LUXURY VAN TOUR | The Concrete Oasis - THE BEST LAYOUT Sprinter

hi I'm Nicole and I'm edin and this is the concrete Oasis let's show you guys around this van is a 2021 Mercedes Sprinter 2500 it's a 170 wheelbase rear wheel drive and it's the gas version we wanted this tiny space to feel like there was a distinct separation of rooms we did this by creating a living room a bedroom a kitchen and a bathroom just about a year ago we met someone named Shaden Valentine and we kept talking about wanting to build a van and he presented us with the perfect opportunity he said come live in my house build your van around other people who have built Vans or currently building Vans and I'll Mentor you through the process and it was kind of this perfect opportunity and we just couldn't say no yeah we really couldn't couldn't deny a perfect opportunity that just landed on our doorstep and it ended up being the best possible way we could have built this van I mean if we would have done it on our own for the first time I would have quit yeah she would have quit and it would have just looked absolutely nothing like this U but thanks to his guidance and the guidance of everyone else that was in um at the house with us it made this van astronomically better than it ever could have been and we learned so much knowledge from these people and in general I think building in a community and pretty much this is I think this is true for any field that you could be dealing with but learning from the best in the field is the absolute number one fastest and best way to get good at a certain profession I mean we knew nothing coming into this but because of the massive amount of knowledge around us we were able to absorb that and learn so much faster and so much more efficiently thanks to the people that were around us and I really think it's just the best way you could possibly build a van or learn any profession at all so this is our living room we did a large L-shaped bench we took a lot of inspiration from shadden's layout doing the living room in the front so that the view would be out the side door rather than the back door let's start with the most recognizable feature in our van the concrete finish this is something called micro cement it is a finish that goes on top of wood when we said we were going to be doing a concrete van everybody was like what are you doing like your first- time Builders it's going to be a mess it's going to crack but this isn't actually concrete it has different properties so if you were to put this on a piece of wood it still bends it's extremely flexible which is great while you're driving because the van is going to flex and all of the vibrations over time so we haven't had any cracking because of that it is also waterproof which was a big thing because we wanted our bathroom and the rest of the van to be the same material so we did need something waterproof and it's also relatively lightweight it's just a 3mm layer on top of the wood it's probably a little bit heavier than paint but not by that much looking at our total weight something that we did learn along the way though which we couldn't have known before is it the concrete will crack in a very specific circumstance if you have two panels of wood that haven't been joined properly you will get a hairline fracture there because the panels themselves underneath are cracking not the cement itself we are going to make a full review on this product how it worked the tips and tricks that we learned so we'll link the video here when it's available um but overall we're really happy with with how it came out we wanted to seat and host as many as possible so you can actually fit about seven people in the seating area and it's oriented towards the view in all of the seats still in this L-shaped seating we put a lagoon table it can service the whole entire area this table anywhere you sit you can figure out away to get the table to work this is by far I think the best seat in the house right here turn this around and then you have the perfect workstation with a beautiful view so with these Lagoon tables you can't put so much weight on them because they only have one support on one side but we want it it to still look like like a big piece of wood so what we did here is we actually did a/2 in piece of wood on top and then we did a faux lip here so only on the perimeter does it have this thick Edge it saves a lot on weight and it works with the Lagoon Mount and it's still lightweight but looks like a thick hardwood table we also took that same concept for our bench lip we wanted it to look like the cushions were sitting on a slab of wood but it is just a thick Edge and actually underneath is space to grab to be able to lift the benches this also gave an opportunity cuz there's a gap back there to put some ambient light to shine on the benches at night so this is actually our first van build which turned out to be quite an advantage for us because we didn't come from the van world we actually took a lot of inspiration from the home design world that we're more familiar with and we' always really really loved the Bali style uh Tulum mostly style architecture and we really wanted to find a way to incorporate that into this van and we hadn't seen it done before before and really really happy about how it came out so this van was a prime example of what it looks like to balance design and functionality I was focused a little bit more on the design side of things and edin more on the functionality for sure so we definitely were sometimes going um head to head but I think we did actually a pretty good job of being able to balance that design and the functionality and I think the mindset that helped us succeed in that was thinking how do we make the most functional thing look as pretty as possible so we didn't want to make anything that was purely just design unless it didn't interfere with anything