Since buying our little Avan, Georgie Girl, we’ve looked on line for storage ideas that we can add to her. Being what I think is termed ‘a low hipped A’van’, the height of all benches is only 720cms, and consequently, all drawers, cupboards and storage are below that height. There are no cupboards near the central kitchen area that are ideal for pantry storage. Not finding anything inspiring in our on line searches, my clever man came up with his own idea, and I think it’s absolutely brilliant.

The A’liner goes up to a high peak above the sink area, and this is the area we felt was best to add some kitchen storage too. However, very little can be permanently above the 720cm line in the van as the sides need to fold down for travelling. Therefore anything on that wall needed to be removable, lightweight, and needed to be out from the curtains so as they could still be pulled across at nights.

This is what my man came up with:

First he designed some wooden brackets that could be permanently left on the van. As you can see from the shape of them, when the shelf is fixed to them the curtains can still be pulled behind the shelf.

Next he built a lightweight box out of a thin ply. It’s 900 long, 240 high, and 160 deep. He added a thicker piece of wood across the bottom for the cup hooks. There is one screw on either side to hold the box to the bracket. We have a lot of the square Sistema containers in our house. We buy some whenever we see them at half price in the supermarket. They have a great variety of sizes and they stack up on each other cleverly and securely. He kept them in mind when designing the shelf, and they fit brilliantly. Our china cups hang below the shelf, as does a tea towel, and there are still two additionally hooks not used as yet. The shelf itself holds a load of Sistema containers with our tea bags, sugar, coffee, crackers, nuts, muesli bars – loads of stuff. Our coffee perculator sits on the shelf, as does our peanut paste and Vegemite, and all at a great height to access the items easily. Our little ornament yacht sits on top and suits the triangular shape of the van. It’s nice to have a little bit of space for something that’s just for decoration. And on either side we have room for our crystal wine glasses. We use unbreakable melamine plates for our travelling dinner ware, but like most travellers, we still prefer our coffee out of proper china cups, and our wine out of a nice glass. Presto – we now have a pantry!

The screws that hold the box in place just come out and the box slips off. It rides comfortably and safely on the bed when travelling with all of the containers sitting inside it. It literally takes less than two minutes to remove what has to be removed. The cups, wine glasses and perculator travel inside a soft storage container which I purchased from Kmart for a few dollars. These sit on the floor on a piece of none slip matting along with a couple of plastic drawers when travelling. The yacht tucks under the pillow on the bed.

The little plastic drawers live on top of the drawers that hold our cutlery and dinner ware when not in transit. They’re very useful for things like glad wrap and alfoil, as well as all those other little odds and ends that don’t really have a home. We have noticed that a few people seem to use the addition of plastic drawers on top of their fixed drawers, so this was an idea we copied. The pantry idea – that was all our own. And it is brilliant – I know I’ve said that before, but I’m so happy with it that I just had to say it again.

So there you have it – the best storage idea addition that I’ve seen so far to make an A’van more user friendly, an idea that my clever man came up with all on his own. Such a pleasure to be married to such a clever man – He’s a keeper!