy Winter coats.

For the fur that does end up in the house, we have a couple of strategies. We sweep every day with our Dyson V6 vacuum, which takes just a minute or two. We keep a washable throw blanket on top of the couch cushion to help keep the couch clean, and we use a rubber dish glove to rub any accumulated hair off the couch upholstery.

Neither Bailey or Luna are big fans of taking baths, but in warm weather, our outdoor shower makes it easy. We use our outdoor rug as a shower mat and wash with biodegradable dog shampoo before drying off with a towel and brushing for maximum fluff.

Are you living tiny with dogs? What are your tips and tricks? Leave a comment below.

It was always our intention to move South each Winter, but we haven’t managed that yet. Last year, we ended up overwintering in Maryland after returning for some family events, and stayed so we could finish up some renovations, adopt a new dog, and frankly, because moving is expensive and we didn’t have anywhere else we needed to be. This year, we have a baby on the way, so we’re here for the duration to be close to our midwives.

Building an Airstream for Winter Living

Factory Airstreams are not four season trailers. They do OK in the Summer (provided you have hookups or a generator to crank the A/C), and the Spring and Fall, but a cold Winter in a factory Airstream can be miserable. The aluminum ribs conduct heat straight through the walls. The furnace gobbles up tank after tank of propane even in relatively mild conditions, and in colder climates, struggles to keep your living space reasonably warm and your water tanks liquid. Once your tanks are frozen, you really are camping, since there’s no showers, no dishes, and no washing your hands. Any moisture in the air from cooking or breathing condenses on the cold walls, runs down to the floor, and can start mold growth.

If you’re re-building a trailer from the ground up, though, it doesn’t take much to build an Airstream that can be comfortable throughout the Winter. Here’s a list of our modifications that help keep us cozy throughout the colder months.

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Insulation

We used rockwool insulation in our walls and in the belly pan, with reflectix against the outer skin over the upper half of our rig. I couldn’t tell you whether the reflectix makes any difference in the summer, but it certainly doesn’t hurt anything.

Whether you choose fiberglass, Rockwool, or spray foam in the walls won’t make a huge difference in R-value, since you only have an inch and a half or so to work with. What will make a big difference is making sure you install it properly. Convection is your enemy inside the walls and belly pan, so avoiding voids is critical. Spray foam is obviously your best bet for avoiding voids, but it has its downsides. I really like how rockwool made a nice tight assembly when I installed it. I also liked how I could buy it at the hardware store and it didn’t require the assistance of a professional.

I’ve seen folks cut up pre-formed foam panels for their insulation, and I have to say, I’m not a fan. Pre-formed panels don’t fully fill the space in the wall. Air space around the panels allows air to flow inside of the wall, bypassing the insulation entirely. I suggest using either spray foam or batt insulation.

See our insulation product picks here, and see the wall insulation here and belly pan insulation here.

Thermal Breaks

An Airstream is constructed with an interior and exterior aluminum skin, held together with aluminum ribs. If the ribs are touching the skin on both sides, heat will conduct straight through the ribs, bypassing the insulation. This is also true of heat conducting from the wooden subfloor, through the frame, to the belly pan.

Adding a thin layer of insulation somewhere in this assembly adds some resistance to the flow of heat through the walls and the floor, which improves the insulation performance of the assembly. I don’t have any numbers on it yet, but anecdotally it’s working very well for us, and I would recommend incorporating thermal breaks where you can in your renovation.

See how we installed thermal breaks between the ribs and interior skins here. See how we used reflectix on the underside of the subfloor to add a thermal break here.

Heat Sources

Most Airstreams come with a propane furnace installed. We pulled ours out and did not replace it. We have nothing against propane furnaces, except that they’re loud and consume tons of propane and a moderate amount of electricity. We just didn’t want to be dependent on propane for heating, and we needed that space for the dishwasher.

For when we have hookups, we have two electric heaters. First, our Coleman Mach 8 Cub has the heat strip installed. It’s advertised only as a “chill chaser,” but it’s done a good job of keeping our Airstream warm until the weather gets into the teens (F) or below. As a supplemental heat source, and because we can’t run the heat strip without tripping a 15A outlet, we also carry a small 900/1500 watt countertop space heater.