else but if it was something that needed to be functional it'd be first functional and then how do we make it beautiful a really great example of that is our happy jack frame the Happy Jack beds don't actually come with the bed frame itself so it's on you to build it and most people do it kind of the same with the wooden slots underneath we wanted to do something a little bit different we really love the look of exposed wooden beams in houses yeah and we thought this was a great opportunity since anyways we needed support beams to mimic that look so we actually built the entire bed frame out of aluminum beams but then we covered them in wood veneer which was Nicole's genius idea and it actually made it look like exposed wooden beams in a home and we really really love how it came out yeah and it's super functional extremely strong but still beautiful yes so now looking at this partition door first we'll start with the artwork I hand woodburned um this artwork into the van I thought it was a really great opportunity to add something really unique and having an art background I decided to just make this kind of the centerpiece of our living room it took me about 30 hours give or take but it was absolutely worth every second so we also went with an ark shaped door this was a little bit difficult on the building aspect but it does make it such a nice centerpiece when you're sitting in the living room so it's really important for us to make this part of the van feel like a tiny home and separate it from the cab driving area there's a lot of reasons to do a partition wall but that was the biggest reason for us so that when you're in this space you don't feel like you're in a van some other reasons are for insulation like I just opened the door before and it's so hot on that side of the wall and it's cool back here also it's really nice that when you're driving and this door is shut it feels like you're just driving in a car you don't hear anything our van is quite quiet even when the doors open but this just adds a whole another layer of making it comfortable while you're driving and then on the other side of the door The Backs side of the wall is covered in carpeted Tweed so that it would match the cab area this door is built on drawer slides it slides really smoothly really nice and there's actually a magnet on this side that holds it open and a magnet when it stays shut some people have commented that this L-shaped seating blocks the partition door the reason we put the partition door is so that in maybe an emergency or if it's raining outside if you need to get from this area to the cab we don't necessarily use this every day you can easily hop over this cushion by just resting it down but Our intention wasn't to be passing through all of the time when we were designing the van we decided that arcs were going to be the shape that you would see throughout the van so wherever we could we added them so on our window sills you'll see them and also the door and a few other places in the van we thought if we were to do this kind of frame it would really feel like a home and just be interesting we also made inside of these drop down blackout curtains so the windows themselves are tinted AMA Windows they can open fully and they also have the option for mosquito Nets we also decided to put a panel with the same Ark shaped window frame on our sliding door this was definitely something very difficult to do but we just could not give up on the view of having the two Ark windows and the arc partition door and thought it just had this like beautiful Simplicity and and we just love how it looks also if you want to ride with more people we do have seat belts there are two on this bench and you can have some extra passengers here so some add-ons to our living room would be these bulbs I really wanted to find a way to make a hanging light fixture in the van which isn't the easiest because you're driving and it could be swinging around and dangerous so the solution we came up for that was just to have hooks and have these battery operated light bulbs they just twist on and hook on we do use these quite often at night because it really does make it feel like a home because in a van you don't normally have lighting like this and we really just love how it looks another kind of add-on that doesn't really add to the functionality of the living room is these Nooks we tried to find places where we could add to the aesthetic of the van without taking away from functionality so things like this were perfect because we're digital Nomads is really important for us to be able to charge at the same time so we did two sets of AC and DC Outlets we have USB and USBC plugs here as well as cigarette lighter and our AC Outlets here we also have the vent for our heater here and a Shore power and over there is our water fill meter so what we have under our benches starting with this curved bench is our 34g freshwat tank then in this bench we have our full electrical system and a deep storage solution in the corner as well as our heater and then underneath me here we have our slide out picnic table and Storage solution which I'll show you right now so this is our pullout picnic coffee cocktail table when we were doing house life we always tended to eat our meals in our garden so we did want to have an extension of our living room out into wherever we just parked for the night we also have these bar stools which stow away in our garage that have matching upholstery to our pillows so it all goes together and the really cool thing about this table is that it is a huge storage it's just a simple lid that lifts and closes and then it just slides right back in and locks in place and we also have a fiama f45s awning that slides out right overhead of this table so building a van as a couple is the ultimate test yes yes it absolutely tests the relationship in every aspect it's a lot of stress