DIY VAN TOUR - Full-Time Travel Couple - Shower, Roof Deck, and Convertible Bed - Van Life

We're Kevin and Taylor and for the last 12 months we've been turning this Sprinter van into our perfect home on wheels. After a year of hard work mainly from Kevin, we are finally ready to hit the road

full

time

and explore more of our beautiful country subscribe and buckle up for more Hey guys, today we're going to give you a little

tour

of our truck so that we will start from the front of the truck and return one of the first things. What we did in building the truck was install a backup camera when we first got it, we drove the truck from Michigan to New Jersey and it was very difficult to drive because we had no visibility behind us, so we installed this backup camera , it's integrated with the original head unit here and it's attached to the top of the truck, so it's a lot, it makes parallel parking a lot easier by being able to see exactly how far away we are from the cars, since This vehicle is quite large so the second thing we installed on the van was a swivel seat.

We wanted to be able to use the seats in the front of the van as living space when we weren't driving, so this was very important to us, especially if I'm cooking and Kevin wants to do it. like on the computer or doing something and you don't necessarily want to be in the back of the van, this gives you a second option as to where to sit so in the winter we can stay warm in the van to have a s bar s2 diesel heater d2 which connects from our diesel tank to our house batteries and we could heat this without even turning on the engine, so just as we are worried about being cold in the winter months, we are also worried about being too hot in the summer if we are somewhere like Florida or the southern United States, where it's very hot, that's why we made these curtains.

This actually goes on the front and covers the entire windshield to help keep the sun out. and to keep the cabin cooler during the day along with the windshield we also made two for the sides besides to protect us from the sun we also use the curtains or blinds in the front when camping in a more formal campsite like a harvest host or just any old campground that you can pay to be at this way we can still use the front of the van while camping and we don't have to worry about anyone seeing us or watching us or anything like that.

When we are not at a campsite, a formal campsite or we are trying to do stealth camping, we install this curtain, it is a blackout curtain, so during the day we can't see the sun or anything like that, but it also makes us have privacy for night and then people can't see inside the van, so we didn't want to waste all this space above the cab, so we installed this shelf, I guess then I put a door in just because I didn't like being able to see everything, so that this actually stores all of our camera equipment, our drone, our side window blinds and some recipes and some towels, um, so those are additional things that we're not always using um, except for the camera equipment, obviously, but that's an easy place to get to, like it's away from the stores and it doesn't take up as much space as if we had it, Taylor and I were going back and forth through this door here. because she knew she was going to throw my trash in there so she didn't want to see it, that's why we have the cabinet door, but after we installed it I think it looks really good and completes the cabinets of the van.

As for this little cubby, um, it was just a bunch of awkward space that I didn't like very much, so we added this little book cubby where we kept Kevin's favorite free book on camping and then, for those of you who know me , I really like to read. so I like to have a book in there that I'm currently reading that way, if I'm in the passenger seat, it's easy to reach and put away if I decide to shift and drive and all that kind of stuff. They are very easy to get to and are just a nice little nook that can be easily accessed if we need them next to our book cubby that is my closet.

This was a necessity for me. I like to hang a lot of clothes. They don't wrinkle and stuff, so I really wanted a hanging closet in the van. With that, Kevin took over and said we didn't need a closet yet one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of these big, bulky items in Here, which take up ninety percent of the space, are yours, but Anyway, this is a great use of space, we've obviously used it a lot, plus I wanted a mirror in here too, so I found these fun little plastic houses. The mirrors essentially aren't the best, I mean they're warped and all that, but I mean in a truck we're limited as to how many or what type of mirrors we can get just because they're usually heavier, glass or something like that. . works for that purpose it's just not the best mirror so my favorite part of this truck or one of them I have a lot of favorites in the truck is this electrical drawer here so we're filming all the

time

so by having this drawer electric We could store our gopros, charge our batteries, both drones, we have 120 volts and 12 volts and storing all of our camera lenses makes

life

so much easier and being so close to the passenger seat we can have this while

travel

ing so He's really nice and like me.

