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 converting this sprinter van into our perfect home on wheels after a year of mostly kevin's hard work we are finally ready to get on 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 around our van all right so we'll start from the front of the van and we'll make our way back one of the first things that we did on the van build was install a backup camera when we first got it we drove the van from michigan to new jersey and it was really difficult to drive because we had no visibility behind us whatsoever so we installed this backup camera it's integrated with the stock head unit here and it's connected to the top of the van so it's a lot it makes parallel parking so much easier being able to see exactly how far we are from cars since this vehicle is pretty big all right so the second thing we installed in the van was the swivel seat we wanted to be able to use the seats in the front of the van as living space when we weren't actually driving so this was really important to us especially if i'm cooking and kevin wants to be like on the computer or doing something and doesn't necessarily want to be in the back of the van this gives him a second option as to where to sit so in the winter time we got to stay warm in the van so we have an s bar s2 d2 diesel heater which connects from our diesel tank to our house batteries and we could heat this thing up without ever turning the engine on all right so just like we're worried about being cold in the winter months we're also worried about being too hot in the summer if we're anywhere like florida or the southern us where it's really really hot so for that reason we got these shades made um this one goes actually in the front and covers the entire windshield to help keep the sun out and to keep the cab cooler during the day along with the windshield one we also made two for the sides in addition to keeping the sun out we also use the curtains or the shades up front when we're camping at a more formal campground such as 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 we're camping and we don't have to worry about anybody seeing us or peeking in or anything like that when we're not at a camp a formal campground or we're trying to stealth camp we did install this curtain it's a blackout curtain so it makes it so that during the day we can't see like the sun or anything like that but it also makes it so that we have privacy at night and then people can't see into the van all right so we didn't want to waste all of this space up top above the cabin so we actually installed this shelf i guess that we then put a door on just because i didn't like being able to see everything so this actually stores all of our camera gear our drone our window shades for the side windows and some recipes and some towels um so it's just extra stuff that we're not always using um except for the camera gear obviously but that's an easy spot to get to it kind of stores away and doesn't take up as much space as if we had it out me and taylor went back and forth on this door here because she knew that i was gonna throw my junk up there so she didn't want to see it which is why we have the cabinet door but after we installed it i think it looks really nice and kind of completes the the cabinetry in the van as for this little cubby um it was just a bunch of awkward space that i didn't really like so we added this little book cubby where we keep kevin's favorite free campgrounds book and then for those of you who know me i really like to read so i like to keep a book in there that i'm currently reading that way if i'm in the passenger seat it's easy to get to and it's easy to put away if i decide to switch and drive and all that kind of stuff so these are really easy to get to and they're just a nice little nook where they are easily accessible if we need them next to our book cubby is my closet this was a necessity for me i like to hang a lot of my clothes up so that they don't get wrinkly and stuff so i really wanted a hanging closet in the van that being said kevin took it over he was like we don't need a closet yet one two three four five six seven of these big bulky items in here that take up ninety percent of the space are his but anyway this is a great use of space we've used it obviously both of us a lot additionally i wanted a mirror in here as well so i did find these little plastic like fun house mirrors essentially they're not the greatest i mean you are like warped and everything but i mean we're limited in a van as to how many or what kind of mirror we can get just because they are usually heavier they're glass or so it works for the purpose of it it's just not the best mirror so my personal favorite part of this van or one of them i have many favorites in the van is this electrical drawer here so we are filming all the time so having this electrical drawer we could store our gopros charge our batteries both drone we have 120 volt and 12 volt and store all our camera lenses makes life a lot easier and being it so close to the passenger seat we can get this on the go so it's really nice and like i said we have electrical outlets here to charge in the drawer and it's all connected and wired up to our battery bank right there underneath the electrical door we actually have this big space so i thought that this would be a great place to store all of our dry food um that being said we just keep all of our non-refrigerated food in here we don't have that much in here right now because we're not fully living in here at the moment not yet but this is where all of that goes and lastly down here like all girls i like a lot of shoes so i use this little cubby to store all of my shoes however it does get a little tight so taylor has her shoe cubby and i also have mine this was another spot that was kind of like awkward dead space so in the van it's so limited we don't want to waste any available space that we have so we built this little cubby here and i have my shoes right here so as you can tell we have a stationary bathroom in our van and we are glad that we made a decision to do this it was really tailor pushing for this one i was on the fence because it does take a lot of room 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 it and we're definitely glad that we have a toilet in the van as well in terms of the shower we have a hot and cold water shower we have 33 gallons of fresh water which allows me and taylor to shower about four times before we have 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 clean our feet since it is a relatively tight space and it also serves as two purposes to hold the hose and the electric power to our toilet which