Rearranging

Before we even took possession of the fifth wheel, I’d been considering moving the sofa into the rear of the RV where the recliners and end table used to be. We discarded the remaining recliner when we moved in because it was broken, and I turned the back part of the RV into my little office, with a computer cart, chair, and small filing cabinet. I left the sofa in the dining room slide, we removed the dinette set, and replaced it with Lex’s desk and chair. That worked fine, but I got tired of having to put my feet up on the sofa in order to be able to face the TV which is at the front of the living room across from the door. Now, the sofa faces the TV rather than being perpendicular to it. Much more comfortable.

Moving the sofabed was tedious. The thing was bolted to the floor, so I had to remove the cushions, open it, take off the mattress, and angle the frame so that I could reach the metal strips that were holding the sofa in place. That done, it didn’t take long to get out all the screws. Clearly, the sofa had never been moved, so it was filthy under there. That was a good excuse to vacuum the living room.

Once I got the sofa moved to the rear of the RV, I realized that pulling in the slides might be impossible because of the depth of the sofa. That meant getting everything up off the floor and out of the way, going outside in the mud and removing the stabilizer jacks, and pulling in the slides, but when we did, we discovered that the slides would clear the sofa, if only just. Yay! I would have cried if I had to put it all back.

So now our dining room slide out (the largest of the three) is what I’m calling the “office wing.” Lex’s desk faces the front of the RV, and mine faces the rear such that we end up sitting back to back when we are both at our computers. In between us there is a small two-drawer filing cabinet. There are matching cabinets and lights above each of our desks, so we both have plenty of storage. The only drawback is that wall jacks aren’t wired into slides, so we have to run power strips to the nearest plugs in the entertainment center and in the rear of the RV by the sofa. That means everything has to be unplugged before we can pull in the slides. I really have to start making a list, or one of these days I’m going to pull in the slides before I take out the stabilizers or do something else I need to and end up breaking something.

Now that everything is moved, we have the illusion of more space. Obviously there isn’t, but because the desk takes up less floor space than the sofa, there is the appearance of more usable area. It’s also easier to move through the RV with the sofa in the back because there is only a very small walkway from the front to the back of the living room, requiring us to step over the sofa when we try to get around it to the galley.

I think moving the sofa to the rear has one other benefit, actually, and that is more equal weight distribution. That large slide is really heavy all by itself, and opposite it on the curbside is the kitchen slide which is probably also heavy but considerably smaller. The back of the RV had very little weight in it at all. I can’t help but wonder if it won’t travel a little bit better with the weight of the sofa in the back. I guess we’ll see if and when we ever get back on the road.

One drawback to my new floorplan is that I can’t open and close the blinds over my big picture window at the back of the RV, making it darker in the living room than normal and eliminating my lovely view. There’s one other disadvantage and that is that the sofa is now much nearer the litterbox in its little cubby in the kitchen slide. Uck. Oh, well, if it turns out this was a bad idea, it will be much easier to move it all back since I didn’t bolt the sofa back down. There’s no need. When the slides are pulled in, they will hold the sofa in place during travel.

I have to say that I love moving things around in my living space. It may seem trivial, but doing so makes the place feel brand new somehow. With these dreary, rainy days, anything at all can lighten up the atmosphere.

Tags: floorplans, furniture, living area, rearranging, rv