The MOST Unique Camper Van You've Ever Seen - Features Outdoor Biergarten

hello this is Patrick with New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel very excited to meet up with Anthony today Anthony is a really cool DIY ProMaster camper van conversion that he built to look like an old European Cottage I've never seen anything like it before and there's a lot of details in here too that are going to be totally new to you guys so join us for the tour my name is Anthony this is my 2016 ProMaster I bought it with 4 000 miles on it got lucky normally I buy it new because I like to build them live in them and then uh send them away ship them sell them whatever I'm trying to say to me when you go into anybody's home I like Aesthetics I think Aesthetics are important because if you live if you live a certain way you love then you love the way you live it sounds like a cool uh cool little something to something I don't know what I'm trying to say anyway we got uh certain Woods which I'll go over in a minute with you because the woods are actually a big thing for me with this build um but anyway shelving storage you have this guy which from the inside makes it feel like you have a kitchen that you can actually hang out in living room you can cook everybody hangs out and then it feels like more of a home which also to the home for me was important to have I wanted it to feel like when you go into this van you feel like you're in your nest I didn't want it to feel like a camper van that you know you go on the weekend and it does the job and it's functional but it's fashionable and functional once again uh out here propane so you're safe runs to the floor that way if there's any leaks it's going to go straight out the bottom because propane's heavier than air over here in the vanity kitchen area I have a European style sink that I found on Etsy and I thought it was cool I really like those sort of uh washboard sort of old look to me it felt charming and the way it functions is under here you just have a gray water storage you release it straight pipe pour it out wherever that's legitimate I have a cat who's not with me right now and I want her to be able to get in and out and I don't know something about just a little funky window made sense to me when I did it here so I thought that was interesting you have your what did you call it call it a pizza oven the pizza oven we have the pizza oven storage up here and I made things a little bit I guess old school you could call it so instead of just latches that kind of hook in Easy do it like I wanted to add little touches like that something you'd find in you know your grandparents home or something like that so a lot of the touches here I tried to do things like that if you have wallpaper which is actually vinyl wallpaper I cemented it down because I didn't want it to ever come up because of like hot and cold when you travel the ceiling so this is like to me I don't even know what to call it but when you see an old house you live underneath and it's been around forever um I wanted that look I wanted to be like you're underneath and it's sort of rickety this specifically is ipe for those who do a lot of construction ipe is extremely heavy so I didn't I was kind of torn on using it but I was like well what can I do with it and so I re I I ripped it down to like 16 because you can't break the stuff it's really durable and I hit him up on fairing strips to the ceiling so the secure I locked them in with your cross beams and uh that way in the hot and cold it won't it won't ever move fans aren't really that pretty so on the inside I tried to really just tie it in pay attention to detail and then highlight pieces with your ipe and then on the outside with these bars and so forth It's actually old barn wood um my body ripped down an old barn and he had a bunch of like eight Footers and so I just thought it was kind of cool to just build it out and give it that look this is the area where you can lounge do work and it also converts to a bed which I'll show you if you want a workstation lagoon style table is nice because you can rotate it wherever you need to so you have workstation here if you do some computer editing or whatever um you can rotate it this way so you can enjoy dinner with your significant other this table also converts to a bed it's not a full-size bed it's only about five foot so you just drop it down pillows fill in and then you can do your bed there underneath if you pull the cushions up you have a compost toilet so I ran a fan over there and that really helps with the smell toilets and vans to me are tricky because everyone I've come across they're just pretty awful and they're also really expensive for those who do this so I found just this basic little lid system and it comes with diverter and then I grabbed uh recently from a buddy it's like this I don't even know what it is but basically it's like a coagulant and you can put it on areas that are dirty they developed it for like kitty litter smells and stuff like that but it also helps biodegrade it so you can put it on it acts as like the those tabs that can decompose and then use your decomposable bags you let it sit and you can throw it away and you're not totally polluting the environment um so that's that system as well as you have a tube that goes