Van Life: From SUV to Elegant Tiny Home In Just An Hour

[Music] during the glow ladybug out and dawn of van life meetup this past january in quartzsite i saw so many van builds and rigs some very simple and some quite elaborate i am going to share one of them with you today the tour today is of a 1998 toyota 4runner the 60 year old owner darlene is a retired nurse who has really turned this small area of 30 square feet or less into an elegant and functional space that she can set up or break down in an hour or less do you believe that i think you are really going to love her no build build and all the cool and useful items she has in it so come on let's go check it out [Music] well hello darlene hi i am just wowed by your suv this is aesthetically one of the loveliest builds that i've seen it's kind of a no build build it's a very no build bill can you tell us and tell my globes a little bit about yourself i'm darlene i am a retired nicu nurse i'm a widow and i have kind of reached a stage where i'm ready to do a little bit of traveling and camping and i wanted to do it in this vehicle it's a 1998 toyota 4runner that i've had for 24 years and i kind of love it and you were telling me this is a four wheel drive right yes it is a four wheel drive and you also told me that you have kind of an emotional attachment to this vehicle because it belonged to your husband who passed away seven years so you just feel a certain kind of feeling about this as you had a lot of really fun adventures and and memories with this vehicle yeah that's true and i kind of feel like he's here with me when i'm out traveling that's very cool so you're out camping you have this he's kind of laughing his butt up if he could see what i was doing out here but it's just so aesthetically pleasing but also you have some very very cool um things in here that i think people would love to hear about so i'm going to see about having you move out and then i'm going to go in and we'll talk about each thing as we go okay so first of all let's talk about your bed what exactly is that it's a trifold four-inch memory foam trifold mattress and i have it kind of formed into a chair during the day and at night i fold it down into a bed i see you have binoculars over there so when you're somewhere that's really interesting or at the beach you can sit there and watch with your binoculars yes absolutely i look for little creatures okay and then you have i guess this is kind of you were saying you're going for an out of africa kind of theme kind of rustic it's it it everything just blends together so well i guess earthy yeah it is that's what i was going for exactly when you look in here i thought this is kind of fall earthy kind of yeah i wanted to use a lot of natural materials rather than plastic okay now you have the rug underneath here and then i see over here you have your little kitchen set up right this is my where i kind of keep utensils and potholders and my little coffee pour over it really is amazing how much is in here everything everything i need that's kind of like a bread basket you said you got that at a thrift store i got it at the thrift store as well as this which is my sink okay and then you have my five gallons of water here with a usb spout and i see you have it kind of bungee corded in right okay yeah when sometimes if i'm gonna travel very far i usually it rides shotgun okay seat belted in okay and then you have this little rack and what's on this little rack uh my coffee and uh paper towels and some soap and spray to clean my dishes with wow and then over here you have kind of a little meditation center and i keep some things inside the box mostly like bathroom type of things and then over here i see i love your hooks now what is that that the hooks are attached to this is a tree stake from the garden center oh wow okay so it's very very lightweight and i have it held on with zip ties to the [Music] the hand grips oh i see so you have the hand grip grip here and then there's one also in the front seat for just a little extra support i added a little uh l bracket i just slipped it under the molding there all right so really it's no build you just installed it very easily yeah i didn't add any kind of anything permanent okay to this vehicle when i go home i'll be check everything out and put the car seats back in for my grandkids now i see you have extra storage here that you've you did you build these kind of shelves here they're really not much storage they're really just to create a flat surface okay because the wheel wells oh okay so you have these on both sides well they are are the pre-made shelves from home depot uh-huh that are already pre-finished and everything and i just used l brackets to screw two of them together and then oh okay kind of resting on the wheel wells and then support it kind of held in with uh bungee cords so two shelves that you connected with l brackets and then this one is far enough out so that i do have room to store there's a fire extinguisher under here okay and i can put extra butane now you cook with a butane stove let's look over here right here all right so you do most of your cooking outside then yeah and i can do it inside as well i can put this little box right here and put my stove on top okay and sit on my chair and make my coffee and this oh so you put the little box here with your can you do that so we can see what that looks like sure can make my coffee here oh wow cook which i i do very minimal cooking when i'm traveling so you can have the back then open so you're getting plenty of air and you can still see what's going on all around you oops the sun is kind of in my background so i might not get the best shot here but that's really very cool and then i also kind of use this for my vanity okay when i get ready i can i have you have a little mirror over you have a little mirror over there can you show that so you just okay and my water and my little thing so when i heat my water i can pour it in the sink and so everything is just within easy