On Steve's first official day of the government furlough (*grumble grumble*), we decided to get the back of the van organized.
We have taken out several benches in our 15 passenger van so that there is a lot of open space in the back. The benches are in storage, and there is exactly enough seating for the eight of us now.
Up until our project day, the back of the van was filled to the hilt with big Rubbermaid containers filled with our homeschooling curriculum and supplies. This was beginning to turn into a disorganized mess, and everyone was feeling the effects of living with that disaster.
Steve came up with the idea of putting bookshelves in the back of the van. This was a great idea, but how do you put bookshelves in a moving vehicle and keep them from falling over?
So then my wonderful husband had the idea of building a wooden pallet for the floor and screwing wooden bookshelves into the pallet floor. Brilliant!
So off we went to Lowe's hardware store to buy lumber, screws, and a saw. We brought it all back to the camper and started building. While Steve and the boys built a wooden framework for the pallet floor, I worked on assembling some pre-made bookshelf kits. Before I was finished, they had attached the plywood floor to the framework and finished their floor!
Once the bookshelves were done being assembled, Steve used some L-brackets to secure them to the plywood floor.
So now the question became, how do we keep things on the shelves while driving around? The bookshelves had doors with handles, but they weren't going to stay closed while driving.
Steve once again came up with another brilliant idea. He had some extra strips of wood cut off from the plywood to make it fit the frame they built. He cut them to fit between the door handles and notched them to stay in place. When we are driving, those slide between the handles and hold the doors securely closed.
Today we went to Wal-Mart and bought a small area carpet to cover the plywood floor. Voila! Our mobile classroom is ready for the road!
