Living Small In A DIY Box Truck Conversion

the trend in homes and RVs is to go small we're going to show you how one couple are living the minimalist lifestyle in their custom built rolling tiny home I'm Jamie I'm Linda and this is Roman with Rosie thank you [Music] Rosie is 40 feet with large slides and lots of storage now this really works for our RV lifestyle but there are negatives to having an RV of this size for one thing there's lots of places we can't go with Rosie because she's huge and the maintenance for an RV of this size is not cheap we've been getting to know lots of people who've created a minimalist lifestyle that suits their desire to find joy and experiences instead of things meet Walt and Stacy this is their third season of living Tiny and their custom built box truck named boxy along with their Cat cookie Walt and Stacy decided they want to see the country before retirement they already owned a box truck for business but now they've built it out to an RV that fits the lifestyle they enjoy eight months of the year let's take a look at boxy and get to know more about Walt and Stacy's Adventure okay well thank you for showing us your home guys what would you say is your favorite thing about this lifestyle the freedom and the people you meet I love the people the companionship with everybody sitting around the fire pits um discussions also oh my goodness hunting for rocks there is every kind of rock you can imagine and crystals are so much fun to find so how much of the year are you guys actually on the road um eight months out of the Year still have a property in Indiana and then we live on the property and we rent our house out so you guys spend four months on your property and you have a shop that you live in it used to be my man cave and I just turned we just turned it into a a house okay basically an apartment and we lived there and then we were in our house out which is on the same problem [Music] so hey roamers we're here today with Walt we're actually going to go through and he's going to explain his build out on his box truck here that he calls boxy I'm not for sure how long it took me to do this it was uh it was a kind of a long process because I was working out of the truck at the same time it took me longer just to figure out how to do it this right here all this is is a piece of plywood I've done this fairly cheap this is a piece of three quarter inch plywood I got a piece of plywood I sanded it down I put uh got some green paint some brown paint just to add some water to that paint and then that uh paint down that latex paint thin it down and go over this and then I'd rub it off and I'd put another color on go over it rub it off and then I'd polyurethane the whole top this right here is a piece of angle metal off of a barn that I just had out in my shop and I just beat it down and we want to eat inside here raise this table up okay and then you can eat or whatever you want to do if you want to use the computer on here or whatever this is our sink here that we uh we built and then you guys have a Berkey do you use that all the time we do all the time and we've had this thing about three years we have us our spot here that I I have my computer on that when we're traveling we usually have our stove right here on here but right now we got it our own kitchen out there in our tent okay the refrigerator freezer we actually use as a freezer and then we have two other coolers that we use as a refrigerator so we Freeze ice in this one Gatorade bottles and then we can use our ice and put in their refrigerator instead of trying to have this as a refrigerator it's too small this is a all self-contained shower is it also so it's also the toilet and the shower together kind of yes we have a composting toilet here okay and we have a shower here that goes into a gray tank and this shower is approximately four foot by two and a half foot good size shower the gray tank how big is that was it the gray tank was around 20 I believe 20. gallons we do have a water heater uh on demand water heater and when we take a shower we just hang it on the outside of the box truck and then I run the the water lines I got water lines that go out there and I just hook up the water lines which you know just scrim on now does it work out for propane yes okay and is it the kind that has the like the Big D batteries on the bottom that you put in yeah the battery's just it's just it's perfect okay just ignite it and you install a Max fan yeah I installed that Max fan and we've got like oh two inches of insulation up above this wood here this is just basically a paneling now there's two of you so how does the bed work okay this bad is a couch in the daytime and at night time we can flip this board up which comes over to here we pull this mattress out and put that one down so we got basically a queen size bed in here noticing all the woodworking in here this wood here is some wood I tore out of a house that I was Remodeling and this wood here is a popular and I believe it's close to 100 years old oh wow yeah it was an old house so and this was a actual baseboard in that house that was the baseball this was the baseboard in that house oh wow and they had Nails in there about this long and they had tons of them and it was something to get out there's a storage up here there's a storage right here a book that I'm reading right now from Lori Raider day this is actually my niece and she's got about eight books out and you can buy them all on Amazon so this is your escape hatch right here right yes now I notice we have which looks like a is that a solar charger yes it is okay so that's your charge charger how much solar do you actually have we have 200 watts of solar okay and 200 amp hours of batteries AGM batteries okay here and everything's for energy okay we have a uh a BC to DC charger oh okay well we can charge our batteries from our truck if our truck's running we can switch it on and charge our batteries there we have our solar to charge it and we have a battery charger if everything nothing else works so we can just hook a battery charger up to it and we have a our energy 2000 watt inverter there so with everything you got going inside the the box truck here how long those batteries and all that last you typically well if we run it all day if we have Sunshine all day which you can see right now we got a hundred percent so and on our battery uh Charter there you can tell that we're actually putting in more energy than we're burning so right once we do that I we can last all night long with our freezer running and with the TV we run our TV off the inverter and that's you know we could use another battery maybe right and and maybe one more solar panel that we wouldn't have any have to worry about it at all but all right now we're doing all right right now with that with the two do you have an external generator that you use ever I do oh okay yes all right but we only use that