An Inside Look At The Fortune Cookie

I have had a lot of excitement here at Dreadnaught Darling with all of the traffic in the last couple days.  Thank you Kent at Tiny House Blog and Merete at TINY: A Story About Living Small for the Facebook love! Additionally, thank you to YOU the readers for popping by. Heck, I even got a ton of traffic on my Etsy Shop! Put simply, you’re all rad.

I get a lot of questions about the Fortune Cookie, but a good portion of them focus around my living habits. Which makes sense, I have just been living in my vardo for almost a year and sometimes take that for granted. I eat, sleep and work in The Fortune Cookie.  Sharing the property with Kass and Eowyn allows me some social meal-sharing time (honestly, I will take any excuse to eat Eowyn’s cooking, it’s phenomenal).  So I am cooking a bit less, but I still cook.

I have a toilet inside The Fortune Cookie that I use. However, I shower in the main house as I do not have one installed in The Fortune Cookie yet. Abel promised me recently that he would buy and install one for me for free if someone commissions a vardo with him.  If you decide to buy a vardo and/or tiny house, I highly recommend Abel (even without the free shower). He is a fantastic guy, really, truly.

This is the interior sketch of The Fortune Cookie drawn by Abel.

Judith (one of my favorite readers) was asking where I store my stuff.  It’s a fair question, as I always wondered the same thing when looking at tiny houses. As a tiny house owner, I am always looking to see what else I can downsize. Some items are harder to purge than others due to sentimental or perceived usefulness. Needless to say, I could still use to downsize a bit!

If you look above at the sketch you will notice that there is a spot for where the shower is.  Currently, I use that for storage. Some of it hangs out in that shower area. This is where my TV tray holder, my winter coats, my djembe and some of my boxes of Renaissance and costuming hang out.

In the armoire is my clothing, nothing fancy there.  On top of my armoire is where I keep my books. Under the armoire is a small space where I keep some extra linens, a small laundry hamper, my laptop bag and my file cabinet stuff. Adjacent to the armoire I have a hope chest my grandfather made me when I was 14. Inside this chest is A LOT of hair supplies and craft stuff. To the right of the hope chest I have a wicker laundry hamper.

Currently, my house is a disaster (picture hair… everywhere) as I am getting ready for a couple upcoming merchant events, a number of custom orders,  and Burning Man. I will do a follow up post soon with some more pictures when I am not so embarrassed about the state of my messy house!  I’ll be honest, I do not feel like putting everything away since I am mid-project(s).  One thing they do not tell you about small houses… you can clean them up quickly, but they seem to get visibly messy faster.

I also have some camping related gear. Most of this is not inside my house.  It is either under my house or in the trunk of my car. Partially because I am camping so much this year.  There is a small shed that Kass and Eowyn let me place some of my gear. Which consists of a couple camp chairs, a 10×10 camp tent and two locking Rubbermaid totes that have more costuming.  I have a bit of costuming because I have been participating in medieval re-enactment events for about 14 years now. I will also be adding two 10×10 pop-up canopies to this list soon because of all the merchanting I am doing.

I do not have a whole lot of packaged food stuff. So cupboard space use is pretty minimal. I linked to a post from before, my kitchen is actually tidier now. But I keep my food on the top shelf and left side of the second shelf. My dishes are on the right side of the second and third shelf. Random cleaning supplies and toiletries are on the bottom left shelf.

In the drawers of my kitchen, the top drawer is silverware, some kitchen utensils like wine bottle opener and can opener.  The second drawer is mostly paper products and office stuff. Warranty paperwork and pens.  The third drawer became the ‘junk’ drawer. Items I want to keep but haven’t found a permanent home for yet.

Below the drawers on the left side I keep my cookie jar that holds all of my bagged teas, boxed tea, I think there might be a bottle of tequila back there still, a small bottle of Jaegermeister, a small bottle of Chambord that I’ve had since before I moved in, and a large bottle of Bronner’s soap (what I use to make dish soap and hand soap).  Below the fridge on the right side is where I store my larger pans, and my dish drain.

Those are all the places I put stuff away. I am always looking for frugal suggestions on how to make the most out of a space. What do you do to de-clutter your small space?

~Kera