Full Time RVer

It seems RV manufacturers (and for many of them, rest their souls) have a hard time getting it through their heads that fulltiming RVers need storage space. Sure they give us cabinets, but in many cases, these cabinets are simply big boxes with no shelves. If you’ve got something to store that’s really tall, it’s fine, but if you got a lot of smaller items, you’re got problems.

Even if you’re a “challenged do-it-yourselfer” it may not be too difficult for you to build a cabinet shelf divider. Even if you can’t cut a board, the “Mom and Pop” lumber yards will often cut boards to your specified length for a small fee, or sometimes for free.  Here’s a simple divider project to consider.

We started out with a cabinet over an RV’s “TV alcove.” The two-door cabinet was nothing more than a single box hidden behind those doors, and pretty useless for our needs. We decided if we could put just one shelf halfway across the cabinet it would allow us to put tall stuff on one side, and smaller items on the other. To do this we needed a flat shelf with two supporting ends.

First rule: Accurate measurements. We measured inside the cabinet from the back wall up to the inside edge of the cabinet. We also gauged how “tall” we wanted the shelf unit. Based on those measurements we figured we wanted a “shelf” that was 15 and a quarter inches wide, and 11 and three-quarter inches deep. To support it, we figured we needed two “end” pieces 8″ tall, and the same depth as the shelf.

Off to the lumber yard, where the “yard bird” who helped us found a small chunk of thin plywood that met our needs. Using the dimensions provided, he cut the plywood into pieces, and we walked out for a bit under $4.00 for the shelf and cutting. Here’s where we say, “accurate measurements.” Had we been thinking, we would have made sure that the same “depth” applied at both sides of the cabinet. When we got the pieces back to the rig, we found that the cabinet was not square–on the right side, where we’d measured it was 11 and three-quarters deep, but on the left side, “between the doors,” we were almost a half inch “too long.”

While we may not qualify as “wood butchers,” one of us can run a saber saw, so this problem was quickly dispatched. Next, we sanded the rough edges of our materials down smooth. We could have added a coat of finish or two, but in this case, time dictated we had to get the shelf in sooner than later. Using metal “corner braces” from the hardware store, we screwed four braces onto the underside of the shelf. We made sure that the distance in from the edge of the shelf would accommodate the plywood support pieces. Mind you, we didn’t screw the support pieces onto the shelf yet–there wouldn’t have been enough room to get the unit into the cabinet in one piece.

We placed one upright support in the cabinet, balanced the shelf in its proper location on it, predrilled a screw hole into the support, and drove home the screws. Repeating the process with the other upright left us with a slightly “crooked leg”–the support trying to “toe in” under the shelf. A small wood screw driven into the wood of the bottom of the cabinet held that reluctant support in place–but be careful if you do that. Oftentimes cabinets have “false bottoms” that may contain electrical wiring. Don’t short your fuses!

We now have a much more serviceable storage cabinet, and it took less than $6 in supplies and a relatively enjoyable hour or two of labor.