How to start Designing the Layout for your Van Life

what's up everybody today I'm doing a video on design and layouts it's something that I'm very passionate about it's something that I have a background in it's something I love talking about it's something that I like creating new ideas and all of that good stuff about so we're gonna get into a lot of detail in this video we're going to get into a lot of what I do in my process on going through the motions of getting a design and getting a layout on how I like to do it and then hopefully that'll give you guys some tips and some tricks on what you should do here we go if you guys are new to my channel consider subscribing what I do here is I live full-time in my van that I call ghost which stands for ground home operations stealth transportation I try to do videos a lot like this which are very informative giving tips and tricks on van life how to live how to build DIY things like that I also try to help out people find builders I do consulting on my website Jarrett achi comm one of the things I really like to do is I like to share other people's vans or small spaces so I do tours on my channel as well I have a bunch of other things coming up in regards to my life and just everything and just all that good stuff so go check out Jagger tachi comm I have some merch on there I've got some t-shirts coming out I got some stuff like that I do consulting like I also mentioned but enough of that you guys are here for designs layouts where to get started I recently put a video out I want to say a few weeks back about what van to get so I hope to start not a trend because it's already benefiting but I hope to start doing more very informational based videos so there's going to be a lot of detail I hope to do a follow-up on certain things in this video it's going to be predominantly about research designs layouts and what suits you best the reason these videos are hard is because there are so many opinions out there now opinions are fine I'm totally okay with them but keep in mind because you have a thought or I have a thought doesn't mean five other people have the same thoughts and ideas they may hate my idea they may hate my opinion but if we can kind of come together here and come up with a good solution that's really what I'm trying to get across so I'm trying to give the tips and the tricks on how to do those kind of things and then make your van or whatever you're designing whether it's a I'm getting into container owned so whether it's container home whether you're redoing a garage whether you're building out a basement hopefully you can take these and apply them to that but for the most part we focus on vans I feel that this part of the build and a lot of people even do this before they even pick a van I prefer to pick a van first because then you can get the dimensions of the whether it's length width height you know you can find all of that pretty much on the Internet so to design a space without knowing the space is a heck of a lot harder I'll give you an example I mentioned that I was considering doing I'm not considering I'm pretty much doing a container home I have designs for a container home but how the heck am I going to design the layout of my containers because it's gonna be more than one without having the land first so I need to go out and purchase land before I can start designing the containers now I have a general idea of how I want to array the containers but it's easier for me to have the land so I can start planning that out and then I can start designing the inside that goes very much hand-in-hand what I'm trying to say here this section is very important and I think it's going to set up the rest of your van build because of how much effort that you put into this you can watch a bunch of videos like this which helps you can go to Instagram and look at all the different photos and pages and get inspiration from those and you can also check out Pinterest which is obviously a great source I hope to get on there more myself and then you can also look at vlogs you can look at just there's so many different avenues to find inspiration to get motivation and to really figure out what you want that's going to be best some people are against what I'm about to say however I'm a big believer in this I would like people to go out there and rent a van before building a van there's two sides to this I say that because I feel that if you rent a van first to figure out what you want in need that's different than renting a van to seeing if this lifestyle is for you I think that you know that this lifestyle is for you right off the bat either you do or you don't you know it this is what I want to do so the purpose of renting a rig or even having a starter rig by the way I'm holding this pen right here because I have a bunch of notes anyways the reason you want to rent that rig is because you want to see what your wants and needs are for me I like to create lists I put out a list of pretty much every I want and I need I did a tour recently of somebody I forget I honestly I forget who I was but they mentioned that they took everything that they wanted they laid it out in their bedroom or living room or whatever it was they laid it all out and they said okay I need to fit everything that's in that room into that thing over there which was a van and they designed around it so that kind of also will go into what I'm gonna say here in a little bit which is figure out your wants and needs and then design around those wants and needs so not only your clothing and like the things that you have but