She Turned to VAN LIFE After SUDDEN Life Changing Events - Tour a Full Size Van Camper Conversion

Hi, I'm Patrick from the New Jersey Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel, so happy to have Mike with JM Custom Coach Builders back on the channel. Today she will introduce us to Julie and show us the new fan version of her, so join us. He is great. I return to the channel. My name is Mike. I am the owner and operator of JM Custom Coach Builders. Julie brought me her truck and a company came to fix her truck. She didn't like it and she used it several times. the space just didn't flow for her so she came to me and we did a lot of custom work for her, she distressed a lot of things, rearranged some things and had them made for her, so I'll give them to Julie and her.

I'll show you what we did. Hi, I'm Julie. Mike is right and he is lovely too. He was trying to find someone to build a truck for me and do what I want. I couldn't find anyone, but Mike could and Mike couldn't. I just did what I wanted, but I did what I wanted and it made me feel like it was right, so I did this to myself because well, I was married for basically 20 years and my husband left me and instead of being upset about it, I was going. to live my

life

. I had agoraphobia for basically 20 years, meaning I wouldn't leave the house without having panic attacks, so for 38 years I didn't leave the tri-state area, got divorced, and became the new woman I wanted.

To travel around the country I found a company that made a van that was small enough that I could drive it places but big enough that I could stay in it, and like Mike said, after using it, it just didn't work the way I wanted it to. he did it Julie style, which as you can see is a little eccentric but always fun, so let me show you around. Well this is just for me and I'm four foot eleven so I need things to be small in

size

for the other company we have. These swivel seats, they both swivel, but again, it's just for me and when I sat in this seat, my feet were dangling, so the storage and the footrest all in one, I was also trying to move to get here.

I have heels on right now. and you can see I still can't reach it, so we took a little step to be able to get some essential things up here, but basically there's a curtain that goes down for privacy because I had covers for each window and they were magnetic and it was a pain to do , so this makes it simple, take this down privately outside, there's an awning that comes out to give you outdoor space, but this rolls down, it's a mosquito net and things like that. but once it goes off, I don't have to zip it up, roll it up and close it.

It's magnetic here so I can get in and out without a problem, so here's the footrest, but again it's a storage compartment, it's a lot of plastic. there, but don't worry, I recycle it, if you look down, I put little rugs here, very easy to take out, I can shake them out because when you come in here, when you're enjoying the outdoor space, I was following things everywhere, like this It was really nice to keep that out of the way if we went into the kitchen area first. I have a microwave that everyone needs and I also have a stove here and a Keurig machine that doesn't need a refrigerator with a Keurig machine.

I don't know what else you could need besides a microwave, a coffee maker and a refrigerator, lots of counter space to prepare things. I have all the different glasses, plates up here, plate dispenser, paper towels easy to access and oh look it's hidden we have to do things like when there's not a lot of space the other thing is garbage when I took this out before it was just throwing trash in the passenger seat because I didn't know what to do with it then the trash can opens like this and then yes we're doing a lot of things working on preparing food.

You can do it this way to make it accessible to you. This is the water pump heater. There are USB chargers here. This is the tankless water heater that is there and does not take up space. If you look here, we have storage for basically things. I left this one open because I want to pick up a book to read really quickly. I don't need it, but the storage continues for things that are less usable and there it is. a ton of space a ton of space I'm looking at this more like a tiny house than an RV so basically I need everything I have to fit in here so what do you need besides a ton of space for your stuff a lavatory?

It's very pretty from here and this also doubles as a seat and underneath we have a separate toilet so the toilet actually separates number one from number two and when I bought this it was originally a composting toilet so there are buckets that you take out and it's really not disgusting, as I assure you, when things come apart it's not disgusting, they don't smell, it's like cleaning up after your dog is worse than emptying this tank, but there was a separate container for urine and that's Kinda gross but What Mike did was hook up that urine tank to the shower and sink water so it turns into gray water so you don't have to empty that tank, that's more than helpful.