a lot of decisions that need to be made um a lot of butting heads on you know design versus functionality or uh uh getting things done on time or how things should be done doing something six times until it finally worked and then showing it to Nicole all proud and she would be like no that's not going to work yeah but I think for us it was really really great and ended up being a huge positive experience for our relationship and that definitely plays into what building like as a couple really is um those day-to-day talks and confrontations and how you're going to communicate why you think something is important and really being able to sometimes step out look at the big picture say okay the other person is going to take the lead on this decision we really learned how to communicate better and to uh listen to each other and there was a lot of things that I you know thought I knew what was best and you know I just had to like get it done and Nicole really pushed me to be the best version of myself and I think the same the other way and it really just showed how we work as a great team by pushing each other to be the best that we can so this is our living room and when we're ready to turn into a bedroom at the click of a button our bed comes down and this turns into our bedroom we have a happy jack bedlift system here which is just the most incredible system it allows us to free up this entire space as a living area but also we have a bed up here it's a queen-sized bed goes up and down the flick of a button and we never have to make our bed or convert anything into a bed bed when we want to go to sleep we just press the button comes down get in bed we wake up in the morning we don't have to do anything we just lift it up and it just goes right up we love this thing you can put a four or 5 in mattress up here no problem anything thicker than that you might start taking a little bit away from the headp space uh but we have a really incredible 4-in mattress and it's super comfortable for us if you are by chance trying to build one of these things it was super complicated and there were no instructions online so I made a tutorial video we'll link that here uh definitely check it out and watch it before you do it because there's a lot of really good points in there and a lot of mistakes that we made that you guys won't have to make because we already did them okay so just for reference I am 6t and this is the clearance that I have here it's not too bad um I rarely find myself actually standing in this area this is usually a place that I'll just sit down or I'm just passing through uh to get to the kitchen area in the kitchen area itself there's tons of headro so there's no problem here or in the bathroom uh and here it's just a little bit of a of a lean over I don't mind it at all some people maybe say it's the worst thing ever for me it's like absolutely not a problem at all and this is a sitting area we sit here we hang out here I'm never really standing here I'm 55 and I fit just under these beams so there's a little bit more clearance in the sections that don't have the beams but adding the Happy Jack just gives so much more space to the van that it was worth it for us this is how it looks when the bed is down uh it can go a little bit lower than this this is with the cushions uh lowered and the table lowered a little bit uh we usually just leave it a little bit higher and hop on but there's also a little stool in here that if you want you can use it to hop on but it's a pretty comfortable height to just get right on this is a queen-size bed we absolutely love it we also have a skylight up here that we can look at the stars get some fresh air it has a built-in Blackout Shade uh and also a mosquito net up here we also have a headliner shelf that has a ton of deep storage so we usually just stuff our pillows or anything like that uh that we need in deep storage and don't need access to we can just throw it up here it's really really big up there and we have from this bed a beautiful view from our arked windows they're also big enough to put your phone at at night you can also use the nooks if you want for your water bottle or anything like that yeah we just love it up here building around these happyjack poles was really really tough but having this thing here gave us a great opportunity to hang a magnetic projector from here we just pop that on Lower it down and then we can watch anything we want from bed with our mobile projector so this bed can lower to any height that you want you can stop it at any stage which allows us to make this bottom area into a second bed and then you can leave it kind of halfway and do a bunk bed situation where you have two people sleeping on the bottom and a fullsize bed and two people sleeping up top on our queen bed when we want to set up the second bed all we do is take out the additional piece of wood out of this bench right here screw in some legs to it and then maneuver the pillows around so that it creates another fullsize bed down here in the planning stage of making this van something that was really important to the both of us was that it felt like a home we didn't necessarily want it to feel like we were in a van so we did everything that we could to try and block off that it is a van once you're in the inside part so it could be covering the windows with a different frame putting the panel on the sliding door this partition wall that separates the driving cab from the living area covering up all the metal surfaces you won't see a single thing in here that reminds you that you're in a van you know like everything just looks like a home and we really really felt that that was crucial in building it is essentially a tiny home inside of a van it's a home on Wheels so we really wanted it to be as homey as humanly possible all right on to the next room of the house this is our kitchen the most important