- So we are now installing our exhaust fan for our water heater. - You can just see why
van build takes so long. We spent the last couple
of days just planning, measuring, cutting, painting. - And we've just popped in and we've realized it's
a little bit too small. Hi, we're Stephen and Jess and this is Baby Hunter. In 2020, we took the massive leap to follow our dreams and buy a van to travel around our
home country, Australia. Trouble was, it's completely empty which means work began
on turning this cargo van into a new home. On last week's episode, things
really started to take shape with our walls and ceilings put in plus all our furniture getting installed. Just as we were ready to head back into the shade to resume work, Perth got their very first case of COVID in over 10 months, as a
hotel worker contracted it from an international
traveler in hotel quarantine. Our city instantly went
into a five-day lockdown from this one case, which kept
us house bound for the week as we waited to hear the news. At the same time, a
massive fire struck Perth with over 80 homes being
lost over the week. We even had ash falling into our backyard. Our hearts go out for all those families who lost their homes. Not all was lost for the week. As each new day rolled
by, no new cases appeared, which meant lockdown was lifted and work could resume the following week. But a special surprise
appeared on our doorstep. Our good friends, (indistinct name) all the way in small town, Kitimat, Canada had been trying for over six months to get their daughter over to
Australia for her gap year. After multiple flight cancellations, we didn't think she would make it until we had a little knock on
our door come Sunday morning. - What? (laughs) No way. (Jess screaming) - Before this video begins, we just wanted to say a massive thank you to our good friends over at Omaze for partnering up with us on this video to give one of you your very
own Mercedes Sprinter van plus $80,000 to kit it out how you want. Stay tuned for more details. Now, I don't know if we've
ever told you this, guys, but it takes us one hour and 20 minutes to get down to Rockingham, to go to RV Solutions who are the guys that are helping us with the build. Instead of lunch, Jess just
packed me a little safety kit, hand sanitizer, some gloves and a mask. Now, usually I catch public transport, I can get some work done
while I'm on the trains, but with the extra precautions going on at the moment in Perth, I thought it was probably
best if I just drive there. Awesome, thank you so
much. Have a good day. I know it's Mackers coffee, please don't judge me, guys. It's a Monday, we all
need our caffeine fix. Alrighty, everybody, and
welcome back to Monday which means it's the beginning
of our van build week. Super exciting stuff, because so much has happened in the van over just the last seven to 10 days. And I'm excited to show you
what updates we've done. Also, our city's putting
some more precautions on at the moment so I'll also try and
subtitle as much as possible to help you guys understand
what I am saying, if it's a little bit hard
to hear me through the mask. So as Hunter gets a little bit older, we wanted to make sure that
we had a bed for Hunter. So we put in a bunk bed, which would be so much fun if
you're a kid traveling around and you have your own bunk bed. As you can see, pretty
much built the bed up here and now we're just doing
some finishing touches so Hunter doesn't roll out
and falls onto our bed. What we're doing it at the
moment is making a bit of a lit, so of course, lit you're
just going to be placed right on here so if
there's a little bit there, so she doesn't murmur or move in the night she's not going to fall out of her bed. - [Man In The Background]
There you go, man! - I don't do that anymore.
