Living Small: How We Organize 60 Square Feet

Our whole home is smaller than most bathrooms. It only works because everything has a place. When people peek inside the van for the first time, they usually say the same thing: “Where do you put everything?” The honest answer is that we do not have much, and what we do have lives in a very specific spot. If something is out of place for more than a few minutes, the whole van feels cluttered.

Here’s our system, refined over a year of trial and error. We made plenty of mistakes early on, including a memorable afternoon when a cabinet door swung open on a mountain curve and launched a jar of peanut butter across the floor. These are the lessons we learned the hard way.

Start by owning less

No organizing system can make sixty square feet hold a full apartment’s worth of stuff. Before we moved into the van, we sold, donated or stored about ninety percent of what we owned. It was emotional. It was also freeing. We kept only what we used often or truly loved.

Our rough guide when deciding what came with us was simple. If we had not used something in the past three months and it was not seasonal gear, it stayed behind. If it had only one use and something else we owned could do the same job, it stayed behind. A single good knife replaced a whole block. One cast-iron skillet replaced three pans. A single set of plates and mugs, one per person, replaced a cabinet full of dishes.

One in, one out

If a new shirt comes in, an old one leaves. No exceptions. This rule is the single most important habit we have. It sounds strict, and it is. But without it, clutter builds slowly and quietly, and suddenly the van feels cramped and stressful.

The rule applies to everything: clothes, books, kitchen tools, souvenirs and even snacks. When we buy a new paperback at a small-town bookstore, we leave the one we just finished in a little free library or a campground book exchange. When one of us gets a new hoodie, an old one goes to a donation bin. It forces us to think carefully before buying anything, which has quietly saved us a lot of money too.

Living small made us notice what we actually use.

Maya, co-author of Two Lanes

Bins that fit the space

Soft bags and random boxes shift around while you drive. We replaced almost all of ours with sturdy, lidded bins measured to fit exactly into our cabinets and under the bed. Each bin has a single job and a label on the front, so we never have to dig.

Here is how we split things up:

• Pantry bins: One for breakfast, one for dinner staples, one for snacks. Grabbing the right bin means opening only one cabinet.
• Clothes bins: One medium bin each for everyday clothes, plus a shared bin for cold-weather layers.
• Tool bin: Basic tools, spare fuses, duct tape, zip ties and a tire gauge.
• Outdoor bin: Headlamps, bug spray, sunscreen, first aid kit and a small camp towel.
• Admin pouch: Vehicle documents, the parks pass, spare keys and a little cash.

Under the bed is our garage. Bigger items like camp chairs, a folding table, a water jug and a small shovel live there, each in its own spot. We drew a simple map of the space and taped it inside a cabinet door, which helps when friends join us and want to help pack.

Hooks everywhere

Walls and ceilings are storage too. Once we started looking up instead of only looking down, the van suddenly felt twice as big. Hooks and small rails are cheap, easy to install and incredibly useful in a small space.

We have hooks by the sliding door for jackets and our daypacks. Hooks by the kitchen for mugs, a dish towel and a small trash bag. A short rail above the bed for a reading light and a mesh pocket for phones and glasses. Even the back doors have a hanging organizer with clear pockets for shoes, toiletries and things we need to grab quickly.

Secure everything before you drive

Hooks are great until you take a sharp turn. We learned to use hooks with a little lip, so items cannot bounce off, and to stash anything heavy before we start the engine. Every cabinet now has a simple latch. Before we pull out of a campsite, one of us does a quick walk-through to make sure nothing will fly.

The kitchen and the closet

The two areas that take the most planning in any small home are the kitchen and the closet, and ours are no exception. Our kitchen is a single counter about three feet long, with a two-burner stove and a small sink. To make it work, we keep only what we cook with every week. Spices live in a narrow magnetic strip on the wall. Oils and vinegars ride in a small crate with dividers so the bottles cannot tip. A collapsible dish tub and a folding drying rack tuck flat behind the cooler when we are not using them.

Clothes were harder. We each settled on a simple capsule wardrobe: about a week’s worth of everyday outfits in colors that all go together, one warm layer, one rain shell and one nicer outfit for the rare wedding or dinner out. We roll everything instead of folding it, which saves space and keeps wrinkles down. Laundry happens once a week at a laundromat, usually with a book and a cup of coffee.

Seasonal gear rotates. When summer arrives, our heavy coats and winter boots go into a storage bin at a family member’s house, and the swimsuits and sandals come out. Twice a year, we swap.

Daily habits that keep it working

A good system only works if you use it every day. These small routines keep our tiny home calm:

1. The five-minute reset. Every evening, we put everything back where it belongs before we relax.
2. Make the bed right away. In a van, the bed is also the couch, the office and sometimes the dining room. A made bed instantly makes the space feel bigger.
3. Wash dishes after every meal. There is no room for a pile in the sink.
4. Empty the trash daily. Small spaces get smelly fast.
5. Do a weekly purge. Every Sunday we look for anything that crept in without permission and decide whether it stays.

Key takeaway: Own less, give everything a labeled home, use the walls and reset the space every single day.

What living small taught us

The most surprising thing about living in sixty square feet is how little we miss. In the first few weeks, we kept reaching for things we no longer had. After a couple of months, we stopped thinking about them entirely. We realized that much of what we used to own was just sitting in drawers and closets, rarely touched.

Living small also changed how we spend our time. With fewer things to clean, maintain and organize, we spend more time outside, cooking good food, reading and talking. The van is not really our living room. The forest, the beach and the desert are. The van is just the tidy little room where we sleep.

You do not have to move into a van to try some of these ideas. A one-in-one-out rule, a few labeled bins and a five-minute nightly reset work just as well in an apartment or a house. Start small, and see how it feels to notice what you actually use.