for me and I'm gonna use me as an example a lot obviously but for me I didn't have to design around a bike if mountain biking or trail riding is something that is really that you're passionate about and you love to do and you need to have that bike then you're probably going to have to design around that if you're a big if you're like a chef right and you have to have a massive amount of food storage whether it's refrigerator freezer or a dry storage then you may want to design around that maybe you are traveling chef that is my point on everybody is different all the opinions are different and that's totally fine it's just you need to figure out what your wants and what your needs are for me again I found it was best to make a list I knew that I needed storage for my camera equipment lighting equipment although I don't really need lights anymore with these bad Larry's up on my roof I knew I needed a certain size footprint for my electrical equipment I have radium for heat in my van I knew the mechanicals of that took up a massive amount of area I was gonna sacrifice storage I was going to not have a bike I was going to not have a kayak or anything outdoor activity was because I knew if I was going to do an outdoor activity like skiing snowboarding kayaking anything like that I was going to have to rent knew that I wasn't gonna do that enough to justify me having it in my van again that's just me I have like I like a hike so I got I have them on right now I have nice boots on I have a nice rain jacket I have a nice backpack for my camera equipment those are things I like I also have my tools i if you guys have seen the back of my van I have a whole bunch of Ryobi tools Roy will be sponsoring that'll be great thanks but I have a bunch of tools the list it's gonna take you time go over it several times it's going to take a little bit of time cross things off and I'd subtract do whatever you need to do I also felt that it's best I recently did a event tiny fest California with everything going on right now all events are canceled but I'm filming this in April of 2020 hopefully all that changes soon however if you can go to an event go to an event events are great because you get to have real conversations with the people that have built these out professional builders that are there as well you can have conversations with them all of that is great and again renting a van to see what you also want to need it is also great once you have figured out your list or that you have a general idea for example some people I would say a solid 70 80 % of van lifers don't have a shower in their van also guys if you guys hear some noise I am right outside my friend shop they are doing some building on some vans of whatnot so that's my life anyways what was I saying oh right the shower some people have showers most people don't now with everything going on right now the people that don't have showers you know kind of stinks I have a shower I use my shower now which is funny as all hell but I do use my shower I love my shower I love having it in places where if I'm out of be on land I have a shower I have access to my shower I'm pointing this way because that's where it is I have that access I don't need to have a gym but a lot of people are like well I have gyms it's okay well what happens when you're in a situation we're in now so now we're gonna get into I need to preach because I get so excited over this kind of stuff so the things that are inside your van that you need to start designing around we're gonna start going over the products and what not and I'm just gonna throw out a bunch of lists out there I will start with the very most important thing because we spend typically one-third of our day in it which is a bet what kind of bed do you want now if you guys are anything like me you have searched far and wide all over the interwebs for all these different types of van designs and builds and all that stuff and if you're even more so like me you've been in hundreds of different vans and designs and Bill's you will also understand that there's probably only four layouts and designs maybe five they're all pretty commonly used they're all pretty much virtually the same very minor things are changed and I'll kind of explain that as we go on here going back to the bed your bed is gonna take up 1:30 or van unless you use a twin size bed and if you're a single person that's fine now if you want to possibly resell your van in the future just know it's probably going to be harder to sell your van as a twin size bed than it would be as a full or a queen that's just out of experience that I've dealt with people want the bed people want a starfish people want to spread out deciding what kind of bed that you want do you want a fixed bed do you want a futon style bed like a bed on slots that pulls out from like a couch into a bed do you want a Murphy bed like I have do you want the dinette style bed which is you know you have seating area and then the table access part of the bed situation and then you put cushions onto that I've seen other beds the happy jack system which is an elevated bed or like a bed on hydraulics drop down from the ceiling which is a pretty common thing do you have more than one person so are you going to need a queen-size bed or are you gonna have children in the van so are you going to have to or other people are you gonna have to have a separate sleeping quarters for that person or those people are you expecting a lot of guests if you have children I've seen my brother right now he's doing a bunk bed system think he's actually doing a