More Woykin 'n Practicin'

After the initial suspension mods, we decided to move into the bedroom. I really like the bedroom; it's so homey and comfortable... well until we clutter it up.

The original bedroom TV area

There was a 13-inch tube TV in a cabinet and there were two mirrors on tracks that could be closed in front of the window that is adjacent to TV. The TV was pretty heavy, being a tube set, and it wasn't very big. We'd gotten into the habit of falling asleep with the TV on in our stix 'n brix house, and we brought that habit with us. We like to put in science, history or nature DVD's and watch until we fall asleep.

We took out the small TV and hung a 32-inch LCD TV/DVD combo on the wall. Then we placed some wireless speakers at either side of the bed's headboard. The speakers allow us to have the TV sound turned down, while still being able to hear it clearly. Gotta be able to hear the owls...

We also removed the sliding mirrors and tracks from the window. We never used them and when we took them out, we were surprised by how much they weighed! I'm always amazed by RV manufacturers and how they build their products. Like I mentioned in the last post, there is 13 feet of overhang behind the rear axle of the HOW. In that overhang, the mfgr put two 45 gallon waste water tanks, a 75 gallon gas tank and a room slide-out.. Hanging at the rearmost end, is a class III hitch receiver that will tow 5,000 pounds. Inside the coach, along and adjacent to the rear wall, is the closet and the clothes drawers. Clothing is heavier than you'd think! As the HOW was the top-of-the-line when it was built, the cabinetry and finishings are real oak. All that adds up to a LOT of weight in the rear. Swapping out the OEM TV and removing the window mirrors, along with having a Sleep Number bed, and emptying the waste tanks before traveling reduces that weight. Oops! Got off on a rabbit trail. Sorry, back to the HOW improvement. 

To keep the clutter down, we try to use any empty space we can find. In the bedroom we originally stored our DVD's in the open space to the left of the old TV. That wasn't ideal because we had to stack them two-high and three-deep. When we wanted to find a certain one we'd have to pull the front and top rows down and put them on the bed to access the disks in back.

For a while we stacked them in the space that was formerly behind the sliding window mirrors, and that was better, but... we still had to pull some out to get to others, and when we drove they wouldn't stay put, so they'd end up on the bed again. Having as simple of a pack-up-to-go, and put-back-on-arrival process is important to this mobile life style.

Our solution was to build in a lightweight set of shelves.

Our new shelves hold the DVD's nicely, and we added some removable dowel rods across each row to hold everything  in place while we're driving. We stored all the TV series we'd already watched in the shed.

Now that the space where we first kept them was empty, we turned it into a home for all our board games. They used to live in a drawer under one of the seats in the dining banquette. We have BIG PLANS for that, so stay tuned.

One of the things we had already done in the HOW was to remove a barrel-chair and a stowable tabletop that was right behind the passenger seat.

We put a small cabinet where the chair was. We can keep books, and CD's inside and on top we have a soundbar, a Blue-Ray player and some misc storage baskets and boxes.

We also moved the 20-inch tube TV from its place between the driver's and passenger's seats...

... and mounted a 32-inch LED TV over the cabinet. That made it easier to watch from a pair of La-Z-Boy recliners across from it where a sleeper sofa used to be.

Moving the TV gave us a place to put our printer and network hardware as well as letting us expand the work-station at the passenger seat.

All in all things are moving right along in HOW improvement land. Now if we could shake these never ending colds we have...

More to come.