is a nature's head composting toilet and it requires power because there's a fan that aerates the compost and sends it through a tube underneath the vehicle so we have no smell whatsoever when we do shower we take the toilet out so we just unscrew it from the teak floor here pop the toilet out and then the hose and the power cord for the nature's head gets shoved into the little ledge cabinet thing here and sealed up with this blue seas uh water cap seal which is used on boats and stuff so it's 100 waterproof we don't have to worry about getting this wet at all the shower walls are made out of frp board we chose to do this over tile because of weight limitations this was taylor's clever idea to have stationary soap and shampoo dispensers instead of having worrying about bottles flying all over the place while we're driving our shower door is a nautilus self-cleaning retractable door which is really nice because you don't have to worry about a shower curtain getting wrapped around your bum or whatever when you're showering we rented a van in portugal and absolutely hated that so this is a really nice feature one thing that we wish nautilus would do is install some type of hatch for the door to better seal it because sometimes it's a little easy to pop that open if you knock away your elbow so that's my one complaint are you even experienced yes yes i am this is my area of the van i wanted a fixed stove top i knew a lot of people recommend the induction cooktops however i feel like we kind of use it a lot and then you have to wait for it to cool down before you can put it away plus i just feel like i would be constantly taking it in and out of the drawer so i wanted a fixed one so that's why we went with this one it is gas powered so we do have the small propane tanks and they've actually seemed to last us a decent amount of cooking i thought that we would go through them much faster than we have been so i actually have no regrets on the stovetop at all so as for our countertops we went with butcher block we got them from home depot they were actually very affordable thank goodness because this is actually the second stovetop or countertop that we got the first one we actually cut too short and then the second one which is this one we had trouble with the sink cut out however i think thanks to my handy dandy sander we made it look pretty good and i think that they make our van look a little bit more earthy and kind of pull all of the wood elements in so i do like that we went with the butcher block next is our sink i really do like the ones that people go with that are the farmhouse style however i wanted a nice deep sink so that if we were washing dishes water wouldn't go spraying everywhere so we did go with this stainless steel sink no real complaints about it yet but i do wish it was just a little bit bigger when we have like big pots and pans it gets a little annoying but it is an undermount stainless steel sink as for all of our faucets this one actually does not have filtered water so this is just our regular water this little silver guy over here gives us all of our filtered water and then lastly we did do the soap eye just because we didn't want a soap bottle kind of falling around on the counter top while we drove so we thought that this would be a better place to store our soap and have it easily accessible whenever we wanted it all right as for our cabinets we went with cabinets instead of drawers which i think honestly now is one of my regrets of the van and i'll let you know why soon however the first drawer up here we did do it just has all of our utensils just you know the essentials for cooking down here in this cabinet is where we keep our pots and pans some bowls mugs our propane tank that fuels our fixed stove top our blender more pots and pans down there and just some foldable storage containers i do really like how much space we have in these cabinets however the only reason i would say maybe do a drawer is because it's kind of a pain in the butt to get things that are all the way in the back because you constantly have to take everything out or to put it away or to get to it so that's why i think drawers would be a little better we didn't do a drawer though because we didn't want to lose all of this extra space i feel like when you have a drawer you kind of lose all the space that you have on the sides and we wanted to be able to utilize all of the space as best as we could and that's why we didn't go with that but looking back now i think that that would be one thing i would change in our next build in this cabinet we just keep our recycle bin our trash bin some extra trash bags and some cleaning supplies and then we also have our water filter underneath that way it's easy to get to and if we need to we can replace it pretty easily in the next cabinet we have i'm a big coffee drinker and i don't really know how to do pour over coffee or anything like that so we have my mini keurig which was a must just some coffee stuff a fire extinguisher god forbid we ever need it in the next drawer we just have some zip locks some extra spices if we need it and then in the top we have our little spice area this way it's easy to get to when i'm cooking so i actually really like the way that these drawers turned out finally next to all the cabinetry we do have our fridge we got the 110 dometic a lot of the food that we eat usually is in the refrigerator so we wanted to go with the bigger one just so that we had more room for all of our perishable items this fridge also has a little freezer we weren't sure if we would really be using it however we have found some uses for it while we've been on the road so i'm pretty happy that we got the little freezer and then our last cabinet in the kitchen is just this one in here we keep plates a cutting board some wine glasses they're the only glass that we have in the van but i really like to drink wine out of a glass rather than plastic so they're a necessity and that's pretty much it all right so my other regret about the kitchen is that when i am cooking things on the stove i usually like to be able to put plates right next to it so i can plate the food right next to the stove and with this setup i don't really have that opportunity we did get a lot of comments about putting something right here and we did think about that however depending on how big we make it it may block this outlet so we're not really sure if we're going to add it but that is my one regret i liked having like the stove and the sink next to each other but after cooking a few times i realized it's really not as functional as i thought it would be my whole basis for doing this was that i had a larger prep space