Murphy bunk bed system so the bottom bunk is like a seating area and the top bunk is a Murphy style falling up against the wall all of those things are like things that should be going through your head when it comes to the bed system once you figure that out it kind of all just comes together by the way you kind of throw out the scenarios like I want a fixed bed for this reason and that reason and this reason a lot of people use the fixed bed because it's elevated up high and you have a bunch of storage underneath your bed that is probably the main reason a lot of people go with a fixed bed the other main reason everybody goes with a fixed bed or people love going with fixed beds is because you don't have to make your bed up what I mean by that is if anybody has a dinette style bed I know that you guys can tell me that a large percentage of the time it's not in dinette mode the futon style bed which is typically your bed that's a couch or a seating area that'll it'll it'll be on slats and rollers and it'll come out and then the backrest will turn into the bed that is a very very common use very useful that was actually part of one of my designs when I started like laying everything out a lot of you are gonna be asking about software I personally like using Sketchup I have the Sketchup pro version I do designs for people sometimes we're gonna get into that in a little bit but anyways I prefer using like a professional program there's a lot of people out there that have messaged me about Vance based 3d probably have seen ads about it it is a very inexpensive product however I want to dedicate an entire video of the different like design I guess software's out there if you are a DIY or doing a one-time build actually for the price Vance based 3d is probably not a bad idea it is a very drag-and-drop system I personally would rather use something like a Sketchup which is the next level up it's only a few hundred dollars but that's just me we won't get into design software and things like that what's nice about Sketchup what's nice about Vance based 3d I think fast paced 3d I have to purchase it but what's nice about that kind of stuff is you can do several different iterations of a bill for example when I was designing the this ghosts this van I went through I think four different layouts and I had them all saved as different you know ghosts one goes to goes three goes four I had them all separated and I was like all right what do i what do I want what do I want to do and I had to make that decision it was like what do I want as a layout so that is another thing it's like you take your list from your wants and needs and then you create a bunch of different I guess you know drawings sketches another thing is also notepads guys this is a tablet that you can draw but this is it's nice to have too two quick little sketches what's nice about having like a Vance based 3d or Sketchup or even AutoCAD but I don't know when spend the money on AutoCAD as they are for the most part all three-dimensional so you can start this 3d conceptualize what you are going to be living in it's a little bit easier doing it with 3d software than it is sketching it out and getting back into the products we went over the bed and all the different type of bed systems that you have that to me you need to decide what is your you know what's important to you when it comes to how you want to sleep and if you want to spend the few minutes it takes to convert a bed for me I wanted separate spaces right this is again just me for an example I knew I was going to be doing stuff like this I knew I was gonna doing videos in my space I wanted to separate a living space which I'm in right now and I also have like an office space up there which is my cab area cuz I have a swivel seat right and I also have a kitchen area which is right here you can actually see my faucet and I have a little cooking area and I even have what my camera's sitting on right now I have six feet of countertop space I wanted to separate all my spaces and I only had 66 square feet to work with so I wanted all of those separate than my bedroom which is right here my bedroom is bed folds down I'm in bed mode when that bed comes down I don't cook I don't do any office work I don't do anything like that that is my bedroom that's why I created the Murphy bed and also off the back wall that's why I want to do something different but that again that's all just me a lot of people don't like the Murphy bed off the back wall hey that's fun to reach the road right these are the things you kind of have to think about when doing your own design in your own van is do you want the countertop space how do you want to make your bed what I was gonna say right now is other products like a fridge fridges are large or they can be and you have to make a lot of decisions with a fridge do you want a door fridge do you want a top loader do you want a frigid looks like a door but it's actually a drawer do you want a fridge freezer do you want a separate fridge freezer do you want a dual zone fridge freezer so this is a part of research that you need to do when you get into products that you need to design around you need to start doing research on dimensions which is massive and also the product themselves and what you want this is why this part of the build takes so long I actually feel the design and the preparation all of this takes longer than the action will build also with that being said as you're going through the building process I can guarantee you things are going to change designs are going to change products are going to change