Moving into an 18ft trailer of 94 livable square feet came with some serious downsizing. We were happy to do the downsizing as we fully embraced our minimalist lifestyle and wanted less stuff anyway.

Going to the tiny home life meant making sure we only have the essentials. Since our trailer was custom-built we had plenty of time to prepare, making it easier and less of a shock.

The moment we began as travel physical therapists some form of downsizing began. However, once we picked a trailer we had a better idea of just how much we could own and still live comfortably.

We knew we were going to have to go through each room and make a lot of changes. Especially since most tiny homes come with built-in furniture.

The main downsizing happened when we had to get from California to Ohio in a small Honda Civic with all of our belongings in tow. This meant everything we owned had to fit into the Honda, plus the space needed for Phil in the front, Kelsey in the passenger, and the boys in their crate.

We will admit this wasn’t an easy feat but in the end, we managed to move into our trailer with room to spare.

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Time to Downsize

Right away there were two rules we followed that helped the downsizing tremendously

1. Get rid of bulky items
2. Only keep what you need

So how did we do it…we simply followed our two golden rules in each room of our apartment until we were down to only the essentials. Here’s a little snapshot of how we tackled each room.

Kitchen

Utensils

As for cups, plates, etc. we only have enough for 2-3 people. If we have visitors we typically like to go out and enjoy the town so we’ve been fine with having less kitchenware.

All of our plates fit in one container that goes under the "closet". Our utensils fit into two little bamboo cups.

Bulk Items

Right away we tackled our bulk items, aka the items we buy in bulk at the store with our jars. We started here as that is our main kitchen space occupier.

It was important for us to keep buying in bulk but we still had to make some changes. All of the big containers were switched to matching smaller mason jars.

We also downsized the variety. We decided to stick with quinoa, lentils, and black beans as these are our go-to in the bean/grain department.

Fridge

The fridge in the tiny trailer home is a little bigger than a typical dorm room fridge. This means only about 3 small shelves and very limited door shelving.

We now buy 1-3 types of fruits and vegetables at a time. We change what we buy week to week to keep up with variety but take up less space in the fridge.

Extras

We use a small Instapot that makes about 3-4 servings. As for a blender we have a small, personal blender and only kept 1 medium-size attachment.

We also decided to make sure all of our jars for either bulk items or storage had lids that all fit one another. This helped a lot with space and making organization easier.

Bedroom

Furniture

Our bed is built into the trailer so our mattress was an easy item to get rid of. The rest of our bedroom furniture, such as a bedside table and lamps, also became obsolete once we made the trailer move. Once again, this all comes more or less built into the trailer.

Bedding

The bedding was probably one of the more important items to reduce. As with most easily cold individuals, we owned more throw blankets than one could ever need.

We decided to keep only the amount of pillows and blankets needed for our bed and the loft bed we have in our trailer. That does include a giant heated blanket that typically just works as a mattress cover but can be turned on in case of much-needed warmth.

We can use the loft blanket as extra if needed. We also still own sleeping bags so there’s another contingency plan.

Closet

As for our closet, we switched to a 100 item wardrobe a while ago. We did make sure though we still stick by the 100 items.

We also did a quick check and made sure all the clothes were still good quality and that we still would wear them.

Living Room

Furniture

As with the bedroom, all the furniture was the first to go since the trailer has it built-in. The trailer even has a table for us to use from our couch.

Since the bed and couch are the same (it folds up), we can use our bedding blankets as our couch blankets.

Television

The biggest downsize we did was get rid of our TV. We honestly didn’t have to do this as we could have had a small TV in our trailer but it was more of a personal choice.

We realized that we were wasting too much of our time with TV and that it was time to simplify life and break away from the screen.

The fact that we were downsizing just made this easier to do. Not to mention that by getting rid of the TV we can also get rid of DVDs, game consoles, etc.

Books

The hardest thing to downsize for both of us was our books. It turns out we love books.

We first decided what series we wanted to always have on hand and decided on three (Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings). We both enjoy all of these and can reread them all several times.

From there we kept about 2-3 books that once we read we will donate. Then we can always get a new book we haven’t read either from a used book store or the library. This means all of our books fit nicely on a shelf that we keep in our loft.

Our main goal with downsizing to live in our tiny travel trailer home was “less is more”. Let us know if you have any questions or need some extra advice on downsizing. We may not be professional downsizers but we aren’t too bad either 🙂