Minimizing: How did we deal with all of our stuff?

Good question!  Because we are still dealing with it and we have been at this for three weeks as of today.

We had a number of categories into which our things fit:
1.) Gift to friends and through the local Buy Nothing Facebook group
2.) Donate or throw away
3.) Sell via OfferUp and Facebook groups
4.) Store in a climate controlled storage facility (5x5)
5.) Store in our 500 square foot garage on a rural parcel we have owned since 1998 (more about this in a future post)
6.) Keep with us in the trailer

We gave away and sold most of our furniture and many home decorations.  I have been thinning out the kids' toys for months but we still had to decide which were the most precious items and which would have to find new homes.  We have various collections that we want to keep nearer to us such as vinyl records, books, and video games and those went into storage along with personal papers.

In the blazing heat last Wednesday (120 degrees) we loaded a 6'x12' UHaul trailer (attached to our truck), the cab of the truck, and the trunk and front seat of our car.  Yesterday we drove all that stuff to our land.  We moved furniture and household items adequate to furnish the garage in the future (stay tuned for more info about "The Land").  For now our personal memorabilia including pictures, kids keepsakes, as well as bed, bath and beyond stuff are stored there.  Here is some idea of my view for 10+ hours yesterday as we drove round trip up and down the mountain.

Stopped for gas

Throughout our calculations we were optimistic about what would fit into each space.  While we are now out of the house and most of the decisions have been made, we did bring too much to the trailer. Mostly I feel like we brought too many toys.  Secondly I brought too much food (I had a large pantry)...I have had to store some of both in the under carriage storage and that was not the original idea.  I am concerned about my dried goods (beans, grains, flours...supposed to be stored in a cool dry place...I have them dry, yes, but not cool).  My immediate task is to figure out how to use up my staples without cooking in the trailer.

Inside the trailer I have small compartments under the kitchen benches, bed and couch.  In these I have stored 1.) craft/school supplies, 2.) games, 3.) kitchen appliances, 4.) office stuff (printer/scanner/etc) and video games.  I also store some extra towels and our swimwear under one of the kitchen benches.  I have a feeling we will be rearranging it all because it does not seem efficiently or effectively put away.  The kitchen cabinets hold pots and pans, dishes, pantry and the household garbage.  In the bathroom we added an over the door shoe holder to sort the toiletries - the under sink compartment is so tiny and full of pipes there is little room for anything.

Today we went to IKEA, but were disappointed by the lack of immediate solutions.  In many cases we didn't have all the measurements we needed.  We are also unclear about whether we should try to mount things to the walls with hardware or just use command strips...

So our continuing problems are - 1.) Finding solutions to organizing all of our stuff in the trailer and 2.) Thinning out what we brought to the trailer (especially using up the food).