- Okay, stop right there. Also, do you know what Monday means? We have gotten a delivery in. We have our countertops, our acacia wood that we
picked up from Bunnings, as well as our sink and our tax. This is so exciting seeing
everything slowly come in if you've ever done a van build, you know probably the thing
that holds you up the most is waiting for things to come. When this is in, it is going
to look so nice in the van. As you can see, it's
very wide at the moment and these type of things
that we're gonna use to pop some color back into the van. (suspenseful music) So this big brad boy, it's
actually our water heater and we always knew when
this was gonna come in that it was gonna take up so much space in the back of our van,
underneath the bed. I mean, Andy warned me it would big but I didn't expect it to be this big. A lot of you might be asking, and a lot of you did ask,
"What's the water heater for? We have yet to see your bathroom." It was literally one of
our most asked questions in the last video, we're gonna be having an outdoor shower and of course, hot water for us sink. So when we come to that, we're definitely gonna break it down and answer all your guys' questions about what our plan is for a bathroom or lack there of a bathroom. It's actually crazy how many gizmos and gadgets just one
piece of equipment needs. Like, what is this? What is this? This is when things suck
any fun and super technical. I mean, seriously, there is just... It comes with two booklets of instructions on how to actually get this in and we've gone for a bigger unit so it's not gonna take too much away from the power from the solar so we can still do
things like run hot water and also use our laptop. (upbeat music) I think now, we're gonna work out where we can actually put it, can we raise it above the wheels so it gives us more storage underneath. (upbeat music) And these are gonna heat our water, but it can also work as a
heater itself to warm up the van as we move into July and the
colder months in Australia, it's gonna come in handy. So with our water heater
and our general heater which is all-in-one here, we thought to actually lift
it up above the wheel base so that at least we can get a little bit more storage in here even if we just put our beach
umbrellas through there, there will be a pipe that
needs to go to the water tank which we're gonna have to
install underneath the van. But hey, rather than putting it here and then being completely lost with space, at least it gives us a little bit, a little bit more space. And when we're working with this area, a little bit goes a long way. (chuckles) (upbeat music) ♪ I'm thinking that I found my paradise ♪ - It's gonna go into
(indistinct) the other side. (music continues) - Just got in this morning, and the boys straight away started working on putting the air con in. Hopefully we can get
that connected up soon cause it is so hot in here. Hey, how are you doing? (man groans) Air con is in. - Good.
- That was fun to see, see them getting that air con on there, that thing looked heavy, we cut that hole months ago and it's cool to finally see
clogged up with the air con. I mean, I feel like over
the next couple of weeks there's gonna be some big
tech, big pieces of equipment that we're putting in as the van which is just so fun to see. Alrighty, so the work continues, we are working on the cabinetry or the doors for all
our different cubbyholes or for our kitchen as well. So what we're gonna be doing is actually framing it out first and then building it together, painting it and then popping it into the van. But we've pretty much been
working on for the last few hours is we have our hardwood here and we worked out we needed about 13 meters
worth of this stuff to actually get all the different sides but all the multiple doors
and drawers that we have. But as you can see with hardwood, it just comes in quite
square, quite blocky and we really wanted it
to be finished off nice so we got up this pretty
fancy looking machine that was attached to the workbench. (equipment growling) You get to go through and
choose your finishings. This is the example piece so when we have all the different sides of the drawers and the doors, we then needed to make
some slits through here. So of course, when we go to
build out the rest of the door, cause this is just the framing, you can shove a white piece in both sides so that when we open the door and of course the front of the door and the back of the door, we'll
have this nice white finish. And of course, we're
gonna paint these as well so that it matches the rest of our van. (slow upbeat music) So, yesterday we finished painting up all of our different wood to make our cabinetry for our cupboards and it's now being cut down to size and you guys can probably
visualize a little bit better on what we're actually planning to do, staple them together,
see how it all fits in, test it out and then we should
have some nice cupboards. Feels like so long since I've
seen sign and pop this up to show which one was our
van when we started to build but the minute the walls
