Student Converts Step Van Into DIY Tiny Home ~ Full Tour

my name is Callum and this is my 1990 GMC Gruman Olson's step ban which I've converted into my own tiny home [Music] [Applause] [Music] before I bought the van I was living in a series of rooms in people's houses paying rent which I never really saw any profit from I figured that I was paying for a place to sleep while I went to school or went to work and I felt really unfulfilled when I started seeing tiny houses and people living in sailboats that really caught my attention until I found BAM life on YouTube and I just devoured every build every conversion that I could get my hands on and that just lit a fire under me so when I saw this van up for sale I knew that this would be the perfect framework for me to build my home in so this is the back door this is what it looks like when I'm in stealth mode when I'm parked in the city I keep this down so that no one knows I've got a tiny house in there when I'm out in the country I put that up and then I have access to my back door and this beautiful tiny house facade at the back here I have my plant which goes up across here I trying to open this door as much as I can to give it light and my dutch door which actually is not the front door it might look like one but here you can see that there's actually a bed behind here so I opened this up to get a nice breeze or a nice view when I'm parked out in the country when it's nice and warm out here I can really really help underneath I have access to my storage space and I've got my bicycle my kayak that and all these other things that I just have through our Wonder neetha there I keep my propane tank on the outside of this wall so that if it's then ever leaks or has any problems there's not going to be any gas which gets into the vehicle itself there's also a drain underneath of here so when the roll-up door is down it has air flow as well and I've just sort of tried to hide them as much as I can just make it a little bit more pretty with this vine here and then over here I just keep some firewood in this box here paint and stuff like that and then there's room for my fishing rod and stuff and in the winter my skis will go up there this vehicle was originally a mobile mechanics truck but I bought it from the previous owner who had done a conversion in it himself however that conversion I really didn't like the way it was constructed or the way that it looked so I tore it all out and started from scratch so this is what the build looks like and I'm gonna show it to you as it is as I'm living in it I did a little bit of cleaning up because there were some dirty dishes but other than that this is the way that it actually looks like when I'm using it this is my kitchen it's up against the divider between the cab and the living space I keep most of my things on the wall here as you can see plates and knives and cups and my cast iron cookware it goes up on the wall on hooks and then I've got two of these little fruit baskets these things in a lot of belts they are great for keeping your fruit not bruised in a moving vehicle and then pretty much everything that I use on the daily basis goes up on this shelf here there's a little switch and I can flick that on and I get a lot of under cabinet lighting this is really great especially at night when I'm doing some cooking or washing dishes or something it just gives me a better angle for the light in the corner here is where I have my sink this cutting board pops right out and then I have a faux copper sink mounted directly underneath of it right now the faucet is this little camp one here and it's hooked up to a petal on the floor as well as an electric water pump so that when you use your foot you get water here you can see I've got my three burner hob here this has been really really great for me I love cooking with propane gas it's so much better than any electric stove I've ever had here's where I'm keeping my spices they work so much better in this drawer because I can actually read what they say on the top here and then just other kitchen stuff that I need this is my coleman cooler this is what i'm using right now for refrigeration i really don't like this solution and I'm hopefully gonna be upgrading fairly soon but for now it's what I can afford and it works well enough under here is where I have access to my two jerry cans which I use for potable water as well as more storage for things which aren't actually kitchen related but this seemed like a good place to keep them art supplies that sort of thing up above here I've installed a fantastic fan which I've modified with this little switch here to be reversible it's really great in this position because it's able to work as a range hood and extract any odors that would come from cooking I like to use a lot of spices and stuff so that's gonna be a problem in a small space so this is really great for dealing with that took me about four months of pretty solid building to get to the stage where I was actually able to live in it and where it actually looks and feels like a home I've been living in the van for about a month now and it's really interesting to see what how I thought things were gonna work out and then how things how actually used my space so I'm really happy that not everything is completed because it's gonna give me a chance when I go in ahead and make those final touches to really fine-tune things to the way that I actually live and how I use this space going from a rental room to the back of a step then involved a lot of downsizing however this is quite a spacious space for a vehicle is 84 square feet in the living space it's 7 feet across and Walt wall in the living portion of the van it's just over 12 feet directly next to my kitchen I have my bench seating here this is really great because I'm able to sit in it like this or a lot of times I'll pile up my cushions and sort of read a book like this and of course this all lifts up so underneath of here is my composting toilet this composting toilet is a very simple two bucket system I've just covered it up here because maybe people don't want to see that it just looks like a bunch of sawdust exactly like this bucket pretty much but it's pretty simple setup I've got a jar here for when I'm in the city and I can't just go pee in a bush and then my toilet paper comes up fits into that hole there to be easily accessible I've gotten a lot of questions about this a lot of people really don't believe that this doesn't smell especially in such a small space and the treats is that it just doesn't smell it smells exactly like this smells exactly like that witch's sawdust and you've got to stick your face right in it if you want to get in the odor this is a really great solution I think for people who are doing this sort of lifestyle because it doesn't require the use of any water or chemicals in this side of the bench I have closed storage I keep my socks and underwear some sweaters pants towels and then I keep all my electronics under here as well down below here is the 2000 watt power inverter which I installed