When you have kids you have toys. They go together like bratwurst and sauerkraut. It’s possible to have one without the other, but do you think it will be a pleasant experience?
As I said in a previous post, we’re stepping down from a 1281-square-foot home to a less than 250-square-foot Skoolie. The kids will have roughly 40 cubic foot bunks for personal space to call their own. This is a major downgrade from the roughly 1056 cubic feet of an average bedroom. That’s not a lot of room for LEGO and race cars!
Granted one would hope that the majority of our children’s time will be spent outside finding bugs, making friends, getting messy and having adventures. There will, however, be days that they will want to play with toys, and toys are good for kids anyway, LEGO and other building toys especially. That’s why we’re keeping our old tent from our car camping days.
A bonus, deployable, but compact 170 cubic feet of extra space! The Boy is a huge fan of LEGO, but also a huge fan of ‘crashes’. We’ve never had much tolerance for toy-created chaos, but in the tent, out-of-ear shot and well-contained? Why not. Clean-up on moving day should be a breeze and as easy as sweeping the mess to one side and scooping it into the right bin…
As for bins, that will be another limiting factor. There will be no room for their giant toy boxes on the bus, so we’ll have to get smart. Smaller, right-size plastic boxes for sure, and pare down the collection. There will be a lot of compromises made when it comes to loading up for the first time.
The Girl has really been into dolls lately, which presents other issues. So far we’ve thought about dowels in an IKEA Kallax unit:
This also gives us storage for art supplies, books, and most importantly, a hidey hole for The Cat.
No plan survives first contact with the enemy, so I’ll keep you informed as we get to actually loading up.