Meet Easterlin.
A few people have asked me for the story of Easterlin lately
and wonder what we are doing with our new camper. We bought a tiny RV after
searching on craigslist for one for a couple months and found this 23 foot home
on wheels. We loved the layout of this tiny one, the towability of it and the
fact that the interior was in incredible shape, despite it being 10 years old.
If you wondered why we decided to get a camper to live in, here is the story of
our new soon to be home. I cannot wait to document the adventures we have in
this little camper in the near future!
I’ll start with WHY we got the idea to get an RV in the
first place. I love the idea of living better with less stuff. I love the idea
of leading a life of simplicity and minimalism. As a society, we are constantly bombarded with the idea that more things
and better things equals happiness.
I want to live a life of what I KNOW to be TRUTH and that is this: LESS IS MORE. MORE STUFF EQUALS MORE STRESS. MORE STUFF EQUALS LESS QUALITY OF LIFE. MORE STUFF CREATES A CROWDED MIND. MORE STUFF CREATES AN ENVIRONMENT OF CHAOS, NUMBING US TO WHAT TRULY MATTERS IN LIFE. MORE STUFF IS NOT WHAT MAKES US HAPPY!
Instead of a house full of things, I want a life of ADVENTURE and LOVE and PASSION. I don't want to spend my life working to pay off things that I got because I thought I needed them and that they would make me happy. I want to continue to focus on living my life with only the bare essentials and truly purchasing quality over quantity. It is a subject I have been reading about and trying to incorporate into my own life for a few years now. I love the idea of not having constraints or being tied down by things you have to work a 9-5 to pay off.
When Dave and I started planning our move across the country from the EAST COAST to the WEST COAST a few months ago, an idea came to me which I knew would be the ultimate push towards a life living better with less. A life of more minimalism. I thought about finding an airstream to live in and to stay in while we road tripped cross country. I also thought it would be a good home on the west coast for a little bit while we find an apartment that we really love. However, the more we work on Easterlin, the more I get excited about taking her all over the place instead of getting an apartment as soon as we had originally expected. As of now, we are stoked to stay at many National Parks along the way to the West Coast and be free from the constraints of a home tied down to one place on the west coast.
I want to live a life of what I KNOW to be TRUTH and that is this: LESS IS MORE. MORE STUFF EQUALS MORE STRESS. MORE STUFF EQUALS LESS QUALITY OF LIFE. MORE STUFF CREATES A CROWDED MIND. MORE STUFF CREATES AN ENVIRONMENT OF CHAOS, NUMBING US TO WHAT TRULY MATTERS IN LIFE. MORE STUFF IS NOT WHAT MAKES US HAPPY!
Instead of a house full of things, I want a life of ADVENTURE and LOVE and PASSION. I don't want to spend my life working to pay off things that I got because I thought I needed them and that they would make me happy. I want to continue to focus on living my life with only the bare essentials and truly purchasing quality over quantity. It is a subject I have been reading about and trying to incorporate into my own life for a few years now. I love the idea of not having constraints or being tied down by things you have to work a 9-5 to pay off.
When Dave and I started planning our move across the country from the EAST COAST to the WEST COAST a few months ago, an idea came to me which I knew would be the ultimate push towards a life living better with less. A life of more minimalism. I thought about finding an airstream to live in and to stay in while we road tripped cross country. I also thought it would be a good home on the west coast for a little bit while we find an apartment that we really love. However, the more we work on Easterlin, the more I get excited about taking her all over the place instead of getting an apartment as soon as we had originally expected. As of now, we are stoked to stay at many National Parks along the way to the West Coast and be free from the constraints of a home tied down to one place on the west coast.
After I ran the idea I had to get an airstream by Dave, he was in so we started airstream shopping. We quickly
realized that although an airstream may have more “cool points” they were crazy
expensive. Anything that you could get for less than 15,000 was normally in
need of major renovation. We went to see 2 airstreams and one was so huge it
would be a nightmare to tow across country and parking it would have been
horrendous. Plus, it was super vintage, and not the cute vintage but the
yellowing over the top old vintage type. The 2nd airstream we looked
at was just the airstream shell pretty much and came with nothing, not even a
real floor. The floor was filled with holes and windows were broken. This would
have been a super time consuming and expensive project and not something we were
up for.
So, we gave up our airstream idea and started searching for RVs
to update exactly how we wanted it instead. The comforts of having a working
shower, toilet, stove, fridge, pull-out couch and huge bed for thousands of
dollars less than an airstream all seemed very appealing to us after previously
only looking at airstreams. We also saw a ton of adorable RV renovations online
and started watching inspiring Youtube videos of couples living off the gird in
their RVs all around the country and we both looked forward to finding the perfect
RV for us!
You can imagine my excitement when Dave picked me up from
work one day and had been driving around all day long buying our ideal RV,
getting the registration for it and driving to a couple storage places to find
one that would work for us to park it at before we moved. I thought he was home
the whole day and I couldn’t believe he did that all in one day and surprised
me with the most adorable RV ever!
As soon as he bought her, we got so excited looking at all
the possibilities for the big remodel. We both had a few days off so we took
her from the storage lot and we parked her at Easterlin which is a Florida
State Park just 20 minutes from his apartment. We hooked her up to AC and got
to work! For 3 VERY long days we worked on her almost every single minute we
could. We ran all over town buying supplies, spent hours preparing to paint her
and ripping out old, outdated furniture and yellowing appliances.
We hit many
roadblocks along the way in those 3 days and every little step took a lot of work but was all part of the fun now looking back and will always be good memories. Some memories I hope we remember are those Walmart runs. We made what felt like 200 Walmart runs and sometimes ended up at the wrong, ghetto Walmart on accident at midnight. We bought a drill online and ran into some interesting delivery issues. The couch we wanted was out of stock and only the show model that they wouldn't sell us was at the store. Dave waited for 45 minutes for someone to price some fabric we had gone all over town for. These "roadblocks" at the time may have been exhausting but are so fun to think about looking back on now. We had so much fun those 3 days at Easterlin park! It feels awesome doing hard things with results you love!
Oh and also, one other memory I would like to keep on record! I never before understood how incredibly crazy paint fumes in small places can make you - even with masks on and the windows open! but by the last day, I couldn’t believe how much I loved her new look. It looked better than I ever thought she would.
We still have a lot to do – but here is her progress thus far! We have a new couch we had to order that just got delivered yesterday and we will still be doing a fair amount of remodeling other things like the floor and table. However, before we make the big move across the country to the West Coast we will most likely refrain from making too big of changes in order to make sure we don’t mess anything up so she will be ready to start our trip at the end of August.
Now for the fun progress pictures. I listed the photos below in order of before, during and after! Follow along for all the new updates happening soon!
Oh and also, one other memory I would like to keep on record! I never before understood how incredibly crazy paint fumes in small places can make you - even with masks on and the windows open! but by the last day, I couldn’t believe how much I loved her new look. It looked better than I ever thought she would.
We still have a lot to do – but here is her progress thus far! We have a new couch we had to order that just got delivered yesterday and we will still be doing a fair amount of remodeling other things like the floor and table. However, before we make the big move across the country to the West Coast we will most likely refrain from making too big of changes in order to make sure we don’t mess anything up so she will be ready to start our trip at the end of August.
Now for the fun progress pictures. I listed the photos below in order of before, during and after! Follow along for all the new updates happening soon!
BEFORE
DURING
[CURRENT] AFTER! * STILL TONS OF WORK TO BE DONE SOON!