right now I'm running my laptop cable which comes up behind here a corner in the bed so that I'm able to use it in bed or sitting on the bench mounted on the side here is my PWM solar charge controller which came with the 100 watt run engi solar panel on the roof as well as a volt reader and battery capacity meters so right now I'm at a hundred percent capacity and thirteen point one volts underneath the bed here is this pull-out table it comes out on heavy-duty drawer slides and it's great because it gives me a big work surface to work on when I'm doing art or something like that and it's also a really comfortable position to eat my meals from on this bench I have access behind this curtain to all the storage underneath of my bed and I've also built myself a little bit of a bookshelf here in the corner a shower is really important I knew I wanted to have one on board but I didn't want to have like a physical shower room or box inside this space because I felt like that would make this this whole space feel very claustrophobic so instead what I opted for is a basin which I keep under my bed and I pull that out I've got four hooks in my ceiling right under the sky hatch and I can hang my shower curtain off of that then I can place my wing pump sprayer on top of my wood stove and that services my shower I knew that I wanted a fixed bed I didn't want to have one of those ones that pulls out on the slats or a couch which converts into a bed but I also wanted to have a big living space so this is a twin mattress it's the smallest mattress that I've ever slept on and I've had a few people on my youtube video say that I can't fit in it so just because that's what people said there we go nice and comfortable right here I have my windowsill and a little charging station for my phone curtains can be drawn and then this stained glass at night I have this little piece of reflectix which just gets put in there and held in place with friction the back here tends to be a little bit of a cluttered nightstand but these two lids lift up and in one I have closed storage and in the other I have my laundry I've just dropped down the roll-up door you can see that there's no light coming in through here and there's a gap over here where that comes into the main area so when it's cold out what I do is I have these cool noodles so when they're stuffed into this gap that stops any cold air from coming up over top of the wall here I'm a full-time student with the day job so I'm tied to one city and that's okay with me because I am pursuing my dream of becoming a schoolteacher so this van for me is a way for me to live my life on my own terms with the flexibility of being able to move whenever it's required of me which happens quite frequently and before that was always a problem now it's just a simple matter of putting the key in the ignition and driving a little bit to wherever I need to go this is my writing desk and it's probably my favorite feature of the van I just have this little IKEA stool here which is the perfect height and it folds nice and flat and then this desk is adjustable to several different heights but the most common one that I use is this one right here so it's not a little bit of an angle which is nice for when I'm writing I have access to my USB and twelve volt outlets up above here underneath the bookshelf I have a overhead light which is fantastic and of course this can also be an easel if I want it to be this wood stove came with the van I absolutely love it I built this penny hearth which unfortunately has started to come apart but I've sort of decided to let as many of the pennies come off as I can before I renewed them down just because I don't want to be constantly doing it I'd rather what the ones that are really firmly in place stay there and not have come off in a while so that's gonna be a project which is gonna have to happen pretty soon this thing can heat the van up very very quickly a little too quickly maybe sometimes and it doesn't take all that much wood to get really hot so that's really great this is the door to the cab I decided that I would paint and Euron it because I just wanted to have a big piece of my own art in here and I really like her this section here isn't finished at all there needs to be some sort of shelves or something here but I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing this funnel here is really useful as a drain there's a hole in the floor down there but it's not very beautiful so I'm gonna have to find a better way of doing this corner but for now it'll do right now in the summer while I'm not going to school I spend three days in the city working and then the next four I spend out in the country going hiking kayaking walking in the woods spending as much time away from the city as I can this is the cab it's a big cab and I've got a great view of everything in here I have to spend some time in this chair because it's comfortable there's this sort of like desk space here so depending on where I am it might actually be brighter in the cab than it is in the back but I try and spend this a little bit of amount of time in here as I can and I haven't done any work to make this look pretty because it should just kind of look like a work truck I've got two storage units up here over top of the dash here these boards just come right out so I've got some like spare motor oil antifreeze that kind of stuff and just keep supplies for building and stuff up there because it's nice and hidden my advice for anyone who's thinking about doing a build like this it's go on youtube and watch people build their bands there's a lot of great resources out there people who have filmed their builds and just look at how people built their vans and you will very quickly be able to do it yourself it can be very daunting and it can feel a little bit overwhelming because there's a lot of new learning involved but it's all very simple when it comes right down to it even things which seem complicated like solar are actually very very simple so someone else has already done it before you ask questions people are more than happy to answer and then just do the work yourself get yourself some basic power tools you can do a lot with just a drill and a saw if that's all that you have available do the work yourself and you will not regret it

Channel: Sylvan Secrets

Views: 817,483

Rating: 4.8763714 out of 5

Keywords: van, van life, vanlife, grumman, olson, rv, tiny, tiny house, van conversion, diy, camper, home, adventure, living in a van, wanderlust, nomadic, explore, tiny house on wheels, step van, motorhome, micro, wheels, camper van, glamp, glamping, camp, camping, tour, house, alternative living

Id: AZOlWc2ueGo

Length: 15min 20sec (920 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/dudeofea]

awesome setup, I had a similar idea in mind, but opted for simply removing the sliding door instead for better insulation (didn't want the sliders by my head).

I'm glad someone else confirmed there is no smell problem with the compost toilet indoors, as I'm currently building the same thing