thing in this kitchen was for us to be able to cook we love to cook so we wanted to have a comfortable cook space that's why we did a big open working space here right next to the sink and then on the other side we put our appliances our microwave Stove Top and refrigerator the next most important thing for us was to have a ton of storage so we did really deep and long drawers and all of them are soft clothes with a really nice latch lock that none of these have ever opened during driving um but just tons and tons of uh of storage which is really nice here we also have our incredible Pantry we love this thing it creates so much storage in the van and also has room here for odd-shaped things that are tall like wine bottles and um I mean just pretty much wine bottles um and in here we have our hanging trash bin diving a little bit deeper into this side of the kitchen we have our espresso machine I cannot go anywhere without my espresso and our Nook here for teas coffees or whatever you want to put in here then we have a big matte black kitchen sink with a detachable faucet head which is really nice and right right next to it we have a water drop filtered water system so you can have a fresh drinking water here at all times our upper head cabinets are on gas struts and they have tons of storage inside and they lock down so that nothing can fall out we also went with a hidden handle up here to give it a nice clean handleless look we also made sure to not make these too deep so that you'd have plenty of head space when you're working in the kitchen uh this is so far away you're never going to actually like Bang Your Head or anything like that while you're working on this counter space on the other side this this is more our Appliance side so we have our microwave up here that is inset into our Cabinetry then we have a dual induction stove top cooker this thing is really really great it doesn't take up too much energy but we have so much power that doesn't really even matter and under that we have an incredibly large and efficient doedic CRX 110 fridge this thing is incredible and has so much room in here we never filled it up to the brim it keeps us fully stocked for a very long amount of time last thing on this side is the pop-up countertop we wanted to just create a little bit of more counter space here in case you need when you're cooking to put things on the side so we made this here and it just stows away just like that in terms of our uh little control panel here we have our uh inverter switch where we turn on our inverter we also have our heater control for our Webasto and we have an AC outlet here and on the other side so that we can plug in all of our appliances such as our espresso machine a blender toaster anything we may need as for the design of this kitchen we stuck with the concrete and the Walnut veneer to give it a clean look just like the rest of the van accompanied by matte black uh appliances as well as stainless steel we wanted to keep the amount of colors to a minimum in such a small space we don't want it to be too busy and everything just looks really clean and simple the kitchen cabinets here are actually the only thing in this van that we outsourced we gave this job to our one of our good friends iky Baker who is just a master woodworker an incredible van Builder if you ever need anything built at the highest possible level of artistry it's him I as you can see uh he made incredible cabinets I've never seen cabinets this nice in a van I think ever they're just perfect in any way shape or form uh all everything is aligned perfectly there's almost no Gap the whole all the cabinets were made with 5/8 in Baltic Birch and then he handed it off to us where we finished everything with the grain matched Walnut V and the concrete countertops and walls to spice it up a little bit design- wise here we added the ratton feature both on these uppers and in our closet on the other side we loved how this looked we saw it in an inspiration photo and we decided we were going to try and implement it somehow into our van and we love how it came out we added a light in the back of all these cabinets and closets to have the light shine through the ratton it was a lot of work to try and get this both the perfect color and the right amount of uh light filtration so that you wouldn't see everything that's inside but you'd still get that really nice ambient light shining through and it gives a really nice atmosphere really luxurious and really beautiful when it's dark and the lights are on both of these counters also have embedded light strippeds underneath the upper head cabinets so that when you're working you have tons of light on what you're doing speaking of Lights this whole van is separated into three different lighting zones the lighting controls are right here three different hidden knobs the first zone is the living room/ bedroom area the second zone is the kitchen and bathroom and the third zone is all the ambient light in the van in the nooks and the toe kicks inside the ratton features we can control each one of them separately we like to sometimes at night turn on just the ambient light it gives a really really nice mellow look to the van and to the lighting all the lights are also of course fully dimmable moving on to our closet again storage Storage storage we wanted to have as much storage as humanly possible in here and these drawers are massive they are super deep super long and you can just store so much stuff in these aside from these four huge drawers that we have down here we also wanted to do a full hanging closet on top I personally hate folding up my shirts so we wanted to do a ton of hanging storage here and also one of my favorite feature of this van and something that we use a ton which we didn't expect is this embedded laundry shoot this laundry shoot goes straight out to a laundry basket in the garage and it's as