you got to roll with it and you need to know that here before you get started with any of this so fridge me personally I wanted the isotherm I have the clean eighty-five model I wanted to stainless steel look because I'm fancy like that I just wanted something nice I wanted that look other great fridges out there you got Dometic you got winter you got Randy's trucker fridges there are so many options when it comes to fridges I highly highly highly highly recommend getting a 12-volt fridge highly recommend getting a 12-volt fridge you can get it 120 volt fridge but you have to have your inverter on at all times with that being said you have your inverter drawing power as well as the fridge drawing way more power than your typical 12 volt fridge yes 12 of fridges are freaking expensive I understand that moving right along water tank for me I felt that the best one on the market right now and I'm not sponsored by any any I'm not sponsored by anybody right now guys so keep in mind that if I say a product I say this I say that the only thing I get a kickback from which is not even really a kickback is rely on which is the battery company that's about it but other than that like the company I'm about to mention right now I don't get a kickback from them I just like them as a company I think he's pretty he's a cool guy anyways Northwest conversions has created a mold for a over the wheel wall water tank there's another couple companies out there I think Titan is a good company for pro masters you want to do your research on water tanks why because water tanks take up a good amount of room another things are considered with water tanks is a gallon of water weighs eight pounds weight and weight distribution is super super important we're gonna get it to that right after I finish my water tank spheal saving space with an over the wheel world water tank is just amazing it literally fits right over it fits like a glove on a sprinter I'm not sure about the transit and then Titan is the one that you want for a Promaster because the wheel wells are just a little bit higher I think it's a great design is a 22 gallon tank which is not a lot I feel that the sweet spot when it comes to how much water you want to put in your van is between 18 to 25 gallons for grey water I think less is more I only have a seven gallon grey water tank and I have a button that I can release the water from inside the van and that'll dump out to the outside if I want to do it that way I'm going to talk about weight now I felt that it was necessary to keep weight is a very serious concern these vans can only hold so much weight right you can get like a ride improvement package from various companies I think I'm about to start working with van compass which has a ride improvement package they have Fox shocks I believe Fox like let the animal yeah and then there's also sumo Springs that are out there it gives your ride your van ride a smoother ride you can also do lifts if you wanted to once you put all this weight back here a lot of vans not all but a lot of vans will sag a little bit weight distribution so I'm not just the amount of weight that you that you have but how you distribute the weight through the entire van for example you want to make sure that both sides of the van are equal so for me I like to put electrical on one side and water on the other not only do I like doing that for weight but I also like doing that because I'd like to keep electrically wires away from water just in case god forbid knock on wood my water tank decides to leak if it's far enough away it won't go into all of my electric components and start out as short or whatever it may be that because that's not gonna be pretty what if you puncture your tank one day and you have 22 gallons draining into your van somewhere that's playing the what if game but you want to obviously play safe than sorry your electrical there are going to be massive amounts of opinions whether you want to put it into a box or you want to have that brief for me it's oh I feel that it's okay being in a box as long as it's ventilated for example mine's in a box but there's like a whole bunch of vents in there to like let the the hot air out and by the way lithium batteries should actually stay warm so my batteries are actually on the floor but I have a heated floor so it's totally okay and you don't have a heated floor because the floors get so cold and even even 30 40 degree weather they do get cold I would suggest actually lifting the batteries up just like above the wheel well area so those were some of the main products that I feel you have to design around your bed is a major one that you need to design around fridge obviously needs to be designed around a seating area you know you kind of want to design around toilet if you're gonna have it if you if you want it which 95% of van lifers have you're gonna want to design around that those things are not small these things you can you can find the dimensions to everything I'm I'm talking about right now water tank is something big that you need to design around and how you want to lay it out and then your electrical equipment you can find footprints of batteries you can find how big inverters are etc and so forth if you are gonna have it professionally built by like somebody that does solar kits which I highly recommend all right guys we're doing a little quick cut into the video right now because I am at my friend's shop and I'm walking over to my buddy Jason right now he owns off-grid solutions PDX after-hours right now they're actually working I believe on his girlfriend's