Most Americans accumulate stuff over time, and far too much of that stuff ends up at yard sales or waste bins. Over the years I’ve bought my share of produce that wilted, books that sat (and continue to sit) unread, and various things from Target that found a place inside my shopping cart but not my home.

But on the opposite end of the “stuff spectrum” are those things we use continuously, whose return on investment is infinitely higher than what we originally paid for them. For me, I think of the cordless Milwaukee Impact Driver I’ve had for 8 years now and have probably used a few thousand times, and the pair of Bose over-ear headphones I used so often that the leather padding for the ears had worn down to a nub (I have recently replaced these with a new pair that features longer battery—and presumably ear pad—life). Then there is my 2022 Ford Escape PHEV, which has almost 55,000 miles on it . . . this is about the point during my usual tenure of car ownership when I start fantasizing about my next ride, but I love this vehicle so much that I was almost as relieved about it surviving getting jackknifed on the freeway over the summer as I was about surviving myself (though I’m sure my family would disagree).

The newest entry to this list is my FlashForge Adventurer 5M 3D printer. I bought it almost on a lark when it was available for a deep discount on Amazon and I needed to create some custom wiring panels for my workshop, but during the past several weeks I’ve already burned through over a half dozen rolls of filament. I have since become comfortable enough on TinkerCad to cobble together a new design whenever I want to make something new (which is often). But while I am already lamenting the absence of features one finds in higher-end 3D printers, the Adventurer 5M does the fundamentals well enough that I am in no rush to upgrade it.

Although I have made a lot of things (including many failed prototypes) over the past couple of months, the main inspiration for my 3D printing thus far has been the pop-up camper. Or, specifically, a small but invaluable piece of it: the cabinet drawers.

Reinventing the Wheel (or just the stuff at The Container Store)

When we first opened the camper ourselves, we did not have a lot of time to poke around. The sun was setting, a winter storm was on its way, and we were nowhere near ready to fix the bed. Almost as soon as we ripped the queen-size bed out of its cocoon, we had to jam it back in. Before we closed it up, though, I pulled out three drawers (including two from the kitchen) and removed them from the camper.

Weeks later, the drawers are still sitting in our house. However, each one contains a lot of organizational scaffolding and a wide variety of 3D printed sub-containers.

My main priorities for the drawers were to clean them out, to squeeze as many different things as possible into each one while making them user-friendly, and to try to prevent those things from jostling around too much during transport. I took care of the first priority on day one with some cleaning wipes and a roll of shelf liner from the dollar store. But the other two goals have consumed much more time, as well as dozens of hours of printing and a few rolls of PLA filament.

Fitting as much as possible into a drawer is simple enough. Just ask our kitchen junk drawer, which has so many things stuffed into it that roughly half the time I try to close it, I need to shift a few things around so that it can clear the cabinet lip. I did not want to take this haphazard approach to the camper, however—I spend enough of my ADHD existence looking for things at home to want to waste my time doing this while on vacation. So, everything we store in it needs to have a home.

Moreover, we want our camper to be as “plug and play” (to use a computing term) as possible. If it’s 3pm on a Friday afternoon and we feel like taking an impromptu trip, we don’t want to spend the rest of the day tracking down supplies and gear, only for us to roll into our space long after Clementine’s bedtime. We want to be able to pack some clothes, buy some food, hitch the wagons, and then hit the road. Therefore, I want to be able to store as many things that we need as possible so that we won’t have to remember them. Any item that is already in the camper is an item we won’t have to remember to bring.

The key to this, so far as I could tell, was vertical space. Whenever we look at a drawer, we visualize it first in terms of horizontal space, and then in terms of whether or not something will fit vertically. For our camper drawers, I wanted to stack things we use more frequently on top of things we don’t (but still need).

I also wanted to maximize horizontal space by making bespoke partitions for our various things. For instance, rather than scouring IKEA and Daiso for utensil holders that would fit our spoons and forks with room to spare, I wanted to print my own. Our eating utensils each have their own little boxes, which are large enough to make retrieving one easy but economical enough to free up a little additional space. These little pockets of space soon added up to make bigger spaces for additional things. I also wanted to store some things horizontally that would usually be stored vertically, such as wooden spoons and chef’s knives. This required framing those things out in such a way that they would “stack” together horizontally without scattering after the camper hits its first pothole.