simple as taking your dirty laundry and just Boop throw thrown it into the back all your dirty clothes stay in the garage and everything in here stays clean and smell good and the last thing in this area is our AC this is the dedic RTX 2000 it's an incredible AC unit that runs off 12vt power so you don't have to turn on any inverter or anything like that and it's super efficient so with our huge battery pack you can run this thing forever and it keeps our van nice and cold on super hot days so something that I saw coming from like an art background is how the 1% of like extra effort in certain things add up to way more than you would think when you look at the big picture for example spending time on the wood burning um adding the nooks which Eden hated building that I was insistent on having or like little plants um the hanging light bulbs all of these small little details that maybe don't cost so much or that much extra effort um just add up to the whole look of the van to be so much more elegant building a van is definitely like running a marathon so you have to pace yourself and sometimes as you're building you're like all right I'll I'll figure that out later or whatever it's good enough every time that you leave something for later or you don't finish it perfectly I promise you're not going to go back to it so putting in that extra effort to finish things the right way really just adds up for the whole look to be really clean and really professional we were super meticulous about every little detail in this van and it really really shows it's hard to point them out but when when you walk into this van you just feel it you see that everything is really really fine that was actually Nicole's uh main thing is she was very adamant about everything being perfect to the to every level even things you can barely see moving to our fullsize luxury [Music] bathroom so the micro cement gave us a really cool opportunity to have our bathroom and our living space all made out of the same thing since it is waterproof beyond the micro cement we also did a cie board um waterproofing system underneath all of this so we are double inured and for our shower pan we have the cie board um shower pan then a fiberglass layer and then the micro SM so we are triple insured that there would be no leaks or anything happening there most fans have one sink we decided to go with two I thought it was super important that the bathroom really felt like a bathroom if this van is long-term thing that there was a that separation of space so being able to get ready here rather than in the kitchen sink was a really big thing for me I don't know if that makes me a bad band lifer but I wanted to brush my teeth here not in the kitchen sink the great thing about having the bathroom in the back also is when you come back really dirty or wet from surfing you can just hop right into the back and shower rinse off without having to kind of track all of that dirt or mud throughout the van let's start with the vanity so we we made a custom slot sink and we were able to do this because of the micro cement we made it all look like one big piece we love the way that the slot sinks look they were just super expensive to get and also not kind of compact enough that we needed for this space so we built it out of wood and then covered it in epoxy and then micro cemented everything together moving to the Cabinetry section of this I also thought it'd be really nice that you have all of your toiletries and things that you need to get ready right here in front of you instead of getting it out of some weird storage and then taking it here we also did a Ark mirror to match the ark theme in the van and we also have a shelf here to store mainly just the pee powder and for Aesthetics but also our toilet paper holder so you might be wondering where the toilet is we actually decided to Stow it in the garage so that this would be a very large bathroom and shower space and then when you need the toilet you just pull it out so you just unlock this latch right here open the door unlock the drawer slides and our dry flush laa rolls right on out on 500 lb dra slides this thing is an amazing toilet you can go to the bathroom with an amazing view it is on the pricier side when you're looking at how much you have to pay for the cartridges as well as the actual price of the toilet but for us it was just worth it to be able to have this and you go to the bathroom when you're done it just vacuum seals it down and then when you finished all the cartridges there's already a bin in there to just take it out and you just throw it in in a dumpster no smell no having to turn it just super simple for us it was worth it so when you're ready to shower you just shut this Nautilus door after you've shut the Nautilus door you just pop this curtain holders open the curtain slides in front of the vanity to protect the wood and you have all of this shower space to shower you can shower just like this with the doors open we have the vent fan right here so it does take out all of the steam right above you but we m do just keep the doors open and shower with the view because why not moving on to a shower head we have a nebia spa shower it is a lowf flow shower head it uses 1.2 gallons of water per minute and we have a 4G hot water heater and then on this wall we have bottles that are locked into place for your shampoo conditioner and body wash as well as hooks for towels on the floor we have this outdoor um decking it kind of gives it like a spa feel um as well well as the water all drains to a slot drain underneath here so it's kind of blocked from View and everything just stays aesthetically really nice also right here we have our fill line and a quick connect hose so if you want to spray off a surfboard or anything you can do it out here and then this is just our water fill line moving on to our garage we just wanted to have a