I too, finally, after all this time, have all my ducks. in a row, I've got all my ducks in a row guys, so this is where we're going with this, so to continue with the bathroom, there's the toilet, this is the sink, this rotates everything so you can use the . the sink for soaking things is extremely deep for all the cups I use, coffee cups and mugs and things like that, otherwise we have a soap dispenser in here so I don't have to worry about that taking up space or making noise around the mirror. and it's been expanded, you know a lady needs her toiletries and underneath there's more storage for hair dryers, curling irons, everything a woman could need, but on top of that down here, which is also my freshwater tank, and it's very easy to connect this. to a hose, the store is here, so you fill the tank, it's 32 gallons, which is a lot of gallons for my beautiful shower.

Mike said are you sure you want the shower to take up that much space? and I said: Mike hair. I can't, I need it, so I have a shower and it has a nice hand shower in case you only want to wash certain parts at certain times of the month, but otherwise it's a

full

shower, so I have a seat here now, the seat I have. a cushion so I can use it to sit on when I'm not showering, but otherwise I just take off the cushion and pull this curtain over here and I have a

full

shower that's bigger than some in people's houses and just showering doesn't It's enough if you can't, you know, admire yourself while you're in the shower, so the mirror works from both sides, which is great.

The other good thing is that I have a ventilation system here to suck in the hot air. It can be easily controlled by remote and is directly above my bed, which helps you sleep comfortably, but also pulls out the shower exhaust so I don't have to worry about a steam room or something and it's behind me. I have all these storage holes on both sides because a girl doesn't need about 30 pairs of shoes everywhere she goes, so the storage for that here is basically clothes. Have they rolled up her clothes yet? I started doing that and three weeks later I didn't. wrinkles, so roll your clothes, put them in tubs, it's very easy, this pr

events

them from falling out when I carry the clothes, of course, now if I fill this bag up, I could go to a laundromat with it, but otherwise I have my own washing machine, so it's literally I have an agitator and everything in it, just fill it with water, plug it in, let it run, throw it away, but then what do you do with the wet clothes?

Well, you may have been wondering what this is. This will explain about wet clothes. Two options: one is that I can fold this anyway. I wish it even had an extender. Hang everything here to dry and I can do that too if it's a nice day if it's not raining because who doesn't like Lion Air clothes dried on a line outside? so it smells like nature, that's what it smells like and also because we love nature and fresh air. I don't even use air conditioning inside my house. I don't like the unnatural smell of it, so this rolls down like there and it has a screen so that fresh air can circulate everywhere I know I have all my shoes my clothes the food the shower I can wash my hair the bathroom I don't have to worry for none of that but where I sleep ah well bed As you can see, it barely takes up any space as it is now, but very, very, it just becomes my bed just like that and there's more than enough space.

I could use it to rest if I wanted, but it's basically for sleeping. the Beautiful One with my net back, my fan running over my head, there is one more thing behind me and it is my crystal collection. I'm just kidding, but this is all secured, nothing moves. I actually don't like to listen to anything when I drive. I like to look at nature and everything around me so I can't have any rattles or noises and that's where the 3M tape comes in fantastically, but what's behind me here is the electrical system on the roof, there's a panel 175 watt solar. 2000 watt inverter and 200 amp hour battery.

I have had the heat at 72 degrees with the temperature at 12 degrees 24 hours a day and the battery did not go below 80, so the solar panels are great and I also have a converter for when I drive loads. the battery while driving, so I haven't needed to plug it in. I've had over I don't know 30 days driving here and over 6,000 miles and the battery hasn't gone below 80 and I've never had to plug it in and charge it because there is an outlet to charge it but I've never had to. I mentioned the heat earlier. I have a wobasso electric heater.

