BEST VAN LAYOUTS: how to design your van conversion | VAN LIFE BUILD

today we're going to be covering a pretty big topic in the van life world which is what van layout is right for you and we quickly wanted to say thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video [Music] so if you are thinking about building your own bands that the I wire or hiring a builder to build a van for you we wanted to help you kickstart the layout design process this is the number one topic that I talked about on our console calls with potential clients or people in our van layout guide community because to date we have now built eleven vans we're going on our 12th and 13th and 14th so we have learned a lot through eleven van builds nine of which has been custom builds for clients and we wanted to share that with you the different layouts that we have actually built for our clients which are all included in our van layout guide program we get so many questions about the height of a countertop the depth of a counter cut countertop how big our upper cabinets so we have actually compiled all of that information into our van layout guide program so you could access to all of those specs and in addition to that you also get access to our private Facebook group now we get hit up with messages DMS emails every single day to the point that we cannot respond to everybody so because of that we have developed this private Facebook group and we prioritize responding to those messages in that Facebook group is amazing there's a ton of activity we've got to follow all the people that are building their own bands they could kick ideas around to ask questions and not only get answers from us but get answers from other di wires who are building their own bands as well so there's a link down below for a van layout guide and again you get to join the community with us and it is really really fun getting to see everybody's man built in there so we hope to see you inside the Facebook group as well and now let's jump into layouts yes all right so we quickly wanted to talk about kind of the general how to plan your layout and then we're going to talk about each one of our different layouts that we've come up with the floor plans that we have in our family out guide that we have found really work best for certain situations we're going to go through some pros and cons so before that let's just jump into number one the most important thing to figure out your layout is which banner you build are you building in a sprinter a Promaster transit maybe something smaller than one of those but those are the three main ones that have high roofs that you can stand up in so that overall wheelbase length of your van is going to determine your floorplan right because I have calls of people who are always there torn between a 144 sprinter a 170 or 170 extended do they want the Promaster or what are the pros and cons here and the number one thing I tell everybody is go test drive all of that especially if you're going to be transitioning into full-time living or extended travel it's not just gonna be something that you're gonna be sleeping in but it's gonna be your everyday drivers so you want to make sure that it's something you feel really comfortable driving and that you enjoy driving step one I think that is step one step two is once you figure out which van that you're picking and what you're buying you want to measure the inside of your van and work from the back to the front what kind of usable space do you have we like starting in the back because that's typically where your bed is gonna go and that's gonna be the biggest kind of feature in your layout so determine how big will be comfortable for your bed we actually in our first day I laid down on the floor so maybe you want to do the same thing to determine how long you want your bed to be because originally we were gonna go with the shorter bed well we were gonna sleep side to side yeah and we laid side to side a nurse printer and realized yeah we can't sleep this way yes so you want to make sure it's gonna be comfortable also in the back of the van in addition to your bed you also have storage space because whether you're planning on a full time bed or something like our outdoorsman layout or just our beach house layout with a convertible table bed in the back you're gonna have storage back there whether it's upper cabinets or whether it's a garage so identifying what it is you're going to be storing in your van what your priorities are for storage is gonna help you determine what sort of a bed garage storage space you're gonna need back there now the next big feature that's going to take up quite a bit of space is your bathroom now if you've ever seen any rhogam build we've literally built a bathroom into a single van and there's a big reason why number one is a lot of people are going to be living in this full-time or traveling for extended periods of time so they want to be able to be comfortable and feel like this is a house right so they want all their creature comforts of home which includes a shower and toilet now especially as a female it's a little bit different I really wanted to have that indoor toilet to not have to go try to find somewhere late at night to go to the bathroom before I went to bed and so that's why we've always built it in now the reason why we've also built it as a shower toilet combo is because we've seen a lot of designs out there where you lift up a countertop pull out some shower curtain wrap around something and then you're just get in there and shower with shower curtains like wrapped around you I don't know if you ever tried to shower like that but to me that sounds pretty miserable like shower curtains sticking to me and I'm like Oh wet and then things are splashing a little so we just don't think functionality wise that's great also if it's late at night you're like man I just feel really want to take a shower and you have to have this whole five to ten minute process to set up your shower you're gonna be frustrated it's so nice just being able to hop into a bathroom take a quick shower and jump into bed and that is why we build in a bathroom in every single one of our vans