We said we have electrical outlets here for charging in the drawer and everything is connected and wired to our battery bank right under the power door. We actually have this big space, so I thought this would be a great place to store all of our dry clothes. food That said, we just keep all of our non-refrigerated food here, we don't have that much here right now because we don't

full

y live here right now, not yet, but this is where that all goes. and lastly down here, like all girls, I like a lot of shoes, so I use this little cubby to store all my shoes, however, it does get a little tight, so Taylor has her shoe cubby and I also have the mine.

This was another place that was friendly. like awkward dead space so in the van it's so limited we don't want to waste the available space that we have so we built this little cubby here and I have my shoes right here as you can see we have a stationary toilet in our van and We are glad we made the decision to do this. It was really a custom pressure for this one. I was hesitant because it requires a lot of space, but we've been in the van for about 21 nights so far and we've used the

shower

a lot, so we're definitely glad we did and we're definitely happy to have a toilet in the van.

In terms of the

shower

, we have a hot and cold shower. We have 33 gallons. of fresh water which allows me and taylor to shower about four times before having to refill the water tank which is great and we also have this little ledge down here that we can use to rest our feet or wipe our feet , as it is a relatively small space and also serves two purposes for attaching the hose and electrical power to our toilet, which is a natural composting toilet and requires power because there is a fan that aerates the compost and sends it through from a tube under the vehicle so we can We don't have any smell when we shower, we take out the toilet, so we just unscrew it from the teak floor.

Here we take out the toilet and then the hose and power cord for the nature head go into the little cabinet on the shelf and seal up. We're going with this water cap seal from Blue Seas uh that's used on boats and stuff, so it's 100% waterp

roof

, we don't have to worry about getting it wet. The shower walls are made from FRP boards, we chose to do this over tile because of weight limitations, this was Taylor's clever idea of ​​having stationary soap and shampoo dispensers instead of having to worry about bottles flying around. everywhere while we drive.

Our shower door is a Nautilus self-cleaning retractable door, which is really nice because you don't have to worry about the shower curtain getting tangled around your butt or whatever when you're showering. We rented a van in Portugal and absolutely hated it, so this is a really nice feature. One thing we wish Nautilus would do is install some kind of hatch for the door to seal it better because sometimes it's a little easy to open it if you bump your elbow, so that's my only complaint, do you have experience? Yes, I am, this is my truck area.

I wanted a stationary stove. I knew a lot of people recommend induction cooktops, however I feel like we use them a lot and then have to wait for them to cool down before we can put them away, plus I feel like I would be constantly absorbing them. and out of the drawer, so I wanted a fixed one, that's why we chose this one. It runs on gas so we have small propane tanks and they actually seemed to last us a decent amount of cooking. I thought we would do it. review them a lot quicker than we did so I actually don't regret the stove at all so for our countertops we went with butcher blocks we got them from Home Depot they were actually very affordable thank goodness because this one is actually the second stove. or countertop that we got, the first one we cut too short and then the second one, which is this one, we had problems with the sink being cut, however, I think thanks to my handy sander we managed to make it look pretty good and I think making our van look a little more earthy and incorporate all the wood elements, so I like that we went with butcher block.

Next is our sink. I really like the ones that people use that are farmhouse style. I wanted a nice, deep sink so that if we were washing dishes, water wouldn't splash everywhere, so we went with this stainless steel sink. No complaints about it yet, but I wish it was a little bigger when we got it. big pots and pans gets a little annoying, but it's an undermount stainless steel sink, since all of our faucets this one doesn't actually have filtered water, so this is just our normal water, this little silver man here gives us all our water filtered. water and lastly we made the soap eye just because we didn't want a soap bottle to fall on the counter while we were driving so we thought this would be a better place to store our soap and have it easily accessible. whenever we wanted it right, as far as our cabinets go, we chose cabinets instead of drawers, which I honestly think is now one of my truck regrets and I'll let you know why soon, though, the first drawer here we did it.

