Small Space Saturday: Secret Stash

Every Saturday I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet

One place to look for more storage is under existing banks of drawers. In many RVs, if you remove the drawer closest to the floor you may find a fairly sizeable empty space underneath. There may be a few wires or a heater duct running through part of it.

Measure what's available and look for plastic bins or cardboard boxes that fill it, taking into account the size of the opening that the box has to pass through first. Two or three small boxes that fill the space will be easy to place. Ziplock bags are another good option. It does get dusty under there, so you'll want some sort of container(s).

Completely removing a drawer to access this can be tedious, so you may want to store things that aren't used often. When we were living in our previous RV, a Fleetwood Flair, we stored the Dremel Tool in its case beneath a drawer. We liked having the Dremel, but used it only every six months or so. You might consider storing rarely used paperwork there, such as your tax returns from two years ago. How about out of season clothing in gallon-size ziplock bags? Winter hats and gloves? Even if you plan to travel to warm climates in the winter, you may want to have heavy gloves and hats "just in case."

RV drawers often don't completely fill the space front to back, either. Measure the depth of your drawers and the depth of the compartment that holds them and you may find an extra four to six inches way in the back. You'd have to take out all the drawers to get to it, so things stored here are well hidden. To keep a box hidden behind drawers from falling and jamming the drawer mechanism, you may want to velcro it into place.

If you do decide to use these odd spaces, consider a written log of what is stored where. Looking things up on your list is much easier than taking out all your drawers.