When we first walked through Goblin, one of our big concerns was storage. Would we be able to fit our world into this little boat. How the heck would we store all our clothing? We just redid the kitchen in our house, how in the world could we shrink down to the tiny galley? Four people, books, clothes, hobbies, food, tools…

Out on the water yesterday, sun shining and wind blowing, things looked very different. We’ve reduced our volume of stuff so much in our house already. Walking through yesterday, our boat looked cozy and I’m starting to wonder if we will actually use all of the storage. We have three hanging lockers that I plan to use for clothing. I’m going to modify some hanging clothing containers to fit the font of each locker. That still leaves the deep backs of the lockers for additional storage. Looking at our dresser drawers at home and the space in the lockers, we’ll have more than enough space without overflowing into drawers in either stateroom. Add in the narrow locker at the base of the forward companionway as a place for coats, shoes, and our everyday backpack and we are all set.

Books will always be an issue when it comes to storage. We have plans to build a small bookcase on one wall in our stateroom, as well as modifying the top of a locker in Zoe’s. In Kinsley’s room I plan to take the door off one of the cabinets and add a mesh cover, to allow her easier access to her own stash of books. Alex and I both read on Kindles now and there might possibly be a plan for Zoe to receive a Kindle in the near future, just don’t tell her that.

Zoe’s berth has slanted walls along the hull and I’m planning a series of pockets to make that space more useful. Right now, Zoe keeps herself more than occupied with Legos, writing, drawing, reading, and computers. Aside from the Legos, none of the rest of her hobbies take up much space.

For Kinsley, she’s never been much of a toys kid. For that matter, neither was Zoe. Both would much rather be involved in whatever their parents are doing, cooking, cleaning, projects. Kinsley’s perfectly content with books, art supplies, and whichever miscellaneous small pieces she has collected. Rocks, shells, erasers, bolts; as long as the pieces are small she’s good to go. Add in a few playsilks for dress up, some stuffed animals, and maybe some pieces from her play kitchen and she’s all set.

Zoe helped me unbox our favorite board games and repackage the pieces into ziplock bags. Why didn’t I do this earlier? The collection which used to fill our coffee table and two shelves in the closet now fits on less than a shelf. Alex and I pulled out the wine racks from Goblin and now I have a perfect game cabinet in the salon.

Clothes go here, books there, games there. Ok, no problem. I’m starting to be curious if we will fill all the salon cabinets, not to mention the cavernous compartments under the berths. When we realized that Kinsley’s berth will have a huge storage area underneath, we were dumbfounded about what might need to be stored there. I’m sure, in the end, we’ll be stuffed to the gills but in the meantime, I love feeling that everything we own will have a home.