It has all of our utensils, you know, the cooking essentials here in this cabinet is where we keep our pots and pans, some bowls, cups, our propane tank that powers our stationary stove, our blender, more pots and pans down there and just some foldable storage. bins I really like the amount of space we have in these cabinets, however, the only reason I would say maybe do a drawer is because it's a little annoying to have things that are all the way back because you constantly have to do it. getting everything out or putting it away or getting to it, so I think the drawers would be a little better.

However, we didn't make a drawer because we didn't want to lose all this extra space. I feel like when you have a drawer you lose all the space you have on the sides and we wanted to be able to utilize all the space as best we could and that's why we didn't go for that but looking back now I think that would be something I would change in our next build in this cabinet we just keep our recycle bin, our trash can, some extra garbage bags and some cleaning supplies and then we also have our water filter underneath that way it's easy to access and if we need it, we can replace it pretty easily on the next cabinet we have.

I'm a big coffee drinker and I don't really know how to pour coffee or anything, so we have my mini keurig, which was a must. some coffee stuff a fire extinguisher god forbid we ever need it in the next drawer we just have some zipper locks some extra spices if we need them and then on top we have our little spice area this way it's easy to get to when I'm cooking, so I really like the way these drawers turned out. Finally, next to all the cabinets, we have our refrigerator. We bought the 110 Dometic. Much of the food we eat is usually in the refrigerator, so we wanted to use the.

A bigger one just to have more room for all of our perishable items. This refrigerator also has a small freezer. We weren't sure if we would actually use it,however, we have found some uses for it while

travel

ing. so I'm really happy that we have the little freezer and then our last cabinet in the kitchen is just this one here we keep plates, a cutting board, some wine glasses, they're the only glasses we have in the van, but I really like it drinking wine in a glass instead of plastic so they are a necessity and that's it so my other regret about cooking is that when I cook things on the stove I usually like to be able to put plates on it. right next to it so I can place the food right next to the stove and with this setup I don't really have that opportunity.

We got a lot of feedback about putting something right here and we thought about that, however, depending on how big we make it, it may block this output, so we're not really sure if we're going to add it, but that's my only regret. I liked having the stove and sink next to each other, but after cooking a few times I realized it. It's really not as functional as I thought it would be. My basis for doing this was that I had a larger prep space if I kept them together, which this part is great, but it just doesn't give me anywhere to put the dishes next. to the stove, so this cabinet here is basically the electrical command center.

I have all the modules here. I got this idea from Siren Alex Jeans. It basically controls and monitors everything in Lavan we have our water meter we have our battery monitor our controller for our diesel heater we have the inverter so if we want to turn on the AC electricity if Taylor wants to put on his keurig with this outlet here his hair dryer yes I would like to use the blender for an acai bowl, we just put it in and turn on the AC power. We have a little remote here for one of my favorite parts.

Favorite part too. A little light for your toes. This is really nice at night if a person has to go to the bathroom they don't have to turn on the overhead lights and wake each other up, they can just turn this on, there's enough visibility or enough light to get to the bathroom and do what they need to do. do behind this, here it is nice. Technically, I would recommend you watch our truck building episodes if you want to learn more about this, but this is basically how we control everything or how we power all of our 12 volt accessories.

One last thing, we also have a little boost, which is how we get cell service in remote areas and increase the strength of our Wi-Fi while we're offline, so since I'm connected to electricity, I'll continue for a moment. We have the switch for our water heater on this side. It's on a timer switch because there's such a huge draw when we turn it on that we don't want to forget that we have it on and then drain our batteries, so we installed this timer here next and we also have another AC outlet next to the power outlet.

AC we also have switches for our 12 volt fixtures, the first is the water pump and then we have two switches for our gray water tanks. We have two 5 gallon gray water tanks under the truck on both sides, one for the shower and one for the kitchen sink and it makes

life

so much easier. These have electric ball valves, so we simply flip the switch and the water can drain when we are in an appropriate location to drain our tanks. Upstairs we have two USBs and a 12 volt cigarette outlet or whatever you want to call it, since we are going to be living full time in this van in about a week or two, we really wanted to focus on storage and this dresser here holds all of our clothes for both Taylors. and I and each of us have a big drawer that allows us to put a lot of clothes in and we have two smaller drawers for more clothes up here and these could be interchanged, you know, kind of like a junk drawer for me.

