Solo Woman Creates BRILLIANT VAN Build TOUR

hi everyone welcome back to my next video uh today we just met diane hi diane welcome back to the channel it's been for us like two seconds since we just ended the video but for you it's a whole new video and uh we did an interview and it was we really should go watch the the interview with diane so uh go watch that and now diane has graciously agreed to take us inside her her lovely transit home and take a look now let me give you a little sneak peek uh what did you do for 20 years of your life i designed closet systems professionally so this is a professional organizer so i think you are going to get some really good ideas about organizing your home and i think you're going to be really glad that you came along so diane let's go take a look all right let's do it here we go so diane tell us a little bit about your van what the year and all that good stuff this is a 2015 ford transit 250. it's got the mid-roof the mid-rise roof well i bought it had 53 000 miles on it i traded in my little honda fit on this in 2019 immediately loaded it up with stuff and strapped it to the walls and uh after christmas i bought it in september after christmas took off actually to the rtr was my first big trip wow cool did we meet there we did not we did not next time we met now so that's good i got a couple things off of the free pile okay good good good all right and so uh what kind of gas mileage are you getting with it um if the wind is at my back i'm i could get about 18. which is good i'm going to say generally 13 to 15. with 15 a lot a lot and has it been pretty reliable for you absolutely right absolutely that's what counts uh that was the that was the main thing right that was the main thing um i know um you know i do have a rent payment every month and it's only four hundred dollars right and it's worth it because i feel safe in this there's no leaks there's no this i get it serviced uh regularly and because it's my house right right okay why don't we go inside then all right wow it's really you've done a really good job it's really beautiful in here so why don't you give us the big tour all right i guess just start up here this uh is a faux sink um it's a good collecting area here but it can drain down underneath i've found just out on the road that i don't need it does is this the way it came well this is the way i built it well you built it right it didn't come this way you made it this way and so it's just a regular kitchen cabinet or cabinet from something from my shop from your shop yes i am a use what you have decorator right and we're going to see a lot of that in here thanks yes you are up here this is my uh i'm gonna say my pseudo everything is pseudo this is my apothecary because i in my shop i had essential oils and things like that and i still use them for cleaning and first aid and this big countertop yeah this is a sideboard that had legs on it it was a display item in my shop i cut the legs off of it so that i can have storage underneath here and so this is my water which i filter there's a seven gallon tank back here two and a half gallons here this is my pantry uh we haven't gotten to the uh uh the pooper yeah we got to the bathroom part but this is uh my uh yeah this is my body body okay and this is my pee bottle in here in here dishes so cooking was pretty important to you you made i love made plans for cooking it was a big it was a big a big deal for me or a big want or a big need right and it's important that people realize what they need to be happy and get it absolutely absolutely and really that is what helped just strapping things up because things changed throughout the whole year that i rode with things just strapped down you know something would move here there at one point i was gonna have a washing machine in here oh my it did not make the kite yeah but i do but a kitchen yes so this is just my little one burner um let's see it's just uh toilet paper and wipe these the things of life this is storage plastic bottles or plastic bags trash i love this okay this is something that what's your name this it can hang anywhere so if i'm working over here i can put it over here i actually filter my water which i showed you down there into this brita and so you know there's a little thing i can i can fill containers when i'm traveling though it goes all the way down it's all the way down there so i don't have to worry about it splashing this is my isco fridge which doesn't look like it's on this started out to be i was going to use it as a as a freezer it took way too much power for that so now it just stores my vegetables so i see it does have some chicken in there but that's just uh random so that just has my vegetables i have another one which we'll get around to the other side this glass shelf definitely does not ride with me it comes down but i'd like to have a little space for little things right uh well speaking of the power for the fridge you must have solar i do have solar i have 600 watts on the roof i can't tilt them i've engineered a little thing that i can tilt it i have a pekron i believe it's a 3000 watt 120 amp hour battery and i went with that power station because it was just easier for me and i run just my refrigerators off of it i also have a jackery down here 500 a jackery 500 which that again was my first thing uh that i got and that kind of powers everything else is it powered from the pec run it is not powerful pek run i have a solar panel that i can put out oh um just with a with a cord right out there i my power i have had uh a lot of trouble with my power i have come to a point where i generally i unplug my refrigerators during the day and i keep them plugged into my back uh jackery as long as it's sunshine everything is kept good and that way my pec run has total just the solar coming i turn off the inverter everything in that and um i knew when i bought the battery that it was um it didn't have the faster mppt controller in it so you know i went into that eyes wide open but it is a challenge out here in the road in real life yeah uh this was uh my grandma's secretary did have to get cut down a little bit but uh i absolutely love it it was it's way more organized than it ever was in a corner of my house where it just had junk but in here imagine stuff just these drawers this is again technology paperwork and my um i don't know medicine cabinet uh and i'm just gonna open this up a little bit this is something that i've had for a while but i just thought about hanging it up top here so i can get full use of it oh that's great so this has slippers because i can grab them over here on my bed which we'll get to a minute grocery bags and you know the things that i need to grab when i'm trying to get out of the van really quick are usually you know this is my bed um area it's uh fairly