After several weeks of trial and error, experimentation, and looking way too “intently” (my wife’s word) at a kitchen drawer for concerning lengths of time, I’ve finished Camper Kitchen Drawer 1.0. Below is a photo:

Starting on the top left corner and moving counter-clockwise, I have a wooden box from Daiso that has become a miniature cooking utensils drawer. It holds a variety of tools, from bag clips and a lighter to a small whisk and tongs. This box takes up most of the vertical space of the drawer, so nothing is stored underneath. Next, though, you will find a three-tiered stack: a bespoke eating utensils organizer, a tray containing a small cutting board (with included paring knife) and scissors, and the camper manual. To access the cutting board and scissors, one can pick up the utensils organizer using the retractable green handle (which uses barrel hinges to swing it from its storage position inside the spoons tray to its closed position as a handle). If we need the owner’s manual for some reason, we can also remove the cutting board tray. .

On the right side of the drawer I have a flashlight, a variety of wooden spoons and spatulas, a large set of tongs, and a chef’s knife. I also made some space for candles, dish soap, and water bottle cleaner tabs. The spoons are held together with a grooved stand and a slotted bar for the handles, while the tongs and knife have large receiver boxes at either tip. Note the latest addition on the right: a wooden spoon container with a magnetic back that can be mounted onto the side of the kitchen cabinet (which will have a large magnetic strip attached). You doubtlessly noticed the banner picture for this post, which is what this looks like on the other side . .

As for the other two drawers, I took a similar (if slightly less elaborate) approach. Our narrow kitchen drawer contains Keurig coffee pods, tea bags (with three separate bays to allow for different varieties), small red tins for spices, a salt and pepper shaker set, etc. Meanwhile, the other drawer has been reserved for reference, electronic, camping, and personal care products. I also included a travel journal (appropriately named “Van Life”), a pop-up camper travelogue and “how-to” book, and a set of colored pencils and markers in case any of us want to draw something.

You can download the .stl file for my “Red Tin Box Row” here: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/dljqw3D3TKD-red-tin-box-row

And here’s the link for my Spice Row (including Salt and Pepper Shaker Set): https://www.tinkercad.com/things/gzpzYWrLugl-food-drawer-condiment-and-spice-row

A Work in Progress

I hope that this combination of organized stacking and customized fittings will survive the road as well as the rigors of our family using everything and then remembering to put everything back when the trip is through. Although this has yet to be battle-tested, I am happy with how this turned out and look forward to using it on our inaugural trip.

Nonetheless, I was both surprised and mortified by the amount of time I invested into designing and laying out these three drawers. Even though I was excited and had virtually nothing else to do (at least with respect to the camper) for the first week, it certainly did not portend an expedited timeline for the rest of the project.

More problematic in the long term, though, is this system’s inevitable impermanence. As we start to get our camper “sea legs” and figure out what we use and what we don’t, plus those things we need often and did not think to buy early on, I will no doubt have to change this system and print a bunch of new things. And I will be honest . . . I’m not excited about that!

In any case, I think this is at the very least a great starting point, and perhaps it will give others who are starting (or dreaming) of their own pop-up camper, RV, or tiny house projects a template for their own limited storage spaces. Of course, most tiny homes do not have the space required to house a 3D printer. However, having access to one will do wonders for anyone trying to maximize limited spaces, both outside and inside their homes. As we all continue to accumulate more stuff, perhaps we can move away from purchasing bigger houses and renting out expensive storage lockers, and toward maximizing those spaces we already have. And by extension, we can focus less on acquiring stuff we don’t need and won’t use, and more on giving those items we use, value, and treasure a proper home.

My dog was peeing on a rose bush when I first saw the “For Sale” sign. After months of it being parked somewhere in their backyard, our neighbors’ 1993 Coleman Cape Cod pop-up camper now appeared in their driveway for passerby to consider purchasing. “Scruffy, check that out!” I exclaimed. “It’s a pop-up camper! I’ve always wanted one of those!” Scruffy, our adorable but not especially intelligent shih-tzu, said nothing in return before following me across the street to check out the vehicle.