right the goal for the functionality of our wet bath is that you don't have to set up or take down anything in order to pee or in order to take a shower and here are some privacy Alex and I had the conversation before we lived in demand that we did not want to see each other on the toilet just straight up that is something that keeps this marriage alive so anything you should just stay in the back yeah something you should just be sacred space so we do not like the toilet pulls out from under the bed and you're sitting in front of your kitchen going to the bathroom like why do you want to take a crap right next to your kitchen yeah next your sink yeah you shouldn't be able to take a crap in scrambled eggs I just don't really get but you know what it's just big world is you're all big boys and girls and you can do it anymore yes we are sharing our opinions and what we believe is the right fit but again these are things that you have to discuss with your partner your family whoever you're doing Van Lines with maybe you're doing it so Louis you don't have to have these conversations if I were doing it solo I could see having a toilet pull out but because we were doing it as a couple and we have dogs we just wanted that space yeah feel was it go into our own bathroom and other options if you want to have the shower but you don't want to have a fixed toilet you're thinking maybe a cassette toilet that can shrink down the space of your shower in your layout for example in our floor plan I know that the typical wet bath that we build from the front of the van to the back of the van after steel studs are in injure and plywood is on both sides of the outside walls it takes up to 45 inches from front to back of the van so when you're laying out your van you've got your bed how much space is that going to take you've got your bathroom how much space is that going to take a kitchen typically is the other large portion that you're gonna have built into your layout because you're trying to probably squeeze a sink and a fridge into that space potentially is a stove if you want to waste countertop space or another I've got strong opinions but those are kind of the major things you're laying out and everything else it's what space do I have left over and what can I do with that am I gonna build a closet you know Florida ceiling jack-and-jill closet with to you know a closet up above a closet down below that's something that we've done a lot for couples that are traveling in a van and living in a van full time are you gonna be able to fit a dresser in the big benefit of a dresser is then you have an additional counter countertop space yeah do you need an extra sea area family that we haven't gone the family route we will talk about the family van layout just to quickly recap and then we'll jump into each one of our layouts and kind of pros and cons is again start from the bathroom and figure out what your bed size is gonna be figure out what your bathroom size is going to be if you're going the bathroom route and then like Alex said from there you can kind of figure out drive room for a small dresser or closet what else can I fit in my layout and then how big is my kitchen gonna be yeah how much do I want to go into the sliding door if it's gonna be on the passenger side which is typically what we do yeah quickly before we move on one other factor that you're gonna want to think about when it comes to your layout is what are you putting in your ceiling are you doing a vent fan are you doing a fresh air the 12-volt air cooling unit that we recommend are you doing a/c unit because they're gonna be plugged into Shore power and you really want to be able to cool your fan down because the placement of all of those is going to be dependent on how far you have things coming into the middle of the van whether you have a bathroom built in somewhere or upper cabinets or a big closet that might affect the placement of all of those things as well so you really want to have your layout dialed in before you just start cutting holes in the roof of your van I'm putting things like your vent fan or an AC or a fresh air into your roof great point yeah I just thought of that okay so let's jump into the layouts now so we have five different layouts in our van layout guide based on the five layouts that we offer to clients and based on what we have found works best overall in a van and again all each one of these has a built in bathroom so five different layouts are the beach house which is our g-man bills that we personally lived in we have the outdoorsman the seaside the loft and the family man which might be our most popular which is also we're actually going to be coming out with a modified family lay out it does not include the happy jack but left that's a little less complex for ya wires but that's just a tune yeah the first thing we're going to talk about is the beach house and the seaside these are very similar layouts again built in bathroom they have a closet they have a dresser they're a big kitchen area they have upper cabinets running the full length of both sides of the vans and they have the convertible table bed area now we personally loved this layout because it gave us a space for a bed and it also gave us a space to hang out eat work all of that and still be really nice and comfortable and it only takes five minutes to go from bed mode to table mode or from table mode to bed but vice versa yeah which some people think that's a big deal for us it wasn't it was never ever a big deal there were occasionally you know one or two days a week where we would just leave it in bed mode and kind of hang out more in like a lounge couch mode which is another great option yep so seaside has an elevated seven-inch kind of mini garage in between the two benches that's great for surfboards long boards scooters it's a small space but it can slide in longer items right and that was designed specifically because we had a client that had a bunch of skateboards a longboard and a fold up scooter that they wanted to take with them on the road and keep you in the van so we designed that layout specifically for that function so if you're like a surfer or something