reach for you everything's right here and how comfortable is that bed i am very comfortable all right and then i see over here you have your fan over here plugged in to a little small power station down here so that's a usb and it's a oh oh puller fan and is that pretty effective yeah i mean it's been pretty chilly out here so i haven't really needed it but and you have two power stations you have a little one that's what how many this this small one down here is 200 okay uh i think watt hours amp hours i think and then i have a blue eddie 715 that is between my cooler and my dry box okay so and that's what does most of your right and i don't really use much power so i have more more than i need i i have a polar uh i'm sorry a um a portable solar panel okay and what wattage is that it's 100 watts okay and then you have i see one of the things i saw that you're using that i really liked was this chair this blue chair and i'm just gonna show real quick i can pick this up with literally actually is one with one finger it's so light and i just really love this how do you like this chair i like it it's very comfortable one of the things that i really like about it is that it has an extra brace down there so it can support someone who's heavier like me you just have so many cool gadgets here that are functional and useful and make this small space just really like a little i wanted it to be efficient it's very efficient and one other thing i wanted to show that's a usb lantern can you take that down and show us sure this is also very lightweight and it's uh dimmable and you can charge it by usb and it has a little cord that plugs in here to the usb yeah and you're gonna you were telling me you're gonna look up some of these things and then give me the information so i can so i can add them on this one and at night i can just hang it right here let me see how light this is let me see as far as the weight wise oh it's very very light oh wow i have one but it's so heavy it's not and it's not usb this is just you can look you could really hold this with really two fingers too so everything in here is light efficient power efficient and just fits in a tiny space i'm wondering about how minimal i you know i i didn't want to have a lot of stuff so about how big would you say your actual living space is well i think it's about six feet long and maybe i don't think it's much more than four feet across say four or four and a half curves of everything so about 25 square feet 25 to 30 30 square foot and you've got a bed a kitchen uh bathroom bathroom now what do you do for your bathroom oh okay so you use this bucket two gallon bucket and there's a jar inside also okay that i use so i mean i use the bucket if i absolutely okay so bathroom kitchen uh meditation area vanity outside cook stove uh lightweight chair and that's packs down really small can you show us how small that packs down to it's uh i can show you the case oh okay the case that it comes in this is the bag that my little table fits in oh okay so see how tiny that is your table now what about your chair and the chair i think i have it inside of here [Music] oh wow so small efficient easily broken down items that fit into about a 30 square foot or less space and then i see over here you have everything you have a my clothing is in this duffel bag okay uh my stove fits perfectly in this bag okay toiletries in here in this backpack then i have a cooler here okay now is that a plug-in cooler or no this is a kind of a yeti type okay and there's your blue eddy over there in between your yeti kind of cooler your blue eddy and then your dry box one of the main reasons that i wanted to do this video was to highlight some of the things that you use that make this such an efficient vehicle and one of them one that i really love was your heating pad can you show us that this is a 12 volt um it's it's made for a front car seat for a driver's seat oh okay so it's a so it's a car seat heat a seat warmer and you use that underneath your sleeping bag i put it under my sleeping bag okay and it has you know a little control on the cord and that really keeps you warm it keeps me toasty oh wow and it doesn't use it very much power it doesn't use very much power all right you're going to give us the information on that so i can put that in the description so globies can look that up well darlene you just have a really lovely setup and you are well what is your next adventure to uh well this summer i'm gonna work my way from arizona to washington state and back okay well you know what i plan on being in washington up near well actually in oregon maybe washington this summer so maybe we'll maybe we'll meet up connect again and thank you so much oh one thing i forgot this is your motion detector and solar light yes i have two one for each side of the vehicle okay so if any thing or any one comes to the vehicle including me after dark it comes off it lights up i have i have some of those i really like those again gadget filled with just amazing innovative gadgets but and we're going to look back around here one last time to darlene's beautiful beautifully set up no build suv build thank you darlene and i hope that we will connect again soon and you can tell us about and share some of your journey with us okay all right talk to you later and one thing how old are you darlene i'm 60. 60. so life doesn't stop at a certain age it doesn't no just getting started a new adventure thanks so much bye bye darlene

Channel: Glorious Life On Wheels

Views: 153,791

Keywords: van life, rv living, glorious life on wheels, solo female van life, senior van life, easy van conversion. fast van conversion, simple van conversion, suv rving, senior nomads, female nomads, budget travel, van conversions, cheap rv living, nomadland, retirement planning, black you tubers, life after retirement, DIY van conversions, Cheap van conversions, easy van conversions, cheap SUV conversions, cheap rvs

Id: rR9b2GdJzUM

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 12 2022