The camper had seen better days, the majority of which probably took place during the Clinton administration. Although the weather sealing was intact, the paint was scuffed and faded after one too many afternoons in the California sun. The tires were old, the hitch seemed slightly out of joint, and overall the contraption resembled some kind of cruel “tenement-in-a-box” Transformer toy.

Naturally, I hurried home and told my wife how amazing it was.

If We Build it . . .

JoAnna and I have talked about getting some kind of camper for years. She wanted a pop-up, and I wanted to build something from scratch. This opportunity helped us meet in the middle: the camper for sale needed some TLC, but not much else.

I have always wanted to build a cabin or camper of my own . . . something that would give me a little piece of the woods to call my own, a shelter from the cold and the wind that would nonetheless allow me to look up every now and then from my research and writing and see tall, evergreen trees. As I finished my work on the Grandpa’s Letters book, I took a couple of “writing retreats” to the northern coast—first to Fort Ross a couple of years ago, and then most recently to Shelter Cove. I mostly read and wrote during those trips, but I also took a bit of time to walk along the coastal bluffs and watch the waves as they crashed down upon the rocky shore. These trips were both productive and memorable . . . and expensive. A pop-up camper would give me the flexibility to do this more often, while staying closer to home and having my own space to occupy.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the other daydream I have with this camper: exploring the West with my family and friends. Clementine is now fond of camping, but she is less fond of tents and bugs. I cannot say that I blame her on either score . . . tents can be miserable, and flying insects have a tendency to want to become best friends with my eyeballs. But a pop-up will give us some protection from these and other elements of the vast, unforgiving wilderness, while also giving us a few creature comforts of home: heating, potentially even air conditioning during the summer; electric lights and phone chargers; and a dining table without any bird crap on it. We can wear the woods like a jacket: we will put it on and take it off as needed, then we can hang it nearby for our next easy-access adventure.

My overall logic going into this was not unlike Ray Kinsella’s in Field of Dreams: if we build it, we will go. A pop-up camper can be like a small portal for people who want to teleport into the forest every so often. My hope is that we can trade the drudgery and anxiety of packing for a camping trip for a pumpkin that will turn into a pop-up carriage with just a little pixie dust (and a moderate amount of arm strength).

I don’t know for sure if it will help us “go” . . . only time (or maybe the ghost of John Muir showing up outside with a can of paint) will tell. But what I did know was this: I was ready to build it.

Caveat Emptor

That weekend, we walked over to our neighbors’ house with Clementine to take a look. It was more or less kind of what we expected, at least in terms of decor: ugly blue countertops, faded pastel curtains, and a folding table buried beneath large cushions greeted us inside. But while its looks could kill (not in a positive way), the structure itself was in good shape. There was no evidence of mold or mildew on the bed canvas, nor any rust on or underneath the structure. The pop-up mechanism unfurled the top smoothly, like some ancient booby-trap springing to life in an Indiana Jones movie. In the interest of full disclosure, the neighbors mentioned that the queen bed on one end of the camper needed to be repaired and that the refrigerator had not worked in decades. Beyond that, though, it was in pretty good shape. The owners had also made a few upgrades of their own, including new vinyl plank floors and a relatively fresh battery.

“Well, the bones are good,” I remember saying, as if it were a house, or a skeleton, and as if I knew just what in the hell I was talking about. “But we need to go home and think about it.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

We did not need to take much. After careful deliberation and some quadruple-checking of our driveway’s width to ensure that it could squeeze past our brick Tudor home and into our backyard, we called the next day and offered to buy it.

We were soon the proud owners of a pop-up camper.

“Now what?”

Since we bought the camper in late October, we figured it would be a few months before the coming winter subsided enough to allow for a comfortable glamping experience in the Sierras someplace. So, in theory, we would have plenty of time to fix it up.

Our plan of attack was simple in the same way that all such plans seem simple at the outset: we would fix the bed, refresh some of the furnishings, give it a decorative flourish, and take it out within a few weeks for our first trip. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and without new tires I did not think the camper would last long on such a surface. We also discounted a few additional factors at the outset: my raging ADHD, my closely-related fascination with my new 3D printer, an aging and unreliable electrical system, and above all the universe of possibility that cleverly concealed itself within what appeared to be a giant pack of cigarettes. As the project gained momentum, so too did our imaginations of what we could do with it. And by “our,” of course I mostly mean mine. ⚾🧢💣