I'm being honest with you, this upper cabinet here is like the storage area for our toiletries cabinet, so we have our toothbrush deodorant, basically things like that that you would keep in the bathroom and also some medications, especially the anti diarrheal gas for Taylor. because no one wants to have diarrhea in nature's head, yes that's especially true, there is no diary in nature's head, in fact I think you can, but I don't want to risk anyone needing to hear that, okay , so even though the back of our truck is already in bed mode, this is not a fixed platform bed, this bed actually becomes our table and table during the day and this is the place where we like to eat the most part of our meals and Kevin likes to work most of the time, where I like to. to work, but Kevin is to work, but we left it in bed mode for you today because we actually slept in it last night at a wedding and it was all done, so I didn't want to take it apart yet when we slept.

It didn't look much like the front of the van, these covers with reflectix that way would keep the air in cold or warm and also make it so people couldn't look in at night and then another thing we got was these curtains made with equipment of vans, in my opinion they are essential for a van, they are super light, the whole side connects via magnets which are really nice and strong, so you literally just put them on, they connect and then at night , all we have to do. is to pull the clasp and fold it down.

I'm six and I can't sleep next to each other so that's one of the main reasons we have the bed facing forward and use it as a dual purpose area for both sleeping and then turning it into a sofa for eating and working. Another essential pickup is a ceiling fan. We installed a max air fan because you can use it wide open at full power when it's raining and not all other fans allow you to do that. That's why we have chairs with the maximum air fan and these side panels, in addition to the light that they bring, we can open them at night and then pull, make the van pass the air and it creates a big cross.

Breeze right next to your head which is really nice when you sleep. Another tip I highly recommend is installing USB ports right next to the back area if you use your phone at night or in bed or if you're just here at work. So we can charge our phones right here and not have to worry about going to the front or near the kitchen to access the USB outlet. This is a dual purpose USB port so we can also install a small USB fan for when it's really hot and we have air coming in through the windows through the max air fan and we could also install a small clip on fan directly on this wooden frame and turn it upside down towards us and we have them on both sides here for when it's so hot, okay, under the benches or the bed, depending on what mode we're in, that's where we actually have extra storage, so That this rear compartment is where we keep our pillows when not in bed mode, honestly, we don't.

I don't put anything back there, but during the day that's where our pillows go, in this compartment we keep clean towels, extra pillowcases and then we usually have paper towels and toilet paper in case we run out, We never have too much, so in addition to paper products and clean towels and bedding, we also put all of our bedding in here during the day when we're not in bed mode, as well as window coverings and this piece bottom that completes our bed to form our platform. On the bed we have our table which we use while in cabin mode and then this extra piece of wood that Kevin made to complete the platform, this was a requirement obviously because without it the cushions at the bottom have nothing to rest on. and there is no support, that's why this extra piece was made.

The piece of wood just goes here, seals everything up and then closes the boom, so in the passenger side bench box we have our electrical components and I highly recommend checking out our electrical overview. truck build episode which I will link below, but in summary, we have three 100 amp hour lithium batteries, a 3000 watt inverter from Victron and we have our Renergie 40 amp solar rover charge controller, plus we have three ways to charge our batteries. solar two is from our battery isolator which is right here, which is this cable here and then the third option, if necessary, is to charge with short power, but honestly, with the two solar options or the alternator battery charging while we are.

While driving, we don't really need to use the short power which is only in case of an emergency or something, but yes, this is a lot of power and enough power to charge a hair dryer or any other heavy duty electrical compartment, Kevin. He likes to dry his hair, so this is what he looks like when we convert him from bed to cabin mode. We can work, eat or do pretty much anything we need to do here. This table is in the lagoon. It swivels so it's very easy to get in and out of and if you didn't catch it, we basically just move these cushions and the ones I'm sitting on now to the middle and then they fold to the side to complete the bed.