down to your urine holder and it's really large because if you're driving you don't want to Splash it out and you just pull that out you rinse it out and hold it I don't particularly love showers in Vans I think that they're they create mold uh you don't get that long of a shower from it they waste a lot of water however I wanted that convenience and I wanted to challenge myself and just actually like build a shower so I went about it and I did my best to kind of think mindful of I got your low I think it runs like 1.25 gallons per minute and I did it military style so when you're on it you know it's good to go on and off that way you can like a military style showers you rinse do your thing you turn it off on and off and um to me that made sense because you're not really ripping through your water um standard shower pan runs out the bottom I don't collect it uh because I just try to use biodegradable soaps I think it's hard to find a place to actually dump your Wastewater and so that's why I ran it just straight to the ground and also I don't really think shattering is really you shouldn't be doing it that often if you live Van's style in my opinion but here's the shower so um in the back I did corrugated metal and I actually took Flex Seal and I just coated the whole thing that way it's waterproofed and uh yeah I came across this really rusty old barn piece and um I had some hand-me-down tile so that's not my favorite part of the van but for all you you ladies that need to stay clean and don't want to do it outside there you go uh over here we have a water heater a 2.5 gallon water heater which means basically two and a half gallons of hot water will go on there so as I said before you're not really running long-term showers you're getting away with only so much but it's uh it's pretty good on energy and it seems my research that led me back to doing this guy um you have your switch which once your inverter is on you power that on you wait about 30 minutes and then you have steamy hot water the window I don't know much to say about the window you have a window so it's not stale in here so it's almost like a I don't know nice little place to hang out and eat dinner look out the window get some air oh I have to I gotta give a shout out um my mom she's she's sort of made me put these plates in here uh she loves her polish and German Heritage and so I just wanted to say thank you Mom I appreciate it and I think it gives that really cool look so these are authentic I think this one's like actually in the 1800s and uh yeah rooster kitchen I don't know um here's your your roundabout kitchen so you can really do your thing cooking again I love to cook so I found on I found it through Panther this Dometic stove oven and it's propane uh it works really well I've actually done a couple loaves of bread heat was a with an oven when you put it in a small area the you have to worry about how hot it gets because you know you're doing a 450 degree oven so one thing I kept in mind was it just turned out that it made sense to me with the gaps in between all the woodwork that I did you get a good amount of airflow that comes up and out that's through here and there and then straight out the back you have a fan and honestly when I cook it's it's great I haven't had anything that feels too hot this thing is insulated which is nice and yeah you can just do your thing and you got a nice light the Rick work uh so putting brick in a van seems pretty stupid because wait however this is called thin brick which is nice it's three quarter inch thick half inch thick three quarter inch thick and I needed a way to actually figure out how to put brick in a van because over time if you do grout and thinset or mortar it's going to crack it's going to fall off it's not going to hold and so a buddy who does tile work actually said that there's this really cool stuff they came up with more recently that's like a flexible concrete and I mean you can take it and actually bend it I like the I like open concept so you can see your dishware and uh I actually had these Handmade by somebody and to me I didn't just want to close stuff off like I like when you can see things normally I hang jars and stuff like that so I kind of kept that theme throughout which you know I I like to appreciate the things that I have to the fullest extent and so you might as well show it off if you really care about it and I think these are beautifully handmade plates over here you have your power you have everything you need to know about your solar and then when you run around AC you turn that on and then you have your Outlets throughout and it's a 2000 watt inverter so you can pretty much do the majority of things with it your blenders and whatnot I found some hickory wood from a buddy and I thinned it out planed it and then did really cool style um I don't even know what to call them I just like them I thought they look neat but there's some metal there's some trim these latches are nice because you don't have to have anything too cumbersome looking to close it and they work nicer when you're driving and uh keeps that down as well as all your cooking extra storage for pans bags etc etc like I said more jars I like jars so as you can see too um this is heavy and I found uh they're called Vandana slides and the bandana slides as