Vanlife on a Budget: Best Cheap Van Conversion Under $900! Van Tour Fantastic Super Cheap Easy Build

you could take any cheap thing and think outside of the box and make something really really cool with next to nothing everyone welcome back to my next video today we're going to look at a van that is amazing I think you know there's a lot of Vans out there that are gorgeous that cost a hundred thousand dollars we're going to look at a van that's gorgeous and cost next to nothing and that's an accomplishment that's a kind of a genius uh we're gonna meet Daryl and take a look at his van hi Daryl hi Bob so you're on the road in this really nice Ford and boy your home was beautiful I'm really impressed with it thank you uh and so how long have you been on the road a total of about six years with a little bit of time off and on for uh injuries injuries yeah and what uh you're full time then totally totally full time and and you've probably been in several Vehicles besides this one yes and the van's going good so far I love that one yeah that's a good one I love that one yeah two and a half years in that one what led you to be out on the road I got tired of life I was living in California and running a rat race and I said I'm just done and I didn't even know people were doing it and I did it started off in an SUV a 95 Toyota 4Runner four-wheel drive I was an outdoor guy and then I said I can't change my clothes in this thing yeah it's just too tough yeah so then I you know but it was hard to give up the four-wheel drive because four wheel drive larger Vehicles there's so much more expensive and then I just decided to go the Midwest and buy a van and that's how I started with bands and that's my third band I did a camper van to start with a classic camper van and it was the coolest Money Pit I ever owned in my life it was an 80 an 88 Dodge Explorer cost me seven thousand dollars in nine months and wouldn't get out of the city so I got rid of it then I I did a type 2 ambulance uh that was awesome and then I got rid of that one to get this one that is a wheelchair van because my father and my stepmom were both in wheelchairs and they didn't have any vehicle for that and I was taking care of them and she since passed but he's still around and he's still a wheelchair so I keep the wheelchair lift in case we need to move him somewhere at some point in time when he can't get Transportation but in the meantime I travel and it made it my home you're still young yet so I don't think you're retired no how are you paying your way as you go I'm a 100 disabled yeah well I'm really sorry about that but man it's brought some good things too uh a lot a lot a lot yeah the Peace of living in that van is incredible yeah I know that you haven't put a whole lot into this van you've done it really on the cheap do you have a background in carpentry or or the trades yeah they've always been an artist and then I um did uh some construction for a number of years so my head takes that way and I do woodworking art so um most of it's built from leftover scraps and things I find on the on the ground I put way more work into it than I have money and and you made a it's a work of art folks I think you're going to be really impressed so what in fact why don't we just go over and take a look at it I think uh I think you're going to really see what we mean rather than talk about it we'll look at it so let's do that okay here we go so Daryl uh why don't you go ahead and show us your beautiful beautiful van okay it's a 1995 Ford E-150 I got it a May will make three years ago I got it and I got it less than 73 000 and I now turned uh 121 000 so I put all those miles on it since then and I have over here I have a 12 volt refrigerator which runs 24 hours a day off of my uh batteries and here I have a custom Cabinet that I made out of basically leftover scraps that I found laying around and the purpose for this cabinet everybody thinks this is the refrigerator but it's just storage and then this is mainly a dresser and I bought this for 25 and then I went ahead and cut the bottom off of it and I altered it and so this was only twenty five dollars this was all free this was 250 dollars my bed is a metal bed frame that I bought off of Craigslist that had been slept in twice uh for 25 I paid a guy a hundred dollars to alter it I made the rest of it and then I it cost me about 300 for the mattress and then I have these custom curtains that I had a woman so and they look like bark material I made the curtain rods out of uh just branches that I found laying around I have uh curtains right here that I use when I sleep at night and my friend we found these at Walmart and there are two blackout curtains sewed together and then she cut the bottom off of them to make them fit and made a valance for the top so that I can go ahead and and do that with it and it matches my interior it does really well so because it matches my interior nobody looks at my van right that's the purpose of it and then I have these hyper insulated window inserts that I've made wow they're black on one side they're made out of uh sound deadening material two layers of reflex or reflectix with pop dots and then another layer of reflectix and corrugated plastic and duct tape and then blackout material and then what I do is I take these things because at night you can still see through tinted windows or it's cold or it's too hot and I just put them in there yeah and I'm done it's also not letting any cold or heat in or out it drastically reduces the temperature yes so and also it's an operational wheelchair van I got that because my father's in a wheelchair and so I can use that anytime then him and I uh decide to to do that um I have four 100 watt Renegy solar panels on the roof two 100 amp hour life Pro 4 batteries my entire system is 12 volt I don't have an inverter I don't have a need for one um I'm never out of power I have Shore power that I'll show you in the back that also goes to an AC to DC charger and I have a DC to DC charger that I hit a button while I'm driving and it can charge that way this is where I keep my stove and it's just a one burner stove that I I don't kick in my van if I don't have to and this I also bought for twenty five dollars at a TJ Maxx if you look inside here from what you see everything here if you include the refrigerator and you include the The Mattress which are the two most expensive items for the van all of this is about nine hundred dollars that's incredible yeah that's incredible and it's gorgeous thank you and it's it's all those small touches you know the walking sticks and and the real branches that are it's just amazing I like the I'm very much a nature person so that's why it's like this this is my cabin okay I have my seats and then I have a cheap this is a cheap Walmart uh 12 volt blanket that doesn't take very much electricity and then I have a rode Pro 12 volt electric blanket wow and then I have two um wool blankets that I got off of eBay for about 40 bucks a piece and then I have this blanket and I can layer in and not layer and get like different temperatures and I rarely If Ever I