For off-grid heating, supplemental heat, or (let’s be honest) any excuse we get to make a fire, we have a Hobbit wood stove installed with the RV/Bus flue kit from Tiny Wood Stove. The wood stove gives us a powerful, dry heat source that requires zero electricity, and is better to watch in the evenings than TV. We find that the Hobbit, which is about the same size as the Dwarf 4kW from Tiny Wood Stove, is a bit too much to burn without opening windows until the outside temp is well into the 50s (F). It really hits its stride below freezing, and we’re not sure we could live without it when it hits zero degrees.

See our Coleman Mach 8 Cub installation here.

See our wood stove installation here.

If you want to put a wood stove in an RV, spend some time reading through Tiny Wood Stove’s design and installation resources.

Dehumidification

Moist air in a small space is a problem during the Winter. No matter what you do, the windows and walls will be cold, and if the air is humid, water will condense on the walls and mold will grow. Even if you don’t use a catalytic heater or even cook inside your RV, the moisture you exhale can be enough to create a problem.

We don’t have space or electricity to spare for an electric dehumidifier, and as it turns out, we don’t need one. Dessicant dehumidifiers are available, but if you have a powerful, dry heat source like a wood stove, you have everything you need to dehumidify your rig.

When we see some condensation forming on our windows, we fire up the wood stove and crack open a roof vent above it. The wood stove gives us plenty of heat to spare, and the hot air escaping the top of our Airstream carries moisture with it. Running this way for an hour or so will clear up the condensation from the windows, and tells us it’s OK to close up the vent.

You don’t necessarily need a wood stove to dehumidify your space this way. Any sufficiently powerful dry heat source would work fine. As long as you have enough spare BTUs to lose some heat out the vent, and your heat source isn’t actively adding moisture to your air, you can dehumidify your rig in the Winter without any additional gear.

Water Tanks

One of the most important factors in building a four-season trailer is how to keep your water tanks liquid. If your fresh tank or plumbing freezes, you can’t shower, wash dishes, or wash your hands after the bathroom. If your waste tanks or hose freezes, you can’t dump them.

We use an Air Head composting toilet (similar to the Nature’s Head), so we don’t have a black tank to worry about. But we do have gray tanks and a fresh tank to worry about.

I installed 12V heating pads on both the fresh water tank and the primary gray water tank, and added Reflectix insulation to both. The two secondary gray tanks are emptied and valved off in below freezing conditions, since they don’t have heaters.

We found out last Winter that the suction line off our fresh tank is also susceptible to freezing even though the tank is heated, so we added 12V pipe heater to the suction line coming off the fresh tank as well. That would have been easier to do before installing the tank, but I do still have access to the side plumbing on the tank through a hole in the floor under the kitchen cabinets.

We keep our gray waste valve closed when winter camping, and only dump intermittently when it gets full, even when we have a dump hookup. This allows the heater to function properly (there needs to be water in the tank when the heater is on or the coil could burn out), and keeps the water in the plumbing manifold and the dump hose from freezing.

Since heating pads would use up a good portion of our available solar energy off-grid, we wanted another option to keep our fresh water liquid for off-grid Winter camping. When I replaced the fresh water tank, I added a return line, which would allow me to dump hot water (from the PrecisionTemp RV-550 water heater) into my fresh tank. I hooked a cheap 12 volt thermostat with a longer sensor wire (dropped to the bottom of the tank through the fill tube) to a 12V solenoid valve to control the hot water dumping into my fresh tank. Using the thermostat, I’m able to heat my entire fresh water system (plumbing included) with propane, and only as much energy as the water pump needs to kick on periodically. (While I was at it, I added a momentary switch, which allows me to prime the hot water before I take a shower or run the dishwasher without wasting any water.)

Keeping Yourself Sane

The hardest part of living in an RV in the Winter is keeping yourself sane. Sure, it’s perfectly comfortable in our Airstream, but it’s still only about 180 square feet. We built our home with the idea that the outdoors would be part of our living space. When it’s 10 degrees, we don’t spend a lot of time outside.

How best to manage that? Well, we’re still learning. Going out as much as possible seems to be the thing to do. Anyone have thoughts? Leave a comment below.