narrow it is 26 inches wide took some getting used to yeah i bet but i love having this uh let's get this this walkway here speaking of this walkway is i have uh heated floors oh my down the center here and so um if i'm plugged in somewhere i cannot i do not have enough solar to uh to run the you know to heat up these floors but if i'm plugged in and it's a chilly space it heats up this whole van so you got good storage underneath we just saw the jackery's under there yep that's in the half the other half is my garage oh that's right we'll go outside and see that oh right so this is your side door right yes but uh it's gone i always knew i wanted to do that the reason why goes back to the 70s when i had a van in the 70s one thing i remembered is pulling up anywhere and opened up the door i was most likely looking at another car next to me were not necessarily a view that i wanted in the back though always can back up usually find privacy lots of good views so i knew going into this that this time out i was going to make this the wall right and i was going to make the back of my van the focal point of um opening up to the outside world right yeah and i'm so glad i did it so this is my closet here and um just as organized as we would expect a closet organizer it uh i have these uh these here this is all my clothes except for a huge sleeping bag coat that is uh up top in one of my cargo boxes but this is all the clothes that i own fridge another fridge this is my main fridge it's 42 quarts pretty empty at the moment so another thing that i brought with me is this gaming chair i'm not a gamer though but uh i like the chair anyway this chair is really versatile it can sit on here like this and i can also put this um on my deck which we're getting to yes we're almost sick but i guess first we want to you know this is the last little area of the van right anyway this is my snack thing which you can see i'm a snacker you need to stock up and i need to go to the grocery store uh i really love this this is really uh this is like i want to say maybe the broom closet right this is my it's a roof window so this isn't just a vent this is no this is larger than an event yeah this is a window it's 20 inches square so is that designed for a house no it's a dometic oh okay i'm not familiar with that 20 by 20 is huge yeah oh uh and so i saw a tripod down there and do you have a youtube channel i do i do it's called cultivate life dot at the end of it that will take you right to it i've been uh doing it for a couple of years putting stories up there hopefully there's been some improvement [Laughter] and uh this is a huge big step here in the van tour by you and apparently it's doing you're doing something right because you've really grown it's hard to grow a channel on youtube and you've done it thanks so you said you had a you had a heated floor so that means it's elevated and that gave you an idea and what was that idea um the idea was to have a deck a real deck that out the back of my van so that i could pull up anywhere have my two little doors and have my own little backyard and um that's what i did ready let's watch oh my there we go wow just painted this this was a project in the past two weeks so not completely finished but beautiful see come on what nothing better who could ask for more right nothing better sitting out here on your own deck yeah it is rated has two um two sets of drawer slides they are rated 400 pounds each set so theoretically you know we could have a party up here very nice beautiful wonderful addition to any home but a lot of people are watching this and thinking i gotta do that i hope so you will love it yeah you will love it you will love it yeah yeah all right let's take a look at the garage then all right let's open it up and my high technology little clamp there latches latch that works just fine yes this is my dirty clothes hamper this black thing i got at the 2022 rtr wow let me put it on the free pile and um this is the garage yeah that's deep oh it's the whole length of the bed it is does it go extends down it just goes down to where the refrigerator was right so that really gives you a lot of room out here these underneath i have the five inches because of the deck right and so here are like 10 poles right i have a table in there i have chairs under here so that goes completely across the van that goes five feet five feet back and that was a little bendy that you know we didn't really plan on yeah um now this little thing i feel compelled to show you this just just because my carpenter was just so kind i just have a ladder to get up to the stuff of my roof and he made this little hidey hole for me for my ladder i am so glad i did it yeah you know when it's empty and you're making those first you know holes and things and nailing things down yeah there's a little trepidation there but um but it turned out exactly the way in my mind that it showed so right yeah and up top you've got a lot of storage up top i do i do uh in that cargo spot um in my house before i sold it the past few years uh well the fuse after my husband died i had an airbnb and i guess you just can't take that out of a person so up there i have a screen house i have two cuts i have guest quarters basically you want to i envision that people are gonna wanna come and find out what camping is like so one question i always have to ask is uh i didn't see a shower how do you stay clean well every day i take a bird bath and luckily i don't know if it's my age or whatever my hair does not need to be washed every day anymore which is huge i'm going to get a large propane tank here so my shower used to be in here and i used to take it out it's just a solar shower i hang it up at the top of my deck there i have a little privacy screen around the back of here of the thing and i take a shower and it's the most wonderful feeling in the world to take a shower with water heaters from the sun well diane thank you so much for sharing your home with us and all your great organizing ideas obviously you're a professional and and people have just got some really good ideas i'm sure thank you so much thank you very much bob i really i really really appreciate it good so folks i hope you got something out of this video i know you did uh leave a comment below and tell me what was your favorite thing did you like the deck the garage the putting the wall on the side so you get all that extra space what was uh most useful to you i'd be really curious to know so thanks so much diane uh folks we've got anything out of this video like us on youtube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now [Music] you

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 88,128

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: oe4rEisohGQ

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 26 2022