Our Brinkley Model Z 3515 is a big fifth wheel by RV standards, and it still has no spare inch. Every cabinet is spoken for, the floor space disappears the moment you set something down, and anything that only does one job has to earn its spot twice as hard. Living in it full-time with our cat, we've settled on a simple test for anything new that comes aboard: it collapses flat, it mounts to a wall, or it does two jobs. Preferably all three.
We're Nathan and Fabiola, and we document this life on our Nomads Amor YouTube channel. If you want to see how the rig is actually laid out before reading about what we cram into it, our full-time fifth wheel tour is a good place to start. This list is the small stuff: not the hitches or the solar, just the everyday gear that makes a rolling home livable without burying us in clutter.
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The kitchen sink area
The kitchen is where small-space living gets real. It's a few square feet of counter that has to handle cooking, dishes, and drying, usually all at once.
Collapsible dish basin with drain plug
An RV sink is shallow, and running the water heater for a trickle of dishwater wastes both propane and tank space. This basin pops up when we need it, holds the wash water, and folds down to about an inch thick when we don't. The drain plug is the detail that sold us: instead of hefting a full basin of gray water across the kitchen, we set it in the sink, pull the plug, and it drains itself. When we're boondocking and counting every gallon, washing dishes in a basin instead of under running water stretches the fresh tank noticeably. You can grab it on Amazon.
LASSHSWA sink strainers
Nothing glamorous here, just two matte black stainless strainers that catch food scraps before they reach the gray tank. Anything that goes down the drain in an RV ends up sitting in a tank under the floor, so the less food that gets through, the less that tank smells in summer. These fit our sink, match the faucet, and we empty them into the trash after every wash-up. They're on Amazon here.
eormoe faucet absorbent mat
The counter around an RV faucet stays wet. Splash from dishes, drips from the sprayer, water spots on everything. This is a diatomaceous earth mat that wraps around the base of the faucet and just drinks the water up, then dries out on its own. No soggy dish towel living next to the sink anymore. Fabiola picked it and it has quietly become one of those things we'd replace the same day if it disappeared. Find it on Amazon.
Buckets and baskets that fold flat
Buckets are the classic example of the small-space problem. You need them, but a rigid bucket is mostly a container for hauling air around the country.
2-pack collapsible 10L buckets
These fold down to a disc a couple inches tall and live in a basement compartment until we need them. They got a real workout during our 15-day boondocking challenge, when we drained the fresh tank into buckets to find out how much water was actually left after the gauge said empty. That whole experiment is in our boondocking water video. Since then they've hauled wash water, soaked laundry, and carried tools. The pair is on Amazon.
4.2-gallon collapsible mop bucket
Same idea, bigger capacity. This is the one we reach for when a 10L bucket won't cut it: mopping the floors, catching water during plumbing experiments, soaking anything oversized. It has handles, it holds its shape when full, and it flattens for storage like the small ones. You can find it here on Amazon.
SAMMART 42L collapsible laundry basket
Laundry in an RV means hauling everything to a laundromat or campground laundry room, and a rigid basket eats a ridiculous amount of closet space between loads. This one is 11 gallons open and a few inches tall folded. It rides flat in the truck, pops up at the machines, and carries a full load back without the sides buckling. Full-timers do a lot more laundromat runs than we ever expected, so this gets used weekly. It's on Amazon here.
Keeping things off the floor and in place
A fifth wheel is a house that goes through a rolling earthquake every travel day. The second half of small-space living is making sure nothing is sitting loose.
GAXMNS wall-mounted silicone toilet brush
A toilet brush standing on the floor of an RV bathroom is a toilet brush that falls over on travel day. This one mounts to the wall, and the silicone head dries fast and doesn't hold gunk the way bristles do. Floor space in our bathroom is measured in inches, so getting the brush up on the wall mattered more than we expected. It's on Amazon.
Adevar RV refrigerator tension bars
Open a residential-style RV fridge after a bumpy drive and you'll learn why these exist. The tension bars wedge across the shelves and keep jars and bottles from sliding into the door, or out of it, when we set up camp. They adjust from about 12 to 22 inches, so they fit the different shelf widths in our fridge. Installing them takes seconds, and it's one less thing to think about when we're closing up the rig to roll. Grab a 4-pack on Amazon.
Heavy duty Command strips
We don't drill into RV walls unless we absolutely have to. The walls are thin, and every hole is permanent. Heavy duty Command strips hold up our frames, organizers, and anything else light enough to hang, and so far they've stayed put through our travel days. When we rearrange, they come off clean. We keep a stash of them from Amazon.
Small stuff that does double duty
Owala FreeSip water bottle
One water bottle each, refilled from our filtered water, instead of a cabinet full of cups and a fridge full of plastic bottles. The FreeSip lid lets you sip through the straw or tilt and swig, and it keeps water cold through a full day of driving or hiking. Fewer dishes, less trash, less space. It's on Amazon.
Scratch-off US map with national parks poster
This is our wall art and our trip log in one, which is exactly the kind of two-job item this lifestyle rewards. We set ours up in the rig after a stretch on Lake Superior and made rules for what counts as "explored" before we let ourselves scratch a state. You can watch us argue about those rules in the Marquette episode where we set it up. The set comes with a national parks poster too, and it's on Amazon.
MOSISO laptop sleeve
Our laptops edit every video we publish, and they live in a rig that spends its life vibrating down the highway. A padded sleeve is cheap insurance and slides into a cabinet slot a hard case never would. Ours is this MOSISO sleeve on Amazon.
ZEISS lens wipes
Camera lenses, glasses, phone screens, the laptop display: everything in an RV collects dust, campfire haze, and fingerprints. These pre-moistened wipes are single-use, take up almost no room, and we keep packets in the truck, the camera bag, and the kitchen drawer. A 400-count box lasts a long time and it's on Amazon here.
Where to find all of it
Everything above is in our Amazon storefront, mostly across our RV Must Haves, Essentials for your RV, and Lifestyle idea lists.
If you're building out a rig, start with the RV gear we actually use full-time for the big picture, then see our boondocking setup for off-grid water and power, and how we film and stay online for the tech side. And if you'd rather get this stuff as we figure it out, our newsletter is where we share it first.