Suction Cup Solutions

After living full time in our Oliver Travel Trailer for a few months now, I’ve come up with solutions to some of our everyday practical organizational problems with living in such a small space. Having a fiberglass interior makes the use of suction cups quite appealing. Things attach *really* well without making permanent modifications or marks. This leaves lots of flexibility for moving things around.

This evening, we found a solution to a lingering problem – what to do with the paper towels.

Suction cup Paper Towel Holder

Chefmate makes a “Suction Grip Paper Towel Holder”, and can be found at Target for just $9.99. It has a suction cup grip base, that is ordinarily meant for securing to countertops. However, with the fiberglass interior, it sticks just about anywhere! You just twist the top to engage the suction cup, and untwist to disengage to move it around. There’s even a magnetic paddle that keeps the papertowels under control, so this allows you to mount the towels even upside down! It fits in a variety of places in the Oliver:

Of course, if we had gone with the default entertainment system, some of these positions won’t be available for us.. but you get the idea – we have a paper towel holder that can mount in multiple locations!

Suction Cup Area Divider

There are often nights that Chris stays up later than I do, and I’m a bit light sensitive when I’m trying to sleep. So, one recent restless evening I had a thought – I had left over fabric from our cushions being made, and I had just bought some small suction cups for hanging exterior Christmas lights (another practical use) AND I had a box full of binder clips left over from running the Obama Campaign Office … and voila.. I had an instant curtain that blocks the light quite well and give us a bit of room separation – and no permanent installation on the trailer:

Now that I know it works, in time I might add rivets to the fabric and have it finished off. But for now, it’s a very workable solution. And heck, I love the novelty of using Obama’s binder clips for a divider curtain. I mean really, how many people can say *that*?

Suction Cup Coat Hangers

Now that colder weather is here, we were getting a cluttered feeling having our jackets out all of the time, usually tossed on the seats or bed (our closet is pretty full with clothing, so it’s not an ideal storage spot for us). So, I got some extra large suction cup hooks out – and instant coat & hat hangers:

One goes over the closet door, so obviously the coat has to be moved when getting clothing out. But so far, it’s working great – keeping our coats out of the way but easily accessible as we leave. The jumbo suction cups seems to be strong enough to handle our coats.

Velcro Door Curtain

Since it’s in the picture above, I thought I’d use this opportunity to introduce my solution to the door window not having privacy. This was probably one of the most glaring oversights on the trailer, in my opinion. All of the other windows are so awesome at privacy – but the one that is *right* in front of the bathroom and closet door doesn’t have a privacy option?!?

So this was actually one of my very first modifications – I took extra fabric from our cushions (getting extra fabric turns out to be a very smart idea – I also made seat covers out of extra fabric for when we’re in dirty environments, such as the dusty desert.) and some sticky velcro to create a quick curtain:

The sticky actually didn’t stick for many nights to our fabric, so I have since sewn that in. When the curtain is not in use, it velcros right up in the corner, nice and out of the way. And of course, this solution could also be done with … you guessed it.. suction cups!

Suction Cup Storage

And of course, our suction cup storage bins that we use to organize our plates, cups and spices in the kitchen that I wrote about in our initial tour are still working most excellently!

Much suction cup happiness here!