It is a fairly large bed and allows us to sleep very well. One problem I have with this is not making it or converting it from one side to the other. It's really no big deal and it's pretty easy, especially with two people, but the seating area is nice. like you're sitting leaning forward a little bit, I personally like to take this backrest cushion and throw it in front when we come back here for a while, just to have a little more room for my butt and be able to sit a little more comfortably here. It's probably only like 18 inches.

If I could get this out, I could move another six inches back and be much more comfortable breaking it. Kevin is one of those people who likes to have the whole leg. on the couch, so the fact that this part is hanging doesn't make it very happy to combat this, if I don't want to throw this cushion to the front, I just sit here in the corner and this is what I like to call place of money move the table right here and now I can work and have all the space so you might be wondering what's under the raised platform here we actually have our garage space under here and let's go to the back and check it out now that No.

You are allowed to wear shoes in the van from time to time, but let's take a look at the back of the van and I'll show you the garage, so the first thing you'll see is the garage area, which has enough room if I take the fins off. to three surfboards and we can take them out and put snowboards or skis in there if we need to this winter and we also have a lot of extra storage down here for other things like beach chairs and stuff when we jump. here full time and we hit the road so we actually made our laundry area back here you can access it from both the top and the back however we only access it from the back due to convenience so yeah we're sitting here we can just open it up and it opens like this with the doors and then it acts like a session so if you throw the clothes it just falls out and then it becomes super easy when we actually go to do it. our dirty clothes we don't have to get in the van and take them out that way, we can just go outside, we have a little hamper that opens like this, and then we can just throw all our clothes in there and then like this, once they're Ready, we can fold them before we come back since it's a small space and who wants to fit clothes in there, but we found it to be one of our best ideas for building fans because of its convenience.

I definitely recommend the laundry chute. We also forgot to mention that we have a small drawer right here that we plan to put our vacuum cleaner in. You can see an outlet right there so we'll plug in the Dyson vacuum to do that and it also has our adapter for our outlet if we ever need to charge it and our mini fans so there's room for the opportunity to have a lot of storage space in there also. I've found that getting to the storage bins under the cabin is a bit of a pain, so I wouldn't put things you use every day in there just because you're constantly moving cushions and things, just my personal preference.

Lastly, for our water area we wanted to make it super convenient when we were filling our water tank, so we have this BPA free hose and an RV water filter that we attached to it and we just connected our short or our hose to this adapter right here and we fill it. We also have an external hose that connects to pressure if we want to return. on the beach, rinsing our handsfeet, we can do it, rinse our surfboards or even shower with a suction cup here, but this is just a nice little feature and we put it back here for convenience, it's much easier to just walk up to a water station, take the hose it down and fill it instead of having to take things out to get to it.

Another thing we installed is the same light as our standing leg on the kitchen cabinet and this just gives us extra light when it's dark outside and we need to access the garage area so it's pretty easy to install and pretty convenient. Lastly, on the outside here to get to the

roof

, we have a lighted dish here and that allows us to access our solar panels, which are four 100 watt solar panels on it. rooftop and our sunset viewing

deck

so we love hanging out on our rooftop sunset viewing

deck

with views like this but I would highly recommend some type of rooftop deck because it's just another place to hang out and it's always It's fun to go up to the top and enjoy the views.

Well guys, that concludes our van

tour

. If you have any questions or want to learn more about our build, I recommend checking out our truck build series or just start leaving comments below. Be sure to answer them if you want to see more episodes of Van Life, then consider subscribing as we transition to Van Life. Thank you so much for looking, see you next time, so this top cabinet here is like our toiletries cabinet where you have all of our toothbrushes, deodorant, whatever you need, medicine cups and other weird things like that, really I don't know, I'm just slapping this diarrhea, okay, let's hide this little one, um, so this right here is just another cool little feature that we have. into the water pump sweet shake it now shake it like a drunk now let me see this is my life while I'm constantly waiting for Kevin who is never ready she gets them yeah.