No couch in the RV anymore! Where will our butts go?!

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Let's take a little trip down memory lane, to August 2020. We were in the middle of the pandemic, itching to go somewhere, anywhere! It was a tough blow to have an incredible road trip planned for that very time, only to have it taken away by a rampant virus. So, we packed some overnight bags and journeyed up to our beloved respite: New Hampshire. We booked an Airbnb at a cute tiny home south of the White Mountains, not far from where we camped right after our lightning strike. We thought living tiny for a few days would be good practice for when we moved into our RV.

The tiny home itself was fine, except the photos on Airbnb didn't paint a clear picture of the layout and setup. We certainly got a feel for the tiny; the house even had an RV toilet! We had no issues whatsoever with the size of the place. Our biggest problem was the lack of seating. The only places to sit were on one of two very uncomfortable bistro chairs, on the steps, or hunched under low ceilings in one of the beds. We tried to make the most of it, adding padding to the stairs, and even running to Walmart to buy a couple of beanbag chairs that were in the back-to-college section!

Even with our "modifications," we got to the point where we couldn't take it anymore. It started raining, which thwarted many of our outdoor plans, and we were stuck inside with nowhere to sit comfortably. We left early, alerting the host on the way out. Her response was, "Oh, you should have told me! I have a ton of old furniture in the shed that you could have used!" Uncleaned shed furniture? In a pandemic? No thanks. A better solution would be to actually think about what your visitors want and need, and it's not much! Just one place to kick back and relax would be sufficient.

After that trip, we vouched to always make sure we had a comfy spot to sit, no matter how small a space we were living in. We ordered this small sectional loveseat with ample storage for our RV, taking a gamble since we hadn't been able to test it out first. We loved it! It was a modular design, so we could bolt and unbolt the different sections. We didn't have room to reconfigure it, but we were able to have a square-shaped loveseat-ottoman combo with storage under every single cushion. And it fit in our trailer like a glove.

That loveseat was all we needed to add some cushies to the tushies for nearly two years of RV travel. Only, because it was our main seat where we spent hours upon hours, the wear-and-tear was real. We did our best to upholstery clean it regularly, but when Tanner comes in from a muddy RV site and jumps on the ottoman, or when Lily has the zoomies and claws the sides like they're a jungle gym, there's only so much we can do to keep up. As we neared our two stationary months at the end of 2023, we knew we needed to part ways with our loveseat. It's as though the loveseat knew, too, because as soon as we started down the path to replacement, the underside of one of the cushions completely gave out.

We thought about buying another version of the exact same loveseat, and we'd highly recommend the Honbay couches and chairs to anyone who is looking for ample storage in a small space. But after we thought long and hard, we made a rather unorthodox decision: Why buy another couch at all?

When we first launched, we knew storage space in the RV came at a premium. We had been minimizing our belongings since the beginning of 2020, but downsizing over 1000sqft was still an undertaking. As we moved into the RV and started traveling, we continued monitoring our use of our things, and when we reassessed a couple months ago, we found many items that we hadn't used. When we took it all out, we discovered that we were using barely half of the storage space in the Honbay.

Between the tiny home incident and our own tiny living adventure, we had a revelation: We only have one butt each! Each of us can only sit in one chair at a time, so the amount of seating matters a lot less than the integrity of the seat. We thought back to how many times we both actually sat on the Honbay couch at the same time, and we can count those times on one hand. Most often, when one of us was sitting on the couch, the other was at the workstation or sitting on the bed. We might be living small, but we still like our space! We also used to project TV shows and movies on our back curtain more often, so we'd both sit on the couch to watch the screen, but the couch is facing the wrong way and eventually we stopped setting up the projector except for real special occasions. We find that lounging in bed, watching a movie on our laptop, is much more comfortable.

We concluded that the space for both our belongings and badonkadonks was unnecessary, and we'd much rather open up the floorspace of the trailer. We chose to buy an oversized chair and separate ottoman, and then use the surrounding space for other storage if needed. We found this chair on Home Depot (non-affiliate link or get it on Amazon using our affiliate link) and thought, for that price, there's no way it would be comfortable enough for our main booty-space, but we ordered it ship-to-store in Wichita to give us ample testing time on our way back east, and it passed the test.

Next up was the ottoman. We wanted to add a pop of color but still stay within the vibe of the chair, so we purchased this deep teal tufted ottoman with storage. For added bits of storage here and there, we purchased a few other items: A small ottoman that can be used as both seating/footstool and an end table, and a shaker-style hamper to hold our bedding.

We finished our living area with new rugs and a new litter cubby for Lily. We kept the focus on the space around each item. Instead of getting area rugs large enough to fill the floor, we went down a size so that more of our vinyl flooring would show. Lily's cubby is actually a tad wider than her old one, but it's shorter, so it doesn't go all the way up to the window. Even this 2-inch gap gives an illusion of more space. Even though we can't meet the levels of feng shui that we'd like, we can at least make sure that our living space has room to breathe.

Also on the agenda was giving the RV a deep cleaning inside and out, plus going through all our stuff once more to see if there is anything else we could purge. Last year, our plan to line all our drawers and cabinets didn't work out the way we'd hoped, so this year, as we went through our decluttering process, we added new, adhesive liners to the cabinets. This material won't keep items from shifting in transit, but it will keep things a bit cleaner. Having all aluminum shelving means that sometimes it oxidizes and the surfaces turn black. Yes, that's right. All aluminum means we need to worry less about mold, but we get this instead. That's the trade-off. Our drawers and cabinets were looking pretty disgusting and some of our items were getting black smudges on them. We're hoping the new adhesive liners will keep some of the aluminum oxide at bay, plus the pretty pattern will look spiffy when we go into our cabinets.

Our stationary time in Massachusetts gives us plenty of time to test out various configurations of the furniture and also see if there is more we need to buy. Before we get back on the road, we will make our final decisions and then figure out how to best secure all of these furniture pieces for travel. We've really loved having our ATC toyhauler because we've never been bound to standard RV furniture. We've always bought our own stuff, which makes our interior design unique and functional for us.