We haven’t been blogging much since we’ve been busy (apparently), and there hasn’t been much general interest stuff going on with the renovation basically done. But in prepping for this new phase of our life, we expect to have some new things to share.

How will our space change to accommodate the new member of our family? Are we crazy to think we can do cloth diapers off-grid? Where will we fit the truckloads of plastic garbage that everyone seems to think babies need?

Stay tuned to find out!

Stopped at TCPC again on the way back, in time to catch the Fall colors.  Tennessee Cumberland Plateau Campground is a fantastic, well-maintained Airstream-only park with very reasonable visitor's rates, top-notch facilities, and beautiful hiking trails.  This is becoming our go-to stop when we're anywhere nearby.

Next stop, Cracker Barrel for the night.  Free parking and carry-out comfort food.  What's not to love?  It got pretty chilly overnight, but we were toasty by the fire.

Next stop, Cracker Barrel number 2.  I just can't resist free parking and chicken fried steak.

Back in Baltimore, I started work on a few finishing touches to the Airstream.  Upper cabinet doors.

Indicator lights for our outside light switches.  This should help keep us from accidentally leaving the outside lights on all night.

And the bathroom floor.  We were originally planning wood flooring in the bathroom, but considering how often it gets wet, a little more tile seemed to be the way to go.  This adds a little more weight in the rear, which is not ideal.  But with the Airstream storage nearly complete, most things have a permanent place, so we should be able to avoid packing stuff in the shower when we're traveling.  It's probably about the same weight in the back as usual.

The big news this trip is that we adopted a new member of the family!  This is Bailey.  She's a treeing walker coonhound, and she's about a year and a half old.  We got her from Lonely Hearts Animal Rescue, the same place Leanne found Luna several years ago.  They specialize in finding homes for young mothers and their pups, and Bailey is a teen mom just like Luna.

Looks like she'll fit right in.

While overwintering in Maryland isn't ideal for the Airstream, we're prepared with a 15A hookup to the parents' house, so we can run a small space heater, and a pile of wood for our stove. The stove needs to be stoked every few hours, so the space heater is handy for when we're not home, or for overnight if we don't want to get up to keep the fire going all night.  When the temps drop to single digits, though, we are very grateful to have the stove, which has no problem keeping our home toasty.

We're parked at the top of the hill with Chad the billy-goat.  You know the smell of goat cheese?  That's all him, baby.  He is pungent.  It turns out, if you separate the male goat from the female goat, her milk doesn't have any goaty flavor.  Chad's pen is right next to the lady goats, and he calls to them all day.

The sky is incredible here, and the weather has been beautiful.

These are Blondie and Madonna, the baby goats.

Ice has been sleeping mostly in the barn at the top of the hill, looking out for us while we sleep.

Luna made friends with a neighbor dog, a gorgeous little friendly blue heeler.

Making pasta with eggs, fresh from the hen.

We took a day trip into Nashville.

Luna smelling the night air.

Our solar is enough to keep up with our usage normally, unless we have more than two cloudy days in a row.  I had to resort to plugging the umbilical into the truck for a couple hours twice this trip.  We'll need more panels and a larger battery eventually, but in the meantime, we'll make do with what we have.  I don't feel the need to get a generator just yet.

+5 amps through the umbilical.

Sunshine, finally.

One of the frustrating things about where we're staying in Kentucky is that there are no recycling facilities.  We had to drive to a University the next county away to dispose of our recycling.  Everybody around here just throws it in the trash, but we can't bring ourselves to do that.

Luna helping with dinner.

More dog friends.

More beautiful skies.

Chicken tree.

Neighbors.

I just can't get over this sky.

Movie night by the fire.

More Kentucky sky.

I made seed bombs with our worm castings, wild sunflower seeds, and queen anne's lace.  We'll toss them in some ditches on our way out of town.

Saying goodbye to our loyal guard dog.

But first, we need to get there.  Here we are, all packed up.

For anyone wondering, this seems to be the best way to secure the barn door while we're en route.  We have a latch to hold the door open or shut (helpful when you're not perfectly level), and we use two Velcro straps to secure each of the rollers.

Packing things in the rear of the trailer isn't the best for stability, but the shower is really convenient to keep things from moving around.  With any luck, we'll have better homes for most of this stuff when we're done construction.