like that you want to have to be able to keep a big surfboard inside this layout would work great for you anything that we took on the road with us we kept on a roof rack like our stand apart inflatable paddle boards and stuff like that so we didn't need a ton of extra storage space for gear inside the van we wanted the upper cabinet storage in the back so that we had with a functional storage to access things when we were on the road yep and that's one thing to consider when you're doing a full-time bed those are only things that you can access if you actually go outside and open your back doors we personally love having all upper cabinets store inside without layout because again you can access it anytime today you don't have to worry about people being outside watching you get your stuff yeah both of the event these vans do have the kitchen on the passenger side and they also have a closet as well as a dresser kind of we took some of our closet space in our van and turn that into a dog crate yeah that was really important for us next up is the outdoorsman now we design this layout for two of our clients who had very expensive mountain bikes that they wanted to keep inside their van now it does only fit one bike right these four solo guys solo dudes that wanted their five to $10,000 mountain bikes inside their van because they did not want to have to store those outside so we built an elevated platform built out of a t20 that their mountain bike fit underneath that platform it was not as high as a full-time full-time garage would be I don't even know the dimension of that but it's way too high yeah so it wasn't that high they could fly their bike underneath and then on top of that they still had the convertible table bed area for both of these guys it was really important to be able to sit and work same kind of thing like we talked about they wanted a bed but they also wanted a place where they could sit have other people in their van work all that kind of stuff now and in these two we did them a little bit different if you look at the van layout guide or the tours the kitchen is actually on the driver side of the vehicle in the front behind the driver's seat the only reason that we built these bands this way is bit is that because both of these vans came to us with a semi built in them that we ripped out and rebuilt and they had both put T vent windows in on the driver side behind the driver seat so we wanted to be able to utilize that space instead of just putting a bathroom there or a closet like we typically do so we did build their kitchen on that side one of the benefits of doing this is all of their plumbing ran on one side of the vehicle so they have their shower and their kitchen sink on the same side so we only had climbing on that one side typically in our other builds we have a shower on one side and sink on the other so plumbing is running to both sides thanks is the loft which is our most recent van layout that we designed for a client Susan who is full-time living in her van she wanted all the extra storage underneath her garage so this is a full-time platform bed with a huge garage that she can store extra gear I know she wanted to get a bike so that was really important to her to be able to have a bike and store it underneath her bed now in this layout we did run upper cabinets on both sides of the van however we don't recommend that that was a client request it just makes it feel a little bit smaller and doesn't give you as much Headroom when you're laying in bed or the ability to sit up and lean against the wall she didn't have back to her windows so she is able to lean against her back door windows and kind of hang out in her bed now we did also do a small convertible table bed area for second secondary sleeping area that you could have a guest come stay with you but it also gives her a place that she can sit and eat so she doesn't always have to stay in her bed and then she because of that space she does have a smaller kitchen smaller closet and then still the bathroom still has a bathroom yeah and one thing that you want to think about with these layouts specifically we built that one in a pro master we haven't built it in a Sprinter yet but in a pro master you're kind of limit on where you can put the bathroom in because of what's underneath the van so after you decide which man you want to go with make sure that you also look underneath the van to help you identify where you can't put certain components of your layout because there might be things like a muffler or a heat shield or think or even just to support frame of the actual van itself that could be in the way it might make you adjust your layout a little bit last but not least this is probably our number one requested client bando is the family van now I did go because it's very complex and something that we would have never felt comfortable tackling as a van build on her own if we hadn't already had like five other under our belt now we came up with this layout and engineered this thing so that it's sturdy and strong but if you're doing this on your own I don't even know what to say in our family a guy who do not include step-by-step instructions on how to install the happy jack for liability reasons happy Jack can kind of help you liber components who's the manufacturer happy jack can kind of help you make sure that you're installing it in a safe way but they're also very hard to get a hold of and because of Kovach have a bunch of delays so we kind of call them 1,200 times just to get an order place so and also this event does add the most weight of any of our bills because you are adding in an additional bench seat in the back you're adding in the whole happy jack frame an additional bed and everything else that goes on top of the happy jack to make the secondary sleeping area so the only way that you can build this van is if you are doing it in the 3,500 I would never recommend that somebody built this in anything that is not at least a sprinter 170 extended 3500 because of all of the space that it takes up inside the van and the extra weight it makes it feel a little bit more closed off because of the way we trim out the hacky jack