had a Mr Buddy Heater I used it a lot in the other two Vans I hardly ever used it in this van and I just recently gave it away because I installed a diesel heater with a friend that I met at the RTR and she needed a Mr Buddy heat here so obviously it was her since she helped me install the diesel heater so she has that now this cane right here is hand carved African and it was given to me by my friend I absolutely love this it's here so it's the first thing I see when I open the door um he's no longer with his but he thought it needed to live in my van and all these little things that you see hanging up and around and all my console and everything all of that has like stories it reminds me of places I've been and friends and all of that Foresters Heap I used to sell my artwork in uh open air markets and forrester's Heap was my uh artist name still kind of is I took the van to the van Nationals last year and they won let a lot of my friends wanted me to put it in the show it ended up within second in class and I needed to have a name for the van and I didn't have a name for the Vance and now it's named forrester's Heap so that's the story behind that these canes all have a story behind them and one of the ways that I have a couple of different disabilities and one of the ways that I became disabled is I fell 12 feet off of a ladder onto my face and almost broke my neck and hurt my back and um I couldn't walk uh and when I could walk it was stumbling and I needed to have somebody next to me in case I fell so I have uh permanent back injuries okay so this cane right here uh it was give gifted to me by a friend because after I fell off the ladder and I had to go live with a couple of friends that's one of the breaks I was talking about earlier they had to take care of me um I had to have somebody next to me and I could barely walk and one of them had a stroke in the past and he brought a cane out to me and he said well you got to learn to walk on a cane because it made it easier for me and then a couple of weeks later they were out yard sailing and they found that one they said if I need to walk on a cane I need to do it in style so that's how it started the whole cane thing and then I made that one and then I made this uh walking stick and my friend gifted me that one and this walking stick is not just a walking stick it's my grab bar to get out of bed so I have a little trouble sometimes getting out of out of bed because of my back so I grab grab onto the bar and then underneath here is where the fuse panel and all of the electronics for that hide and then this right here is General storage that covers a lot of things including uh all of my electronic tools for fixing all the electronics you know when I was at the RTR we were fixing stuff I was able to pull out all kinds of little things to fix okay so it has four 100 watt panels Up on the Roof and I have it uh the I I made the Rack in a way I bought the rack and then I made the part where you put where the panels are and I designed it like that so I can later adjust it and do Residential panels because I'm going to eventually do that and that is one of the heaviest racks I've ever seen on it it's a heavy duty construction ladder rack yeah and so I drove quite a distance to get it uh those right there are my smoke detector carbon carbon monoxide detector battery monitor which I custom installed in my little thing I have USB fans everywhere I love these things yeah I actually found out about them on your channel and six years ago I picked one up and now I've got four of them I've been using them for six years so here's the charge controller it goes from there through the roof right there comes down here and then I have two uh double pole solar Breakers so to protect my controller and to protect my batteries and then over here is my diesel heater tank and right there is the diesel heater yeah the duct work goes underneath the bed it branches off into a tee and keeps my batteries warm so then the duct comes out here and I open this which I use for for like kitchen storage I just move these and the heat comes out here I'm going to add another pipe so I can pull the duct out further but it gets really toasty really fast it has ceramic tinting all the way around so it's much cooler and it cuts down on UVS and glares and that sort of thing right here is my Shore power very nice I installed that so then that goes up under there under the van and then it goes back into here and I have an AC to DC charger and a DC to DC charger underneath there fire extinguisher here fire extinguisher behind my seat I carry every fluid every single fluid with me there's the batteries oh yeah two 100 amp hour lipo 4 batteries right on the back of this which you really can't see right now it has a RV tank heater and I got it on a switch so if I'm quite often in very cold Midwest areas so I can turn that on and it keeps my batteries to charge that's my home well it is brilliant it's it's gorgeous and cheap I think that you know the ratio of beauty to cost this is probably one of the highest I've ever seen the best you know that you spent very little and it really is beautiful and it's very much me that's right it's me I didn't make it for anybody but me I mean you don't have to be as creative as I am messing around with branches I met somebody at the at the RTR open house he had a van two Vans over from me she took those plastic bins and she painted them and they looked amazing they looked amazing like you could take any cheap thing and think outside of the box and make something really really cool with Nicks to nothing I put this on here because people kept saying in a Van Damme of the river so I put it on there and people loved it and now instead of saying it they just take pictures of it the reason I don't have a roof vent is because I like the the ceiling in there too much I don't cut into it plus it's a conversion van so it has those slider windows and I just take those o polar fans and stick them by the window the windows is three windows and I create airflow and we're good to go so Daryl I have to ask everybody wants to know how are you going to the bathroom um I used public restrooms for the most part and I have the bucket for emergencies that's the answer or or total boondocking for a long period of time right it right yeah yeah and how are you taking showers uh Planet Fitness friends um and truck stops well Daryl thank you so much for sharing your home with us it's just uh you know it's just dedication to details and and letting your own personality come out that's what happens here you've you've really done that thank you and I really wanted people to see what you could do on a budget yeah yeah and that's the main thing this is all like leftovers this is almost like like discards well thank you so much I really appreciate it so folks I know you've been inspired by Daryl's van and uh you got some great ideas if you did like us on YouTube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 292,579

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: zQxjJHej65Q

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023