We try very hard not to arrive anywhere after dark, but sometimes it happens.  One of Leanne's brother's friends was nice enough to offer us a place to park for the night.  It was a little nerve wracking getting situated, but here we are.

It felt like we were driving through a jungle while we made our way to our spot in the dark.  But in the morning...

Off-grid breakfast.  It's really handy that all of the appliances work perfectly without being plugged in.

Back on the road, snapping pictures of other Airstreams at rest stops.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel for the night.  Cracker Barrel usually has RV parking, and they allow you to stay overnight.  Chicken fried steak, a safe place to park, and biscuits and gravy in the morning.  It's a good deal.

And Cracker Barrel was kind enough to put on a show for us this time.  Fireworks at the stadium next door.

Next up, Tennessee Cumberland Plateau Campground, TCPC.  This is an Airstream only park near Crossville, TN.  There's usually plenty of very reasonably priced guest spots, but we were lucky to snag one this week.  TCPC is in the zone of totality for the solar eclipse, and we're going to see it!

Luna seems to be enjoying her trip so far.

TCPC is situated on 376 acres of land with walking trails, a lake, a clubhouse, and lots of mushrooms to forage.

I may have overdone it on the chanterelles.  I tried to make chanterelle rissoto, and I think I ended up with rissoto chanterelles.

Also found this beauty.  Chicken mushroom.  Cut in strips and fried, the taste and texture is spot-on chicken.  Really amazing find.

In fact, there is a whole tree of chicken mushrooms here that could feed a family of four for weeks.  Unfortunately, these are a little too far gone to use.  We'll have to check again next year.

Also found a red ghost flower, Monitropa uniflora.  A rare variation of a threatened plant—what a cool find!  Ghost plant is supposedly a powerful medicinal herb, but since it's a threatened species, it should not be harvested.

Point of interest, got to see the Jim Drier Memorial Light Pole.  Nice to see folks around here have a sense of humor.

The entire camping loop is just beautiful and well-maintained.  Tons of trees, and not too close to neighbors.

All set for the eclipse!

A couple days later, we hiked to a nearby waterfall.

Now off to Kentucky.

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While our drawers have magnetic child locks on them to keep everything secure while we're underway, the cabinet doors didn't quite need such a robust system.  We used these chrome ball catches for all of our cabinet doors.

The tricky part is figuring out how to install them so that everything lines up perfectly.  Here's what we did.

Install the ball catch flush with the inner edge of the cabinet.

Put the screws in the protruding part of the catch, and lock it into place.  It helps to push the screws a little toward the arc of the door, or they'll hit the door a little too far to the side.

Close the door and give it a little push into the screws.

Open the door, and note the marks where your screws will go.

Install the catch in the door, and you're in business.

These catches require a slight push to latch, and they give a satisfying click when the door is in place.

I want my doors and drawer fronts to overhang by 1/2", so I'm measuring the space I need to cover and adding 1" to each dimension to get my finished size.

Before I begin cutting, I'll remove all the safety mechanisms from my table saw.  Unfortunately, none of them are compatible with the dado blade.  It's always nice to take a moment to appreciate how quickly this could become a "shaker style going to the hospital" post.  Please note that my fingers are closer to the saw blade in some of these pictures than they should be -- that's because the saw is OFF.  Please also note that I'm not wearing gloves.  NEVER wear gloves when working with a power saw.  If it catches the glove, it can suck your hand right in.

I found it easier to cut a dado in full lengths of 1x2 stock, then cut those pieces to the lengths I need.  If I cut to length first, I end up with pieces that are too small to dado without putting my hand dangerously close to the blade.  To get the groove dead center, I make one cut, then flip the board around and cut the other side.  It takes a few tries on a scrap piece of wood to get the saw adjusted to the exact thickness of your plywood, but it's pretty easy-going after that.  I want the groove to be exactly 1/2" deep.

Next, I need to cut all my pieces to length.  The left and right sides of each piece are exactly the same height as the finished piece because they go all the way to the edge.  The top and bottom are two inches less than the width of the finished piece, because they only go as far as the end of the groove in the sides.

