So, do I wait until it's 100% ... down-to-the-last-detail .... finished? Or just go ahead and show the 99% complete version? Since the vast majority of friends and fam have already seen it, I guess it doesn't really matter. And this blog is due for another post.
So here goes ...... The Almost Finished Van! (Note: See this post for the finishing touches.)
But first.
In our defense, the outside stuff (namely, the exterior lights, of which there will be three) must wait for the awning, which is on backorder.
That said .....
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| The newest addition is the bug screen at the door. You just push through at the center and the sewn-in magnets cause it to close on its own ..... sort of ...... with a little help. Atop the van are solar panels totaling 630 watts. |
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| Under the lower cabinet on the left, we keep the trash, kitchen storage, and next to the bed is our closet. That same cabinet also contains our 30 gallon fresh water tank, fillable from the back of the cabinet, just inside the slider door. Under the bed is a small sliding door to access the garage. |
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| That table moves in multiple directions. Its top is from the same butcher block used for our countertop. The sofa includes seat belts for two, and the driver and passenger seats up front (not in view) swivel to face backwards to create our "living room". The dog sleeps under the sofa. |
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| The mirrors are acrylic. The tile backsplash is very realistic peel n' stick tiles. (Light weight is important.) In the ceiling above the bed is an evaporative cooler, which requires much less power than a regular air conditioner. Hopefully it'll do the trick. Under the passenger seat in the cab is our heater that is fueled by the diesel from the van's tank. It keeps us plenty warm in cold weather. |
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| The walls are covered either with shiplap or vinyl-upholstered panels. The ceiling is tongue-and-groove cedar. |
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| The "garage". It includes an outdoor shower. Lots of electrical and plumbing guts behind those panels, including 560 amp hour lithium batteries (that Husband built himself, saving $$$), a 3000 watt inverter, and a 2.5 gallon water heater. We can plug into an outside power source, but probably will never need to. |
The grandkids named it Eddie VAN Halen ...... which likely won't stick because nicknames don't last long around here (sad to say, because I come from a family with a rich history of embarrassing/endearing nicknames). To us, it's just The Van.
As I said in a previous post, there are a bazillion ideas and how-tos for building a DIY camper van on YouTube, so a lot of what we did was copied from other vans. But the one feature that is original (thought up by moi) is our shower. (And it works perfectly ..... except for once when we were parked on a slant and the shower pan overflowed a little. A lesson learned about being level.) Vans like ours, if they have a bathroom at all, have what's called a "wet bath". This means the toilet resides in the shower and will get wet along with you. This is a necessity since there's only 84 square feet of space and a separate shower would mean giving up something rather important, like the kitchen .... You just have to remember to remove the TP roll first, obviously. Afterwards, a little squeegee-ing and you're good to go ..... figuratively and (I suppose) literally .....
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| What you see when you first open the bathroom doors. The shower walls are formica. The curtain pulls out for privacy and/or showers. And that toilet flushes into a 14 gallon black tank. (No composting or porta-potties here.) |
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| For showers, we fold back the rug and insert these plastic strips which hold the curtain in place. Husband hand-crafted that teak grate with neither nails or screws. (He's rather proud of it.) Below that is a fiberglass shower pan (also handmade by Husband) with a drain that sends all water to an 18 gallon tank under the van. (Note: A second drain hole has since been added to the shower to prevent any overflowing if we're on a slight slant.) |
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| The shower curtain holds together with magnets. It's quite roomy in there. |
The van has become my new Happy Place. It'll be where I mentally go when sitting in the dentist's chair, or in any other place of potential dread. When I disappear at home, Husband knows where to find me. A few days ago, I even took it out BY MYSELF and camped in the woods for one night ...... ALONE. I don't have to hitch or tow anything and it's easy to park ..... in other words, no man needed. I can do this whenever I want ..... (No need to worry about the Husband being left behind. At the time, he was hours away, happily standing in a river, holding a fishing pole.)