went on, just sitting here. We got this whole separate machine to join all our pieces of wood together. So we just put it in here, use a bit of a foot to send it off and it staples it on the crack
so then we can fill this in, sand it down and then give
it a nice final paint over, but let's make some doors. (slow upbeat music) You can just see why van builds, we were watching so many
before we did our own, we're like, "Oh yeah, they take so long. Why did they take so long?" And you just see why. We spent the last couple
of days just planning, measuring, cutting, painting,
just to get to this moment. We have one draft, still gotta repaint it, sand it down, but one draft, you guys,
of a cupboard door. So just to give you guys an idea, it still needs a bit more
work, but pop it in here. We're gonna have some nice
matte-like handles for it but so accomplished when you've been working on
it say for the last few days, and then you get a little bit of hope that you're gonna get this done. So Omaze are one of our favorite partners because they take the time to give you guys incredible opportunities, just like last year when
they gave away a trip on the Orient-Express
that Sharina recently won. So when they saw that we're doing our own
camper van conversion, they thought it'd be the best idea to give you guys one of the opportunity to turn a sprinter van into
your own tiny home on wheels. So one of you will win your
very own Mercedes-Benz, four by four sprinter van so you can get lost on the open road and explore your own backyard like we'll be doing very soon. On top of that with Vansmith, you'll get $80,000 to upgrade
it to suit your style. Want your own bike rack? Consider it done. Each donation supports a great cause. Access Fund, which is a
national advocacy organization that protects America's
outdoor climbing areas and conserves the climbing environment. So if you're interested in
doing exactly what we're doing, converting your very own sprinter van make sure you head to omaze.com/ftn for your chance to win your
very own custom sprinter van. (Jess playful sounds) - Guess what we've
installed in our kitchen. We officially have, still don't know how to open it, a fridge. So with our fridge right here, and we've been building out so above the fridge, it's
gonna be a huge drawer. We've just put in a little, what would you call these, sliders? To put a big draw here so this is what we're
gonna keep all our cutlery and all our utensils. And then we've also installed, right next to the fridge, a pantry. So here's where we're gonna
fit a bunch of our foods. So I'm guessing what, our
spices and all our cans and stuff like that. It's gonna pull out pantry right here. Really see, the kitchen's coming along. So we are now installing our exhaust fan for our water heater. Bye. (slow upbeat music) All right, so the boys have
now finished the cupboard doors and they've given me
the fun job of painting so today we're painting these all in nice fresh coat on white. ("Carry On" playing) ♪ Last Thursday in on the radio ♪ ♪ It takes you back to
sing in your bedroom ♪ - All right, while we're waiting
for the first coat to dry, we've decided to, of
course, head to Bunnings because now we need to choose
what we wanna do for handles for the cabinet drawers. (makes playful sounds) Why has this been the
hardest decision yet? I know I want that black cupboard handles but there are so many different types, do we want like a squared off type or do we want these ones that round off or there's this type? What do you like, Steve? I think I like these- - [Stephen] You like the rounded off? That's funny, 'cause I think I like- - You like these? Yeah.
- It's funny. 'Cause we actually came
here for two things, the handles and a safe and I realized right across
from the handles are the safes. But we decided we wanna put
a safe underneath the bed and then we're gonna bolt it
to the chassis of the van. So then when we are leaving the van and we have a camera or
a laptop still in the van we have a place that we can store it and know that it'll be kept safe. We're thinking of getting this one 'cause this one will fit under the bed, big enough to fit our laptops, our cameras and stuff like that so, yeah,
gonna pick one of these up, how heavy do you think this is gonna be? - [Stephen] Do you want me to do it or you gonna give it a try? - Oh, it's not as bad as I thought it was, but it is pretty heavy. After all that Stephen decided to pick up by making the lift another one. Oh my gosh, this is bigger. (slow orchestral music) (Jess laughing) - There's no big cheaters to unboxing. - Ten out of ten for that
unboxing for everything. - Every single, looks like, yeah. - Yeah, it's house safe. They said it was secure, we
can get, oh, there's keys. - What's the code? Try 0000. - Hey, welcome to our safe. (both laughing) - So, while Stephen has been busy getting little Hunter to sleep, I went and did a second coat
on all the cabinet doors and thought I'd show you what
the handles look like on it, so let's just pretend they're connected 'cause they're still drying,
but I'll pop it here. So these would be one of
the cabinets at the top and I guess we'll do
it their point of view. So it'd be around here