The sides are done, so now I need to cut the ends of the top and bottom.  The shoulder of this cut needs to be exactly the same as the depth of the grooves we cut earlier, and the thickness of the wood that's left needs to be exactly the same thickness as your plywood.  It may take a few tries to get the saw set up, but once it's done, you'll breeze through all your cuts pretty quickly.

The plywood panels for each of these doors should be two inches in either direction less than the finished dimension.  In my experience, it helped to cut 1/8" or so smaller that that to make sure everything fit together nicely.  After test-fitting all my doors and drawer fronts to make sure everything fits, it's time to glue.  You don't need very much glue.  If it's messy, you're using too much.

Once your piece is assembled, clamp it together.  You really do need to clamp it, it'll be much stronger that way.  Check your bottle of glue to see how long it needs to be clamped.  If you have a limited number of clamps, this is where a fast-setting wood glue comes in handy.

If you're going to paint your doors/drawer fronts, you need to caulk the seams between the plywood face and the frame.  Use the cheap latex painters caulk for this.  You don't need silicone or anything fancy.  If it's the cheapest caulk in the store, you've probably found the right one -- just make sure it's paintable.  Do not skip this step or there will be an unsightly crack in this area.  You'll also want to sand the edges of your doors/drawer fronts to smooth everything out, especially at the seams in the corners.

Installing these drawer fronts can be a little tricky.  There isn't much overlap between the corner of the drawer and the "meat" of the door.  You want the screw to hit the pine frame, not the plywood panel.  Here's my method for mounting these drawer fronts.  I put a screw in each corner of the drawer from the inside out, just far enough to poke out a bit.  Then, I close the drawer and line up my drawer front.  When I get it where I want it, I press the door into the screws that are poking out of the drawer box.  Now, I can open up the drawer, line up the screws with the marks I made, and permanently attach the drawer front.

There we have it.  Shaker style doors and drawer fronts.

Helix Sleep participates in our affiliate program, so we'll get a small commission if you purchase a mattress by following a Helix Sleep link from this page, and it won't cost you anything extra. We bought our mattress before we found Helix Sleep in our affiliate program, and we did not receive any freebies or discounts from them.

About a year ago, we set off on our honeymoon in our "aluminum tent" Airstream.  We were so far from finished, all we had inside was a refrigerator (but no propane to run it off-grid), an Air Head composting toilet (but no bathroom wall), and a Tuft and Needle mattress.

We learned fairly quickly that a bathroom wall is essential for marital bliss, so I set out on building one as soon as we circled back to home base.

Next, we had to deal with the mattress.  Tuft and Needle had been highly recommended by one of our friends, and the customer service had been great, but I just didn't like the product.  I'd wake up several times a night with dead arms or legs.  It's like the top layer of foam was too soft, and the bottom layer was too hard, so you'd sink right down and lose all circulation.

After some exhaustive googling, we decided to try Helix Sleep.  When you sign on to Helix's website, it asks you lots of questions about your height, weight, body type, sleeping style, etc.  And it asks the same questions about your sleeping partner (if you have one).  Instead of Tuft and Needle's one-size-fits-people-who-aren't-me approach, they custom build a mattress that will work for you as an individual.  If you share the bed with a partner, you can choose a "happy medium" that should work for both of you, or you can split the bed down the middle, and have exactly the mattress you want on your half.

The thing that sold me about the Helix mattress is that they don't just have a couple layers of foam -- they include a layer of pocket coils.  The coils add some extra "give" (and a little "bounce") to help relieve pressure, which was my main problem with the Tuft and Needle mattress.

We paid $800 for our full size mattress, which is a good bit more than the $530 that the Tuft and Needle cost.  But if I'm going to get a better night's sleep, it's well worth the price difference.

The customer service experience after the sale with Helix was almost identical to Tuft and Needle.  They proactively solicited my feedback to make sure I was happy.  Helix has a money-back guarantee very similar to Tuft and Needle, but I never had to return the Helix mattress.

A year later, I'm still enjoying my Helix mattress.  Will it work for you?  It's hard to say.  Since the Helix Sleep mattress is customized to each individual, your mattress will be different than mine.  But if the cheaper bed-in-a-box type mattresses aren't working for you, Helix is worth a shot.  Check them out here.