if i kind of kept those together which this part is great but it just doesn't give me anywhere to put plates next to the stovetop so this cabinet up here is basically the electrical command center i have all the modules up here i got this idea from siren alex jeans basically control and monitor everything in the van 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 ac electricity if taylor wants to put on her keurig with this outlet here her hair dryer if i wanted to use the blender for an acai bowl we just put this on and it turns on the ac power we have a little remote here for one of my favorite parts again favorite part too a little toe kick light this is really nice at night time if one person has to go to the bathroom you don't have to turn the lights overhead on and wake each other up you can just pop this on it's enough visibility or enough light to get to the bathroom and do what you got to do behind this here it's pretty technical i would recommend you go check out our van build episodes if you want to learn more about this but this is basically how we control all or how we power all of our 12 volt accessories one last thing we also have a wee boost which is how we get cell service in remote areas and increase the strength of our wi-fi while on the rip so since i'm on electricity i'll just continue for a bit we have on this side the switch for our hot water heater it's on a timer switch because there's such a big draw when we turn it on we don't want to forget that we have it on and then kill our batteries so that's why we installed this timer here next and we also have another ac outlet so next to the ac outlet we also have switches for our 12 volt accessories the first one is the water pump and then we have two switches for our gray water tanks we have two 5 gallon gray water tanks underneath the van on both sides one for the shower one for the kitchen sink and it makes life a lot easier these are on electric ball valves so we just flip the switch and the water can drain out when we're in an appropriate place to drain our tanks above that we have two usbs as well as a 12 volt cigarette outlet or whatever you want to call it there since we're 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 right here covers all of our clothes for both taylor and i and we each have one big drawer which allows us to put a lot of clothes in and we have two smaller drawers for more clothes up top here and these could be interchanged for you know just like kind of like a junk drawer for me i'm being honest for you this upper cabinet here is like our toiletry cabinet storage area so we have our toothbrush deodorant basically things like that that you'd keep in a bathroom and also some medicine especially the anti-diarrhea anti-gas for taylor [Laughter] it's because nobody wants to have diarrhea in the nature's head yeah that's especially true no diary in the nature's head actually i think you can but i don't want to risk that one no one needs to hear that all right so although the back of our van is already in bed mode this is not a fixed platform bed this bed actually converts into our table and booth during the day and this is the spot where we like to have most of our meals and kevin likes to work for the most part where i like to work but kevin's to work but we left it in bed mode for you guys today because we actually slept in it last night at a wedding and it was all made so i didn't want to take it apart just yet when we do sleep we didn't make much like the front of the van these covers with reflectix that way it would keep in the hot or cold air and it would also kind of make it so people can't peek in at night and then another thing we got were these van gear made shades these in my opinion are a van essential they are super lightweight the entire side of it connects via magnets that are really nice and strong so literally you just put them right on they connect and then at night all we have to do is pull the snap and fold it down i'm six one and i can't sleep side by side so that's one of the main reasons why we have the bed facing long ways and use it as a dual purpose area for both sleeping and then converting it into a couch booth mode for eating and working another van essential is a roof vent fan we installed a max air fan because you can use it fully wide open at full power when it's raining and not all of the other fans allow you to do that so that's why we chairs with the max air fan and these side bump panels in addition to the light that they bring in we're able to open these up at night and then pull have the van pull air through and it creates a great cross breeze right by your head which is really nice when you sleep another tip that 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 hanging out back here in work mode we can charge our phones right here and not have to worry about going all the way to the front or near the kitchen to access the usb power outlet this is a dual purpose usb port so we can also install a little usb fan for when it's really hot out and we have the air coming through the windows via the max air fan and we could also install a little clip-on fan right to this wood frame and have it face down right at us and we have them on both sides here for when it is that hot all right so underneath the benches or the bed depending on which mode we're in is where we actually have extra storage so this back compartment is where we keep our pillows when it's not when it's in bed mode honestly we 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 usually we have paper towels as well as toilet paper just in case we run out never have too much of that so in addition to paper products and clean towels and linens this is also where we put all of our linens during the day when we're not in bed mode as well as our window covers and this bottom piece that completes our bed so to make up our platform bed we have our table that we use while it's in booth mode and then this extra piece of wood that kevin made to complete the the platform this was a requirement obviously because without it the cushions down at the bottom don't have anything to lean on and there's no support so that is why this extra piece was made the piece of wood just goes right in here seals everything up and then boom shut so in the passenger side bench box we have our electrical components and i highly recommend checking out our electrical overview van build episode which i'll link below but in short we have three 100 amp hour lithium battleborn batteries a 3000 watt inverter by victron and we have our renergie solar 40 amp rover charge controller as well we do have three ways to charge our batteries one from the solar two is from our