and they would lift up and then the door open. Hopefully they look good, I think they're a good choice, hey? - [Stephen] Yeah, I think that the rounder ones are a good idea. - (indistinct) a little
bit here, like that- - Oh, I see. - So you can put the second
one here. (indistinct) - Okay. - Good. - And the same here? - Put on another one here. Okay, just a little bit here and then... - All right, this guy is
officially Cooper the van. So exciting news, we almost
have our bench seat finished which means we can finally go and order the upholstery-like
cushion for our bench. So we found a place down in Mandra, Obvious Solutions recommended them, they called Mandarin Canvas. And so today we're gonna
be choosing the material and the type of foam we want. And then they're gonna make the bench seat and then they're gonna come in and I think they might install it for us. - Which one do you like, madam? - So we've placed our order in, we ended up choosing this
beautiful photo leather look and it's super soft as well but they told us that it
will be done in six weeks. And I'm pretty sure that this van is gonna
be done before then. So that'll be the final thing that we put in here before
we leave and hit the road. But I thought I'll show
you guys the bench now because it's actually finished. So here it is. So this is where the
little cushion is gonna go and then we're gonna have a
back cushion along the back. So this is the area we're
gonna be using for when we eat and also for our study and we've actually made
this little hinged door. So it means that
underneath the bench seat, we can also use it as storage,
which will be so helpful and we're just gonna
Velcro those cushions down so they can easily be pulled up if you wanna go underneath any time. - And then this final bit here, which you guys probably
realize isn't hinged, well owned versus going underneath there and we should really
never need to access that but we're gonna face it this way so that if we do need
to get into any bits, at least we can still
slide our hand in there. But that's pretty much just
going to be locked off. Masks are only mandatory until Sunday and lockdown's fully over but this is what happens
when you have a spoiled baby that has never been, now
she gets to ruin my mask. Can I have it back? I need to wear it. (chuckles) You broke it? ♪ I'm dreaming ♪ - Hunter, are you ready
to watch (indistinct)? ♪ Till I come back to you ♪ ♪ Every morning ♪ (Hunter bubbling) ♪ I've been waiting ♪ ♪ For you my whole life ♪ ♪ And this moment ♪ ♪ Made it worth the time ♪ - Oh, no, no, no. ♪ For a belonging ♪ - So we're gonna be spending
the rest of the afternoon working on our kitchen and
installing our bench top. And I'm so excited because I've been so interested to see what this is gonna
look like in the van, 'cause choosing it in the shops, you choose a color you like, but you're never sure how exactly it's gonna look in the van. And I love it, it's called
arcacians from Bunnings and we've just popped it in and we've realized it's
a little bit too small. So what we've done is we've got an off cut from another piece of the exact same wood and we are going to install
that just in the back here. So then once it's done,
it should all fit up and you won't even notice. Now here's gonna look so good. - [Stephen] Yeah, it's gonna look so good. - We've also, they haven't seen this yet, oh, I don't know if I'm going to open it, yeah, this is the thing. We also installed this drawer here so we've put it right above the fridge 'cause there's this little spot and I feel like when you're building a van you all know you need to use
as much space as possible. We had this little area here and this is gonna be the drawer that we're gonna put all our cutlery, all our wooden spoons and
specials and everything in. It's in right now, it's so exciting. - Alrighty, it's Friday, last day working on the van for the week. Our kitchen renovation or
kitchen build continues, we have our sink up, we've
placed our bench into the van. So now we're just making up, working out which is the best
way to make a bit of a layout so that when we put it on
there, cut it in there, this is gonna fit nice and snug. This is always scary 'cause we've spent so much
time making this bench top and then once you start cutting into it there's really no going back. - So we decided we want to do
the splash back in our kitchen with some tiles. And we're looking at the different colors because we want it to be
like that beachy theme. So we're thinking of a blue
and after grabbing them, I feel like you need to compare them to really tell what color they are, 'cause originally I thought
this was a light blue, it's way more of a gray. What do you think, Hunter? What kind of tile do you like? You like the gray? All right, I'm really thinking this one. - [Stephen] Yeah, I
think this one as well. (slow upbeat music) So the shop is shutting for the weekend, but still another episode, so much more stuff has gotten done. You guys enjoy this video,
hope you hit subscribe, but we've still got a bunch
more hand build videos to do to get this nice and perfect. Thanks so much for watching, guys, and we will see you next time. So make sure you head to omaze.com/ftn for your chance to win your
very own custom Sprinter van.