and frame that in so when you're in the back area it is a little bit you know closed off from the rest of the van which is why we really feel it's necessary to have a 170 extended not only that but this is a family van layout so it's meant to seat and sleep for so you're also putting in a secondary bench seat behind the driver seat in the passenger seat for two more riders yeah so not only do you have that extra space up front that's just to ride for people you then have you know the whole conversion back end that you have to think about so a lot of people have asked would you build out into 170 and the answer is no we would not build this in a regular 170 we really feel like you need the seventy extended which is the largest cargo van out there yeah I don't think there's anything bigger and you really need that size to be able to fit this floorplan into it yeah you're literally cramming as much into a man as you possibly can with both of these vans that we have built for the clients one van we built we really used as little space as possible for the bench seat the other hand the clients wanted it took giant type Toyota Sienna like captains chairs from a minivan and installed them on a track that was moveable they had like kickback leg rests and all that good stuff and that took up a ton of room in their layout and really sacrificed how much storage space they had left inside the vans so if you have kids and you're thinking about van life can you sleep in a tent yeah I would say the family van though it does seat and sleep for you're sacrificing a lot of storage because of the happy jack then you have two beds in the back so there are no upper cabinets back there there's no garage area your bench is down below or housing your electrical and your plumbing so there's no extra room down there then you've got your kitchen you know you have some storage there but depending on if you're doing a built-in stovetop or oven that's gonna take up even more room you do have the upper cabinets of look above the kitchen and then you have the upper cabinets above the two seats in the back and then you can do a headliner shelf for more storage and we have a small closet above the fridge in depth and the family vans that we built but the storage is very limited in that band yeah so just a teaser for how we're gonna be changing this van for our next personal van because if you saw one of our most recent videos we have a 20-18 170 extended that we're going to be converting it to a van for ourselves to travel in and also rent out to people who are interested in trying van life and we are going to be changing it to get rid of the happy jack and actually adding in a bench seat in the back that converts into a bed so instead of having that secondary sleeping area above the primary bed in the back the seat that the kids will be sitting on as we're traveling will also fold into into a bet as well so that is an option that people can think about if you're like okay how can I do this so the build is simpler it's gonna cost me less money although the seats like that can be expensive but that's just an easier DIY built in trying to build a happy Jack van the one thing to consider if you have young kids like we will have is you are gonna have to move the car seats but if you have the latch install on a car seat that really doesn't take long and it takes like one minute to pull them out so that is something we will have to do every single night there will be a process and you know what you know how that goes we're willing to do because we feel that that's the best layout for our family so again you have to weigh the pros and cons of each one of these layouts for yourself and what's gonna work best for your lifestyle if you're traveling with other people you have to consider their needs and so really is you know sit down think about it go over you know what what specifics you're gonna have in your RAM build your bed your bathroom and kitchen all that kind of stuff and if you again looking for specific dimensions on all this so you can really nail down your floorplan we do have our van layout guide down below this is fun yeah just a little conversation between friends talking about a layout so we also put all this information with more pros and cons in a blog post link down below which is on our Squarespace website one of our favorite features about Squarespace is how intuitive the backend is to use we did not have to do any crazy programming to set up our own blog and it's really easy to add photo galleries to add bullet point lists to add Amazon affiliate links all of that inside of blog posts so if you are thinking of building a website to document your travels or your van build or your as a small business owner who's looking for a way to put your business online and not have to hire somebody to develop or build your website for you you want the control on the backend Squarespace is a great option for you again like Sarah said it is super intuitive it's a very functional and easy to use back-end and you're just going to get a beautiful boat or responsive website on the front side yeah one compliment we get from you guys all the time is how professional our website looks and that is all thanks to Squarespace so if you want to sign up head to Squarespace comm for a free two week trial and when you're ready to launch head of squarespace.com forward slash 40 hours for 10% off your purchase of a website or domain thank Squarespace for sponsoring another video that is it for now leave your comments and questions down below and we hope to see you in our family okay community and thanks for watching yeah bye

Channel: Sara & Alex James – Custom Crafted Vans

Views: 552,297

Rating: 4.7569938 out of 5

Keywords: van life, van life ideas, van layout, van layout ideas, best van layout, van conversion, camper van, tiny home, sara and alex, sara and alex james, 40 hours of freedom, van tour, camper van conversion, diy van build, van dwelling, van life build, living in a van, van build series, sprinter van conversion, van build, van design, how to design van conversion, van conversion design

Id: I-yfoaRW59g

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020