There's a control for it here, but I can also control it from my phone with an app. I don't even need to touch that behind here are the propane tanks for the tankless water heater and it's two tanks and a cross switch so I don't have to unscrew one oh it's very simple I just hit the switch when one the tank runs out and then it comes out here I don't know how I missed this drawer, but there's more storage space because you always need more storage space and have you seen these things, you know, rattling around again?

I can't stand the rattle, so plastic camping cutlery, that is. washable so you don't have to worry about throwing it in the trash, damaging the environment and things like that, but you also don't have to worry about clanking, you should always have a fire extinguisher and easy access. My best friend is a firefighter, firefighters. Call them firefighters, my best friend is a firefighter and he wouldn't let me leave him without, otherwise, as you can see here, I don't have to go in and out of this nice step to get into 411, it's still super easy. I need to use my hands, so remember that the gray water tank I talked about is standard for RVs.

Here I just take the lid off, take out a plunger and it can be dumped anywhere, no need to hook it up to a hose because it's greywater. it's just for showering and stuff like that, Julie, thank you so much for taking the time today to give us a

tour

of your ProMaster brand. This is a 136-inch wheelbase from the 2500 series, so it's as short as 18 and a half feet. Yes, this is it. The best thing about this is that it is very comfortable to travel on the road. I mean I'm talking about I sat in that seat 11 hours a day and I was completely fine with it, it's very comfortable to move around in, I can fit all my stuff in, but also St Augustine, if you haven't been to the cobblestone streets, park parallel and this thing still fits and it's not hard to park there, so it's big enough for what I need, but it's also small enough that I can move around and not feel limited. for what it could do and just to explain to the viewers because Mike mentioned the beginning and you mentioned that this was already a

conversion

truck built and that you had adapted what the design was before Mike made his modifications, before all this back area here.

Even beyond this glass panel, here beyond, it was all bed, it was a full

size

bed, which was great if you had four people sleeping in there, but it was just a bed and then underneath here with storage, that's the storage I had. It wasn't accessible it wasn't usable so I undid it it didn't have a shower so I took a shower instead of a giant bed yes please and Mike talked to me off camera and told me the sink was on the other side and put that sink. on this side for you yeah the sink was on the opposite side because it was basically like a kitchen sink because you don't need a bathroom sink because I didn't have a bathroom so we changed the kitchen sink and now it's more it's a bathroom sink that I can use for the kitchen.

It's very interesting because I've always had canal vans that people built themselves or had something built for them. This was more of a standard floor plan that the builder offered, uh, but. You don't know what you don't know, you go out and use it and you realize what you like and what you don't like. It's pretty cool that Mike was able to modify and keep many of the original parts and thenIt also makes it more usable for you and this is the first time I've seen this platform bed and I really like it because even if you decide to leave it down all the time you can store a lot of things underneath and I know that if you need to take a shower I guess you have to lift it out of the way, you actually won't even need to move it out of the way because it's a shower curtain, so it's just going to stay here and be down. and the other good thing about the shower is that whoever wants to stub their toe can't because it's flexible so it doesn't even get in the way everything is dual use everything is more than the use of tools because it just works and I'm so grateful to having found Mike and JM custom builders because again I couldn't find anyone to do what I needed.

I knew what I needed. I didn't know it at first, but once I used it, I knew what I needed and he, he just didn't make me feel like I was. Being me, it wasn't like that, well, could you do it? No, he just did what I want him to do and I'm very grateful for that. Mike is an amazing guy. We've had him on the channel several times before he always comes on. With some amazing creations, I'll be sure to link the description to Mike's contact information, and if you have a social network for your travels, we'd love to link it if you choose.

In fact, I'm Boomer Julie because I don't know anything about this new stuff. This van

life

is even super new for me, but I like making videos. I like sharing. I like sharing. Joy, you can feel the happiness that comes out of me when I'm on these trips. and I like to share that with everyone, that's amazing. I'm sure my viewers would like to follow your travels Liz Patrick with the New Jersey Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel, thanks for joining us.