battery isolator which is right here which is this cord right here and then the third option if we need to is to charge via short power but honestly with the two options of solar or the battery alternator charging while we're driving we really don't need to use the short power that's just in case of an emergency or something like that but yeah this is plenty of power and enough power to char to power a hair dryer or any other heavy duty electrical compartment kevin really likes to dry his hair all right so this is what it looks like when we converted it from the bed into the booth mode we're able to work and eat or do pretty much anything we need to do back here this table is on the lagoon swivel so it's really easy to move in and out and if you didn't catch it we basically just move these cushions and the ones that i'm sitting on right now into the middle and then these fold down into the side to complete the bed which is a pretty big bed and sleeps us very well one issue that i have about this isn't making and converting it back and forth it's really not that big of a deal and it's quite easy especially with two people but the seat area it's kind of like you're sitting a little bit leaning forward i personally like to take this back cushion and throw it in the front when we're back here for a good duration just so i have a little bit more space for my butt and i could sit a little bit more comfortably here i probably only have like 18 inches if i could just take this out i could move another six inches back and be a lot more comfortable to break it down kevin's one of those people who likes his entire leg to be on the sofa so for this portion to be hanging off does not make him very happy to combat this if i don't want to throw this cushion up to the front i just sit in the corner here and this is what i like to call the money spot move the table right to here and now i can work and have all the space so you might be wondering what's underneath the elevated platform right here we actually have our garage space underneath here and let's go to the back to check that out now not allowed to wear shoes in the van ever so constantly off and on but let's take a look at the back of the van and i'll show you the garage all right so the first thing you might see is the garage area which has enough space if i take the fins off for three surfboards and we can take these out and put snowboards or skis up there if we need to this winter and we also have plenty of additional storage down here for other things that like beach chairs and stuff when we jump in here full time and 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 really access it from the back because of the convenience um so if we're sitting here we can just pull it open and it kind of opens like this much with the doors and then it kind of acts as like a shoot so if you throw the clothes down it just falls right in and then it makes it super easy when we actually go to do our laundry we don't have to get in the van and pull it out that way we can just come right outside we have a small hamper that pops open like so um and then we can kind of just throw all of our clothes in there and then this way once they're done we can fold them before we come back in since it's a small space and who wants to pull clothes in there but we found out to be one of our best fan build ideas because of the convenience of it so i definitely recommend the laundry chute we also forgot to mention that we have a little drawer right here that we plan on putting our vacuum in you can see an outlet right there so we'll plug the dyson vacuum in to do that and it also has our adapter for our shore power if we ever need to charge it and our mini fans and our mini fans so there's room for opportunity plenty of storage in there too i have found that getting to the storage containers underneath the booth is a little bit annoying so i wouldn't put things in there that you use every single day just because you're constantly moving the cushions and things just my personal preference lastly for our water area we wanted it to be super convenient when we were filling our water tank up so we have this bpa free hose and a rv water filter that we connect to it and just plug our short or our hose into this adapter right here and fill it up we also have an external hose that's push connect for if we wanted to get back from the beach rinse our feet down we can do so rinse off our surfboards or even shower with a suction cup here but um this is just a nice little feature and we put it out here again for convenience it's a lot easier to just pull up to a water station grab the hose and fill up instead of having to go move stuff out to get to it another thing that we installed is the same light as our toe kick on the kitchen cabinet and this is just giving us extra light when it's dark outside and we need to access the garage area so that's pretty easy to install and pretty convenient lastly on the outside here to get to the roof we have an illuminous platter here and that lets us get to our solar panels which are four 100 watt solar panels on the roof and our platform deck to watch the sunsets so we love to hang out on our platform deck on the roof to watch sunsets with views like this but i would highly recommend some type of roof deck because it's just another place to hang out and it's always fun to get up high and enjoy the views alright guys so that wraps up our van tour if you have any questions or want to learn more about our build i highly recommend checking out our van build series or just start dropping comments below and i'll be sure to answer them if you want to see more van life episodes then consider subscribing as we transition into van life thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time so this upper cabinet up here is kind of like our toiletry cabinet where we have all our toothbrush deodorant whatever you need medicine glasses and other weird stuff like that i don't really know i'm just slapping this diarrhea all right let's hide this one small um so this right here is just another cool little feature that we have to water pumps down on sweet shake it off now move it like a tipsy now let me see this is my life as i'm constantly waiting for kevin who's never prepared she get them yes

Channel: Mathers On The Map

Views: 637,374

Rating: 4.9171138 out of 5

Keywords: van tour, van conversion, van life, diy van, camper van, camper van tour with bathroom, camper van tour 2020, van tour with bathroom, van tour van life, van life build, van life tour, diy van tour, camper van build, mathers on the map

Id: XO7sBZw7Tp4

Length: 29min 5sec (1745 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020