Names: Ramona & Matt Creel
Website: www.RamonaCreel.com
Occupation: Professional organizer, coach, writer, photographer, all-around Renaissance woman
RV: 29′ Airstream Excella
On the Road Since: July 2008
Workspace Goal: From the start, I insisted that I needed a place to work on the road — an area that could serve as a fairly permanent office. We considered getting a trailer with a banquette dining area and just sitting at the table to work — but that meant putting everything away to eat meals, and where would we store our computer peripherals and files? Nope, that wasn’t going to cut it. We had also seen Airstreams where people took out the banquette and put in a desk — but we didn’t want our work station taking up half the living room, either. What would we do?
Before:
Stella (our Excella) came with 2 single beds in the back. We decided to take one of the beds out, and Matt built me an L-shaped desk on that side. We waffled back and forth about the desktop material. The last thing you want to do in a home you drag behind a truck is add a lot of extra weight — so thick, heavy wood slabs were right out. But one day at IKEA we found the perfect ”Vika Amon” brown/black melamine desktop. It was meant to have legs attached and be used as a freestanding table — but the hollow-core design is lightweight, and made it easy for Matt to shape to match the back curve of our wall (he did it all with a Dremel, no less!)
After:
This desk has enough surface space for a laptop, our flatbed scanner, a few decorative items — and then some. There is room to spread out if either of us is working on a big project — and the small part of the ”L” serves as a nightstand for the remaining single bed. Underneath the desk, Matt built spaces for the printer, our files (stored in an accordion folder), a few oversized binders, and our backup discs.
He also created space on the short side of the ”L” for a 3-drawer ”Andy” storage unit from IKEA that could hold our office supplies — red so it matched our decor.
We keep a memory foam mattress topper folded on the single bed during the day, then pull out the gaucho in the living room at night and put the topper on in as our sleeping space.
This profile is part of the Change Your Office View: Full Time RVing Workstations series – we hope that by sharing what others have been able to create in their RVs will help inspire you as to what is possible to work on the road.
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This is the perfect office space. I admire the neatness and how tidy it is. The space has a cozy feel and I can only dream of having a space like that to live, work and sleep. Congratulations! That is the life.