well keep a lot of strength on when you push and pull so they don't just come out and it was actually a guy from what I know he lived in he did RVs and he came up with them so that was really convenient um the door there's an empty area up here and I just thought flowers would be nice flowers and foliage and I love I love the fall I think fall is like a really beautiful time and so I incorporate it up there I was going to run lights in there kind of through and out but couldn't figure out a way and then so no lights but it looks pretty curtains linen curtains tie them up put them away the carpet too um the carpet the whole van on the inside is the the maroon color and I didn't love the maroon color I think it's a bit off-putting um so at first I was just going to paint it but I had seen a couple guys online do carpet and it's basically felt you glue it you get in the areas and then I painted the trim and I felt like that made it more homey there is carpet throughout actually down below so it's it's it's coziness and to me I like it because it's scuff proof um if you just have wood everywhere you have a tendency to kind of Nick it and make it ugly and that way it's it's it's nice on your legs nice on your hands and that's sort of why I went with carpet wrapping over here you have a step to get up onto the bed storage six foot by four foot bed and six inch and it's memory foam and I just had to come up with a way to get to get a custom sized bed oh the trim the trim this Archway and throughout is actually PVC so I found it looked good if you painted it and then added these they're just text they're brass tacks and to me it looked like old metal and I thought that trimming it out would give it a bit of a rustic feel and uh that way I didn't actually have to have to bend metal and uh this was challenging um I'm not I didn't know any other way I'm not a seasoned woodworker so I basically just cut to build the bend that was actually quite challenging um so I just cut slivers painted them sort of felt it looked a nice rustic feel with with the Cabinetry with the Cabinetry what I did when I built it actually was so the Vans are curved and there's a lot of wasted space if you just Square things off so I went through mitering everything in angled bent and if you really like look up inside I can't really see it because of clothing but I followed the whole entire Contour of the van which for storage there is more storage up here than it than it shows and that was pretty important to me just have like minimal storage areas that weren't just taking over and so that was my solution for really like following the Contour inside I did a sound system um I thought for outside and inside it made sense to put it here so if you're hanging out back you can have your music you can charge phones and whatnot and then up here is where you can you know if you wanted to charge your phone you leave it there and this thing aesthetically looks nice but also I notice when you when you cover it up it really sort of Echoes out and then you get a nice almost like a little uh reverberated sound the skylight I had to order this guy and they're quite expensive I really like them I'm glad I did it I was gonna originally do just a normal Skylight that didn't open but I thought getting that airflow between the fan and the Skylight made a lot of sense to to go for it so they're they're not the cheapest but they're really cool because you have this guy which you can close yourself off from light and then also a mosquito net which is pretty cool so that's really a nice feature you can't fit at it unless you're a little kid so sorry over here you can put your books you can put iPad whatever it is another charger you can charge at night um you have the windows which are inlaid more brick and I put some fake IV uh some flowers over here but you can turn them on and off at night for mood lighting and I thought that was a nice way to kind of add just a touch you have this guy which is just support for an iPad or a phone so you can lay in bed and watch some TV at night if you so desire to you have candles for mood and also this really cool butterfly piece I found I thought it was really neat uh switches you have your individual lights as well as all on a dimmer so you can really get the lighting that you desired from there and I put it back there because I felt like it's pretty easy to go in turn it off there but as well in bed if you don't want to get up at night and you just turn it on and off the lights I thought that was made sense to me another thing I want to talk about is uh heat in the refrigerator so you have a Dometic I like the stand up fridges I don't like the top loaders specifically I think they just don't look that nice as well as I like feeling like I'm in a home where you can go in this style and uh yeah it's been it's been really nice to have that style of fridge and then heat I'm going to put here I have a catalytic heater coming that runs off of propane and I'm going to put it on it on a TV swing so that way you're not blasting right into the fridge and this comes around towards here I just haven't gotten it through the mail yet and then that way you can light up the cabin and that that will keep it winterized if you come around back you have a garage area that I put Rhino liner on the entire