man and I was kinda just walked over there and I was like hey guys what you're doing right now is perfect for what I'm trying to talk about in this video right now let's go walk inside Jason's shop and show you what just what they're doing this is perfect alright so we're just gonna kind of listen in it and watch them kind of do their thing right now but you guys haven't met Jason's girlfriend here Marissa Marissa is the beautiful owner of this van right and that's Jason he's been on my channel before offered solutions PDX I'm gonna flip this around so you guys can get them on but anyways guys what you guys doing right now and Jay you just laid in the van life check radiant floor heating yeah you are in affiliate outfitter so you are technically allowed to do this so that's pretty awesome and that actually is part of your layout because you need to make sure all the mechanicals are gonna fit in here the mechanicals and just making sure we know where we're putting our screws and stuff you know what I mean all that's pretty important in our layout just knowing we're literally where everything's gonna go before we try to guess that it's going to fit because it seems like everything once you actually put things in the van first the map that you come on paper changes a little bit so awesome and then so you guys have been in the air for probably like an hour now kind of working all this out and you guys started to put down this blue tape right and that was like and like I even I walked in you guys were like it's like making decisions on the fly I freaking love it so much her base layout so from here she can kind of think and make sure that this is exactly where she wants everything to go and it's a good time to move things around and and see you know like right what we're doing right now is she wants up either so the bed's gonna be here we know that and we're gonna recessed into the wall so she can sleep this way so we're trying to figure out how much bench seat is acceptable like 18 inches so we're you were out there on that was French that's nice to me what works for me God is like what 20 inches on that whether you want 20 is there 20 inches there they are like really working it's funny how many like can i Marissa how many Tom how many like iterations of your like design and layout have you gone through in your head yeah and and by the way you are you have an extremely rare van I didn't even say that at the top there oh my god special this is a dual sliding t1n that is ridiculous 2004 this is a gem of a vehicle not only do you have a dual slider but you're gonna be like utilizing it which is even cooler unbelievable I'm super excited guys we are or I am going to do a tour of her van when it's done what are we thinking like eight 12 weeks four weeks is not happening at your promise you that no way it's four weeks happening when I left it was kind of the way that it is now and that was four months ago oh okay so and you change stuff like your you change stuff and you're here to like help it I guess unbelievable I can't realize that oh my god I forgot you like at all and then you change those out oh boy oh you're the rata lined up here can feel it oh the camera up there and see if I can see it oh oh woah where'd you get the panel from from you off-grid solutions PD XCOM that's right obviously you see like they guys they have their fridge that they have mapped out I've already talked about this in the video J on how like we design around the things that we want whether it's the fridge and the water tank the vent right here you know you have a seating area over there you're talking about you know where your tables are gonna go what your gal is gonna go you're talking you were talking about having a floor-to-ceiling thingamajiggy here upper cabinets the whole nine something that you have to consider every step of the way no matter what van you're building like it's just part of the deal there's a lot of little intricacies that go into these vans and I think anyone who gets into it starts realizing it real quick that's it's a pretty involved project you know yep I will end this portion of the video here by saying how many times will this change throughout the building course what do you think like you've done good so along the way she's already come up with what she had in mind is kind of what she wanted to be and we're pretty close to that okay so by keeping close to that I think only things are gonna change maybe by a couple inches here and there but she knows kind of what she wants and even what she needs to haul and hope not so as long as we got a good spot for her skis and a bunch of climbing gear and that's pretty much gonna be all underneath the bed yeah because lots of room here and that's pretty much why you went one of the reasons why you went with a platform bed I talked about that a little bit yeah cuz you're a climber you're an adventurer you're in a lot of gear really good job by doing this but we're gonna run it this way and being able to sleep this way makes it so we don't have to come 48 inches into the van oh right like yours do the same thing right getting getting it closer to the back so we have more room in in the smaller wheelbase vans for other activities and a lot of people asked like why the radiant floor heat in the rear of their like the back portion of that well guess what all of her gear now is going to be heated and our tank and batteries and everything else everything you have with him likes heat so with him loves he might as well get them warm get them there it is I'm already jealous of your van assignment belt what