Its been a long time coming, but as promised, here is the tour of our finished space. We took these photos back when we were in Big Bend National Park.
Welcome to our home folks, we are happy that you are here
Here is our kitchen...our bedroom...our dining room...our pantry...our mud room...our bathroom....our office...our entire space
Our bed is quite comfy, though it is about exactly 6 foot from wall to window, so a bit of a tight fit for taller folks
This is where we spend most of our time when we are in the van. Its where we share meals together and where we do most of our work
It looks like a dinner table, but it functions quite well as an office space as well
Our kitchen has proven to be very functional – the faucet even doubles as an outdoor shower
You've got to have a fruit basket – and its got to be cute!
I wouldn't say storage is aplenty in terms of kitchen supplies, but it has proven to be enough for our needs
We've got a toaster oven, a small fridge (with a tiny freezer inside), and an electric induction stove that is stored in the slot next to the fridge
Gold faucet, neat...
We have a countertop extension that folds up for additional counter space
Its great for cooking in front of a wide open view of the great outdoors
Pantry to your left, sliding door to the cab in the middle, mirror to the right, storage above the cab at the top, and bathroom at the bottom – we will come back to that
One of our favorite features in the van is the mood lighting behind our head – there are lights inside of the wood slats on the wall
This small sliding window is huge for bringing in air movement when its hot
Our bookshelf with our system monitor and smart speaker, among other trinkets
This upper cabinet stores nearly all of our clothing – as you can see, we pack it pretty full
Under the bed storage with adjustable shelving
These drawer boxes were my favorite part of the building process. I love some solid cabinetry building. These were my first drawers I have built.
Upper cabinet storage for avocado oil
Our pantry is full of cleaning supplies and toiletries, but mostly Kendra's cosmetics...
Our lovely leather bench...and shower
See, shower!
The shower is a bit small, of course, but it gets the job done – and we have a water heater to keep it comfortable!
The thing goes up in only a couple of minutes, but we typically leave it up over night to dry before tearing it down
We had to get a new, longer hose on the road, so it doesn't match the rest of the hardware – but now I don't have to bend down to my knees to wet my head
And now as we go around to the back, you'll see our garage – it is usually a bit of a mess...
We love our bed. It doesn't usually look this nice though.
Look at that ceiling 😍
Electrical system to your left, storage in the middle, and the fresh water tank to the right
The electrical system has proven to be sufficient for our needs – as long as the sun is shining, we have plenty of energy from the solar panels
The water tank will last us about 3-5 days – we can stretch it much further if we aren't taking showers often
We have a retractable clothes line on each door – we can do small loads of laundry in our manual washing machine and hang clothes to dry on these clothes lines
And now a quick walk around the exterior
This window is extremely helpful for airflow – we will often have the ceiling fan running and this window open to allow air to flow from the rear to the front of the living space
The vast majority of our energy comes from these solar panels – but we do also have an alternator charger that charges the batteries when the van is running and an inlet that we can plug into electrical hookups at campgrounds that have them.
The ceiling fan is our primary source of cooling on hot days. It is helpful, but not really sufficient for days in the 80s or higher. Those days can be a bit miserable in the van.
Thanks for joining me on this tour. We love our van, Gus, and are so proud of what we were able to build. We put so, so much time into researching and building this thing. There a couple of things that we would do differently if we were to do it again, but it has been great for our needs so far! We are looking forward to continuing making memories and seeing more of the beautiful world that we call home.
Thanks for coming along. See you soon!
Trevor Headings
July 3, 2024
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Check out some of our other journals from our experience on the road.
This week we finished up our trip by visiting two parks - Glacial Lakes in Minnesota and Indiana Dunes National Park. And at the end of the week, we finally pulled into the driveway of home sweet home!
We started our journey toward home, traveling from Washington to North Dakota, stopping at Glacier National Park and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We saw more animals this week than any other week on our trip.
This week we had Mandi and Nathaniel join us in our van adventure. We had fun exploring Olympic and North Cascades National Parks and navigating 4 people living in such a small space.