thing in case you get water down here this protects everything makes it rough easy to clean um the powerhouse in here is 200 amp hour or two 100 amp hour lithium batteries you have 2000 watt inverter I've got a DC to DC which Powers off the alternator and then you also have a outsourced 110 charger which as opposed to 220 the 110 is nice because you can just charge it everywhere and I noticed basically even when it rains out um your 400 watt I have 400 watts of solar up top but when it rains out actually you really do kind of burn through energy so the the DC to DC makes a lot of sense to me and I did have a guy Sequoia thank you very much help me out with this and he really helped me hone in the details on how to build a nice sophisticated good middle of the ground system so that's what keeps everything together you need to work on it as well that guy can pop out so you can do your thing this 500 pound there's a 500 pound uh weighted slides so you can sit on this you can do your thing on this I decided to make a outdoor patio I have two panels over there with legs in them they go on Alternate sides which creates support and then you have an outdoor area to eat I got a table that screws on and these are your seats and then you can actually dine under the nature so over in this area is your water supply I have a 22 gallon tank two filters accumulator a 12 volt pump outdoor shower foreign it's not hot water I didn't feel that was necessary to run hot water on the outside and also a switch for outside as well as your water fill and down below here is if you need to let the tank out another thing I want to show you is the ladder the guys who helped me with the wood they also um help me weld so we did a little custom ladder that I figure on the side is better than the back I couldn't find a lot of ladders online that weren't back style that go over and to me I don't know I just really like the the whole thought of the side getting up and that way if you need to get on up there you can clean your solar and hang out on top of the deck and I painted it with uh there's a stuff called this the same the same um Rhino liner so that way it won't rust and it's a bit bit rigid won't get dirty these are your outdoor vents for the bathroom there's also one on the other side for the cooking area I've done a handful of these a lot of them are passion projects and I do sell them this one will be for sale you can find the information on Patrick's site on his YouTube on probably his Twitter and Instagram as well um it'll have all the details on the specs and the wood and how to use it Etc on you know any questions you have I'm an open book and I really care about what I did here because uh this was a this was a really strong passion project for me and basically I was out west and family broke up and so I decided I needed something to keep sane and there's a lot of a lot of story that went into this one just kind of the way I came about it decided to come back where I was raised in Jersey and um yeah so this was a this was a nice I guess piece of art and I hope you enjoyed it and so that's about the story that's about the build I love this story I love the build I love the details inside this one you know a lot of Vans they have a similar look and feeling and floor plan inside and that's great this one the extra details and the character and some of the stories that come along with some of the pieces the fact that a lot of this stuff is reclaimed materials it's really attractive to me and the execution is great I like the front kitchen area with the fridge and the sink up in the front are very European van design a lot of European Vans have the shower in the front oh that's that's a good point actually um definitely influenced by Europe van life living I don't know if anybody follows what they do over there but that's that's really where it started um they do amazing work over there and and honestly I I think half of my inspiration was to keep up with what they're doing over there because just just check out European van builds the stuff they do there is insane I saw what they were doing with reclaimed wood and things that looked old and so I said you know what like if they're doing it over there there has to be a possibility because I don't I didn't have that much knowledge in what I was doing I think seeing somebody who does put together a build that has a lot of things that can potentially break easily or deteriorate or just are like a No-No for swelling or whatever the purpose um yeah I I think it's incredible being having that ability to check stuff out like your channel and see what other people are doing so thank you European van life people man really big inspiration awesome to have you on I'm going to leave a link in the description so our viewers could click along and find out more about this van Liz Patrick in New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel we'll see you soon see ya

Channel: New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

Views: 218,416

Keywords: vanlife, van life, camper build, camper van, van build, sprinter conversion, van buildout, campervan, rv, camper, camping, glamping, campers, rvs, motor home, class b, promaster, promaster camper, winnebago, storyteller

Id: y1i_DfPxGSE

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 17 2022