when we need it you know but if we need it we can just hook it up to there so this is Stacy and she had to be tucked into this a little bit this lifestyle that's true yeah correct how long did it take him to tell him to take well to tuck you into doing that um not real long no probably about a couple weeks maybe oh my goodness yes it took place like took Jamie like three years it's really into doing anything like this and certainly not what you got wow yeah I was really excited because I like to um explore okay and enjoy the freedom in the lifestyle you can come and go yeah so and do you still love it love it yeah yes and you guys have been on the road for two years this will be our third season third season they had covet Interruption of course like everyone else yes that that kind of got us going earlier than we planned so so this is basically your kitchen and this is new to you guys correct because we were out here in November you didn't have this yet no so but the seed was planted for it yes added living space very very needed because before this we saw that they basically had an outdoor kitchen and they have their small indoor kitchen if the weather's bad so to come back and to see who guys have like this whole dining tent is really a big addition how how many feet is this tent it's uh what is it 12 by 12. 12 by 12. okay clam shell and it does really well in the wind because there is wind out here in Arizona we've had some really bad wins the last week so um you've covered the flooring this is gravel under here so you just have carpeting or rugs rugs yep to help with the dust and the dirt okay and you guys have kind of been rugs all the way out so you're not really tracking dirt anywhere correct from your living space correct your cooking is this stove yep the Coleman stove so you're kind of limited of what you can make but you can do a lot on the the propane stove do you have a microwave no microwave wow that's like really old shaped yes right very old school yes so that's pretty cool but you basically you've got your this is like your pantry behind me here correct and then you wash your dishes there yes we've got a washing station okay and then you keep more stuff underneath these correct okay and make our little tablecloth out of our tarps and it kind of hides the other things underneath okay and storage do you guys have a heater in here for when it's cold have a heater it is actually attached to this 2x4 and a bucket of rocks that we got from the wash it's a wave three and it's propane so you just have to ignite it and make sure the propane tank is on so that's nice as well so this Heats it up in the mornings when those cold mornings for us and then our Coleman stove that we use is hooked to a big tank underneath but when it's in the boxy we have the little small tanks that we hook it to so when you're actually on the road going from place to place then you move this inside and you would cook inside correct in the boxy is there anything else in here that you're kind of I'm proud of it's nice that he's hooked to light to a battery it's just a small battery down here like a a lawnmower battery and he hooks the light to the top so when I come in in the morning if it's dark I just push the button wood and stuff over here what is uh this is all just scrap wood that I had around the shop and then the significance of the plates the plates are we're from I'm from Indiana my wife's from Stacy's from Idaho so that's the reason we have these two plates this plate is the same year my daughter was born okay the knocker there we got from Stacy's brother uh when we first got married or when we first moved in our house so I decided to ask Stacy here where do you keep your stuff well we keep our stuff our clothing which most of it's my clothing and the 8x5 trailer and we have to bring our tools along too so this is our catch catcher all like our generator our coolers all of their etcs that will not fit in the box truck travels in the trailer and then is this for working out yes this is our pull-up bar yeah I we hang on the bar because it just helps stretch our bodies out and it's a really good workout too to do some Pull-Ups so this is your antenna for your television yes this is our antenna for our television and it will collapse all the way back down and we decided to secure it to our trailer that way we don't have to move it all the time does it stay on the trailer oh no it doesn't you take it all down when you drive correct okay and what would you guys say is your least favorite thing about not just quartzite but this whole lifestyle making a bed in the morning how about you um well just smaller spaces getting used to each other's ways that I would say that's kind of a challenge sometimes okay um but it's all worth it in the end it's very simple life and it's just all worth it where do you hope to go during your travels um we hope to see Utah I hope to go to the Grand Canyon and see several different places and like to be somewhere where it's warm and um yeah and I see our future still coming back to quartzite just from the group of our friends that we've really connected with okay they're like an extended family yeah that's what we find is that quartzite itself may not be the most beautiful part of the Sonoran Desert but it's a perfect place to Rendezvous with other people that you've met on the road absolutely to make more friends like you guys yes just like you guys yes it's been really great meeting you guys this year and telling us all about how you got into this and and what your future has absolutely more time to come thank you thanks so much Walt and Stacy for giving us a glimpse into your lifestyle and thank you for watching this episode of Roman with Rosie and if you think that this information will benefit someone you know we would love to have you share it with them in the description you'll also find links some offering discounts and coupons to products and services we use and recommend we may receive a small commission when you use those links but it helps us to offset the cost of producing these videos if you want to watch more roaming with Rosie videos be sure to hit that subscribe button and do ring that little bell because that's the only way that you'll be notified each time we upload a new video and make sure to leave a comment that way you can be part of the conversation until next time we'll see you foreign [Music]

Channel: Roaming With Rosie

Views: 6,857

Keywords: rv america, tiny house build, off the grid lifestyle, box truck conversion, tiny house movement, minimalist living, retire early lifestyle, box truck to rv conversion, small space living, location independent, cheap rv living, bob wells, rv youtube channels, rv lifestyle, rv lifestyle youtube channel, vanlife, van life couples, van life shower system, camper build, how to build a camper, self built camper

Id: Ub3LzmOlkaE

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 25 2023