the heck yeah and guys the reason it seems dark in here right now is because we don't have any electrical hooked up she has the lights they're all run it's fine I can promise you I said our system out and got rid of the a GM's like everyone should do your only it's funny because what was in here before you had to a GM's one two hundred amp power 160 pound and now you're going a little more money but it's true batteries two batteries with 210 amp hours and both of her batteries have a five-year warranty so she leaves a light on it doesn't matter it's gonna shut off and she's not gonna have to replace the battery yeah oh yeah the batteries themself a twenty pounds so we saved her your entire electrical system inverter batteries everything is gonna weigh less than what that one battery did before absolutely not rear that's awesome all right guys we're gonna we're gonna end this now we're gonna go back to the remainder of the video but I just needed to it was just luck that I was literally was like hey Jake and Marissa can I please I walked in as they after hours yes he's actually he's off the clock right now he's doing this as a favor to his girls before in the video I also want to talk about the roof layout the roof layout is very essential when it comes to also designing the inside of your van if you have two or three or four panels and you have two roof vents then you need to put the two roof vents and you need to figure out where those panels are going to be before you order your panels you can look up dimensions of solar panels right so you can actually figure out what you need in reference on your roof do you want one fan or two fans do you want a skylight you're gonna have an air unit these are all things that you have to ask yourself before and that's kind of going back to making a list and checking it twice and all that stuff so your roof layout is very important also moving forward so do not neglect your roof layout I've seen people order you know four panels two roof vents a skylight and I'm like how are you gonna fit all that in a 144 sprinter it just ain't gonna happen unless you like stack the solar panels and have them come out like an awning we're gonna try it in the video because I've been talking for way too long here this is the part of the process that is me it's the most fun I love doing this part of this part of the project however the actual designing of it is very tedious it takes a long time you need to do a lot of research you need to do a lot of Amazon shopping you need to do a lot of looking up products online there's however many different composting toilets there are there's porta potti toilets there's there's squatty potty's there's so many different even just just toilets and then you want to get into materials but the materials more towards the when you get into the actual building of it you know you can decide on materials when you get the van you have your layout for me I feel like materials kind of goes during the building process picking out finishes and things like that back and weight right now you want the layout you want shapes you want rectangular box here for a countertop smaller rectangular box here for a toilet other rectangular box here for a water tank long skinny rectangular box for a bed that's what I'm talking about the free version of Sketchup you're totally okay with getting away with that yeah like definitely I designed my first two vans using the free version of Sketchup so again I'm not sponsored by Sketchup whatsoever although Scott you're supposed to be two guys I would like to do a follow up with with an expert on everything I talked about so eventually I plan on doing videos with experts in this field like I feel that I max per time but I also like getting a second opinion so eventually I'm going to start doing videos with people that are professional van builders that have extreme amounts of knowledge in this these type of situations like I said I feel like I'm oppression here but I'm going to have professionals talk about actual products and breaking it all down all in one video so that'll be coming up in the near future comment below if you have any questions or concerns or if you want to get a hold of me you can email me go to my website Geritol calm you can email me an info @ Jarrett or calm and maybe you want a hat with an orange logo on it or I also have some really cool t-shirts coming out really soon so guys thank you for tuning in to this I have no idea how this freaking turned out this was actually like my third take on doing this because there's just way too much information to get out there to you guys I'm so sorry alright guys also check out my other youtube channel which is who's this fnguide that's we're gonna be all comedy based like I talked about if you've watched my watch before I am a stand-up comedian I'm getting back into that in year 2020 yes I'm so excited alright guys we'll see you guys next time later [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jarrod Tocci

Views: 75,002

Keywords: digital nomad, how to work in vanlife, nomad, van life, jarrod tocci, ghost van, how to live in a van, van life vlog, van life ideas, vanlife, how to live vanlife, daily van life, sprinter van conversion, stealth van parking, vanlife tech, tiny watts solar, nomadik customs, radiant floor heating, ghost van vlog, how to build a van, how to design a van conversion, how to design a camper van, designing a van to live in, designing a van conversion, how to design a van build

Id: auwgOdOSO8w

Length: 34min 20sec (2060 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020