What you can do with plastic boxes

When I return from my caravan holidays, there is usually a problem or two needing attention. The caravan itself, bought new at the end of 2006, is getting old and things are starting to wear out, or break, or come adrift, more and more. Usually minor things. But after every outing I know that something will need attention. 

This time there was peeling vinyl wallpaper in the bathroom: an easy fix once home, as I had the right adhesive ready to use. 

But there was also something else, not so easy to put right. The shelves inside the fridge had collapsed yet again. It's the bumping and jolting that minor roads to farms produce. Every pothole (and there are a lot of those these days) can cause movable items inside the caravan to jump a little - no matter how slowly I drive. And with sixteen years of wear and tear, the shelves in the fridge were getting weak and prone to collapse much more frequently than they used to. 

It's annoying, but I arrange matters so that the shelves can subside only a little, coming to rest on the top of plastic tubs placed strategically underneath them, to catch their fall so to speak. So they can't go far, and most things on the shelves stay put, even if the shelf itself is out of position and has to be emptied and put back to where it should be. 

But some things roll sideways, and fall out of the fridge when I open the door after reaching my destination. Occasionally the sundry movements of the caravan while being towed are enough to make some items do a somersault, and if lids come adrift...well, there may be spillage to mop up. So very irritating! Especially if I've driven a long way, and want to relax.

On my recent caravan trip to the West Country, those shelves gave way several times. On one occasion, the shelf in the door, which carries the milk bottles, got such a jolt that it set off  a weird reaction. One of the plastic milk bottles - a fresh, unopened bottle - folded in on itself, squishing milk all over the inside of the fridge. Most of this particular spillage collected at the bottom of the fridge, but some leaked out onto the caravan floor. Oh joy. 

My heart sank when I contemplated the mess. Lots of mopping and wiping put things to rights, but I'd now had enough. I was determined to get rid of nearly all the original shelving in the fridge and find a different storage solution. 

The trouble with caravan fittings is that no matter how nice they look when new, they have to be lightweight, and that means using lots of plastic which will, given time, become brittle and weak. Caravans are not built like tanks!

Here is a shot of my caravan fridge interior in 2017. It's almost eleven years after purchase, but things still look good:

And yet I was already coping with the upper shelf collapsing. That's why that tub is underneath, to catch its fall. The tub would be filled with foodstuffs of course. You can't afford to have wasted space in such a small fridge! At the top is the freezer compartment, which I'd just cleaned. (As you can see, the freezer's a bit on the small side)

As yet, no plastic failure except in the door shelf, which I'd strengthened with this back in 2014:

But later in 2017 that door shelf cracked and sagged. I improvised a repair that lasted until this year, although it wasn't a pretty or skilful one. But I succeeded in making it strong enough to take the weight of three or four milk bottles:

Then in 2020 the spring catch that kept the fridge door closed securely lost its spring, and I improvised again with curtain wire and hooks to keep the door firmly shut when towing:

I wouldn't of course have undertaken these amateurish fixes when the caravan was new. But as it aged, and its value for selling on receded, I felt appearances no longer mattered so much - although I've always aimed to do a tidy job, and not an ugly, slapdash bodge. But I know my limits: I'm no DIYer. 

And so to 2022. The fridge and freezer were still working fine, keeping all contents either nicely cold or solidly frozen, but that collapsing shelving (and the blue translucent plastic bin underneath, now cracked) had to go. It was beyond any repair I was capable of. What could I replace them with?

The answer seemed to be a layer or two of plastic boxes that rested on each other, and perhaps nested inside one another. The problem was now finding stout boxes of the right size and shape to fit snugly inside the fridge. I scouted around locally. It wasn't so easy. The main problem was getting a long narrow box for the fridge floor, the one I'd put vegetables in. And then I remembered that Mum had been a Tupperware enthusiast, and that I still had a long narrow plastic Tupperware box in a kitchen cupboard. I dug it out. Would it fit in the caravan fridge?

Perfect! And how satisfying to put that Tupperware box to good use after it had lain unused in my kitchen cupboard since Mum died in 2009! 

Now a larger plastic box to rest on top. B&Q had one that would fit, and I bought it, although once home I found that a little rough surgery with a hacksaw was needed on its front corners, so that the fridge door would close:

I was going to use both boxes without lids, so that the cold air inside the fridge could circulate freely. Obviously, if there were any leaks or spillages, the mess would be contained inside one or other box. Both were easily removable and easily washable. 

Where was the milk to go? At one end of the upper box. And to hold the bottles in position, I now needed a third box that would nest inside the upper box. This would contain sauce bottles and similar things, and would have enough inertia to keep the milk bottles upright. A visit to Lakeland gave me the third box I was looking for. And this is how it would rest up against the milk bottles:

The width of the upper box was just right for taking three milk bottles in a row like that. They had to be at that end because, jolting apart, the main tendency was for items inside the caravan to slide forward (that is, towards the right in my shot) every time the caravan was braked. 

There was plenty of space underneath the blue-rimmed Lakeland box: 

The caravan would now be 'shelved' only halfway up. This kept hard things well away from the cooling fins. And there would be plenty of room to place light but bulky items I didn't want to squash, like lettuces, or kale, on top of everything else.

This then was the final set-up, with nearly all the original shelving gone, and plastic boxes substituted:

To my eye, it looks neat and practical. I don't think there will be much of a problem pivoting the green Tupperware box out from under the upper boxes, if I want to take out some broccoli, or asparagus, or whatever. When closed, the flanges in the inside edge of the door will lock into the hacksawed cut-outs on the upper box, to stop it moving around when the caravan is being towed. 

I'm off again in mid-May. I'm hoping this new arrangement will work pretty well. Certainly, no more collapsing shelves!