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| Furring strips up |
A couple weeks ago, we introduced you to Bumblebee... our new, part time #vanlife. We are doing a DIY conversion into a living space with a bed, kitchen, and a toilet.
If you've ever seen a wooden boat being built, the "skeleton phase" where the boat is just a frame is what the next step of our van looked like. Perry installed floor to ceiling 1x4" utility furring strips every two feet with rivnuts (hard, and definitely scary - it's only drilling a hole into your van...). Than, we put up the walls - 3/4" plywood covered in gray automotive lining. We first created patterns with cardboard, than cut out the wood. After checking the wood to make sure it fit perfectly, we spray adhesive to it and carefully placed it on the backside of the fabric. To make sure the fabric did not slip, we folded it to the backside of the wood and stapled it down. The fabric had foam backing for more structure and we found it filled the "little mistakes" in wood cutting perfectly. When finished, with lots of care, we screwed the panels into the furring strips and it looks great!
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| Mounting the fabric |
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| Wall and ceiling panels up |
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| Making a roof panel |
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| Solar panel mounted |
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| GoalZero Yeti charging in house first! |
In addition to the walls, we added the #GoalZero Yeti 1250 and, and, after talking to #VanSpecialities and researching online, hooked it up to the alternator and solar panel (mounted on the roof with self-taping sheet metal screws, dicor and a mounting kit). A local company installed an Espar Airtronic D2 heater under the passengers seat, but we should've done that ourselves - it was a very simple installation! The heater is controlled by a simple digital thermostat and you can place the temperature reader anywhere (we did at bed height).
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| Bed skeleton |
Because we are taking a spring vacation with the van, our goal is to get the bed in before next week. Perry installed the bed rails - 1/8" 2x2 angle iron attached to the wall with machine screws - and we laid out tape to determine the exact layout of the rest of the amenities. Looks like we'll have storage space for clothes, etc. above the bed, plenty of room beneath it for gear, a cabinet above the kitchen counter top for food, etc. and a cabinet below for the Yeti, toilet (Dometic 5gal portable toilet), cooler (ordered a RTIC 65 - comparable to the Yetis, but much more affordable - only catch is that it's on backorder for three months!) and water. Feel free to comment below with questions!!
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| The bed before fabric |