big storage space the things that permanently stay in the garage are the bar stools the vacuum and the to toet other than that you can kind of find different ways to store things in this area we also have a big pullout drawer here the garage has its own designated light and charging station so we have the same thing that we have over there where we have one Outlet of AC and one DC Outlet with a USB and USBC and a cigarette lighter charger and the last thing we use this concave space to put T tracks and can hang stuff so your helmets ropes gear whatever you want all of these are adjustable so you can kind of configure fure them in any way that works for you okay so in here we have our electrical system this electrical system is pretty robust we went with 800 amp hours of lithium power we use two eg4 400 amp hour batteries these batteries are charged in three ways one of them being the 480 WTS of walkable solar that we have on the roof that's a fully walkable marine grade Merlin uh solar panels the second way these are charged are from a DC to DC battery charger by Renegy it's 60 and it charges the batteries anytime the the van is driving and the third way that we have to charge these batteries is through Shore power through our 3,000 W inverter charger by reny we're using a victron battery monitor to do all the monitoring of the system as well as a links distributor for all of our different systems and we have an ACDC distribution panel here with all of our different circuits in one place our 3,000 W inverter Powers all of our AC needs so we have more than enough to use all of our induction water heater all that and we also have an outlet for the heater here so if it ever gets too cold we can funnel some of the hot air into this box to heat up the batteries the whole box is controlled by thermally controlled fan so if it ever gets too hot in here the fans kick on and blow out all of the hot air and yeah we love this system it has so much power we've never dip below I think 80% in a whole day of using AC and everything that we have in the van uh so this is more than enough for us to be at least 5 days with no sun no plugin no driving anything like that but because there's always sun because we're was driving this thing stays topped off all the time so now that we've finished this van uh we are looking forward and our next big project that we have planned is a tiny home community in Mexico that we're currently in the planning stages of and we're also considering making more of these Vans we'll never make this van if we were to build another van it would definitely be another completely unique to itself van yeah I think we like to keep uh our designs kind of more like art pie pieces and keeping them like oneof one designs that the person who has this van knows that no one else in the world has anything like it and I think every van we make cool probably be the same thing you know a different style maybe similar layout but a you know different design inspiration the biggest thing for us is that we're pretty nomadic and constantly traveling and to build a van you have to be in one place yeah so for us it's a little bit of a commitment issue but it is possible we loved the whole process of this we would love to do it again and bring in a whole new vision to life and we're looking forward to it moving on to the exterior of this van first of all we'll start off with our suspension system we upgraded the entire suspension front and back we did the agile off-road rip kit as well as upgraded to Wrangler Workhorse at tires this van fully built came in at 8,600 lb fully loaded water personal gear gas everything like that so we're well within the weight limitation of this model but we still decided to upgrade all the suspens supension so that it' be a little bit of better handling while driving as you can see also this whole van was covered with an Avery Dennison khaki green wrap that we just love and keep getting compliments on everywhere we go uh it's a super unique color as well as all the trim itself which was covered in Raptor liner which is a super rugged coating that covers all these plastic trim pieces in the back we have our owl spare tire and Ladder kit that holds our spare tire and allows us access to the roof and on the other side we have the sherpa owl system with two oneup bike rack we also added a tow hitch in the back here so you can carry some uh small toall on the roof we have a backwoods Drifter modular roof rack which is a great roof rack you can customize however you want on there we have our walkable solar deck as well as our star link that's set up there our Skylight our AC and our vent fan we also have our fyama f45s awning mounted to the passenger side of this van so that when the doors open you can open that up and it expands your living room a ton but this gives us a ton of shade here to be able to hang out outside of the van so if you guys enjoyed this van enjoy what we're making what we're doing what we're planning please feel free to follow us uh on Instagram Tik Tok Facebook YouTube anywhere you guys want uh we're on all the platforms and we'd love to have you guys follow our journey if you're thinking about building your own van or you're already in the process of building your own van and you're overwhelmed by the process we get that we just did it um so we are going to be offering design Consulting um so you can just reach out through one of our socials or our email and we'll be happy to get back to you and hopefully we can help you guys hone in and bring your vision to life all right hope you guys enjoyed this tour thank you guys for sticking around and watching and we will see you on the road [Music] byebye

Channel: Nicole and Edden

Views: 207,625

Keywords: concrete oasis, van, campervan, camper, van build, sprinter

Id: 5-_6V6r07jo

Length: 33min 58sec (2038 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024