VAN LIFE: UNBELIEVABLE!! BUDGET HEATED FLOORS/SLIDING DECK/SUNROOF & MORE!

in the picture i posted for this video i simply put the word unbelievable i probably should have said unbelievably creative to describe this van and its amazing owner diane from a slide out deck to a drop down garage to an ingenious toilet system and so much more i know this video is longer than most of my tour videos but there was so much to cover also because i know a lot of you will be asking the name of the radiant floor strips diane used the name is quiet warmth radiant strips and she got them at lowe's i'm going to stop talking now so we can jump right into this tour so come on let's go [Music] well hello diane hello carol welcome to beautiful beautiful california i am loving everything here except for the guest place i know i know that's kind of a crimp in everyone's style but we're at beautiful dixon lake and it's one of my new favorite places so i one of my new favorite people is coming to one of my new favorite places so how appropriate so tell us a little bit about yourself you're in what is your van i have a ford transit uh 250 it is a 2015 and it's the mid the mid roof yes okay and and actually i'm able to stand up in it and you know even with you've got some of the styrofoam type of insulation but even with that and it's kind of thick i'm able to still stand up in it yeah the reason why i still have insulation up there is i haven't quite figured out what i want on the roof uh yet but i know that it has to be something thin because just of the height constraints right right and it all is because of my deck i had to take five inches of the floor space so that i could have a deck that rolls out the back and that was really important to me i was just glad that i it was close but i'm glad that i could still stand up in it because i do a lot of cooking so i really wanted to stand up in here but we will show that in a few minutes that's one of the things i met you at the rtr and that's one of the things i just loved about your van other than in addition i should say to the antiques roadshow look it's just very very cool it's like you moved your house part of your house in here and took off uh you know a long time ago i read a book about decorating called use which we have decorating and so that's always just stuck with me and so a lot of this is the same thing i was downsizing at the same time i was building this right so i was using a lot of the things that i had speaking of downsizing you were in a sticks and bricks right i was i was and i had a little tiny retail shop of 500 square feet with another 100 square feet of storage behind it so wow i was uh sheltering a lot of stuff before i decided now you are how old i am 65. oh my goodness gracefully you sure are you doing so much i'm having just as much fun now as i was having all my life you do not look 65 girl you look good oh my goodness well you were telling me that although you had a community of good friends like-minded people no one really wanted to get out on the road and travel and you did yes that's exactly right i i i love the friends i have i loved where i lived and and i wanted to go camping a lot and there just was not anybody around who was kind of at that same place not that they didn't want to but they just were not in the same place and so i found myself at a point where it's do you not do something just because there's no one around to do it with you or do i just uh strike out and i chose the latter and no regrets well we also have a i have a video that i did it's a shorter video but we talk a little bit about some adjustments you're making after being on the road for a year with everything that's going on but meanwhile let's take a look and see some of the beautiful things you have in your van well while we're talking i have a little guest who is uh came over to say hello to me so this is imogene imagine my sidekick imaging the sidekick decided to say hello so say hello imogene anyhow okay so back to the antiques roadshow van and you have i see this beautiful secretary over here and that must have a history with it it sure does this was in my grandmother's house and my mother's mother oh wow every all i'm gonna say pretty but all my siblings probably had this in their house at one time or the other it even traveled from maryland where i'm from out here to california and back and it ended up in my home with pretty much just junk in it can you open it now because i don't think it has junk in it now well now every single piece of it is dedicated i use it every day okay so when i open up these doors the glass is still in here but i have that over it just to you know for protection right i don't know if you can see around that so you've got crates and storage i do uh imogene imogene imogene i'd say this is mostly imogene's closet okay a little bit of electronics and then this is my bathing suits and stuff like that and then you have you have a desk there kind of a work desk you had showed me earlier yes i do it doubles as a night sight night table actually too like this okay so that and um wow it doubles as a nightstand so you have really a lot of the comforts at home now i see that you have a refrigerator here but you are telling me you also have a second refrigerator and we're gonna take a look over here first we'll come and look at your kitchen i see in your kitchen you have basically a single burner jetboil i do i do and how do you like it i i like i like it a lot in terms uh for mostly because of the adjustment feature i can simmer it very easily oh a camp stove and that's a big thing with um with camp stoves is being able to like simmer something i mean of course you can get the full blast but those lower temperatures are a little bit hard yeah they are and oh i'm sorry go ahead and i was going to say and it runs on propane and i have about 10 canisters of this and i have a little adapter and i you get i get a big canister and i refill oh okay all right and then i see you don't have running water but you do have water i do i have i double filter it okay i have this this two and a half gallons i also have a seven gallon container underneath here okay i use a sawyer hiking filter oh okay and how do you like this filter i i really like it it is made for being out in the wilderness it takes out micro plastics and a lot of pollutants so so i i like that as the first filter that i have oh so you have another filter then yeah i do okay let's see what that is the uh just a regular brita filter okay so i filter it into the brita filter all right and then this is just charcoal here because the breader filter is a charcoal filter when i'm sitting still i put it up on a little uh riser here so that i can access okay from that when i am traveling i just take out my little holder oh and you have a little down underneath okay and it does not slosh around and it doesn't fall over okay and then i see you have things like the glass in your secretary and then you have a glass shelf here i don't see very many glass shelves in in vans i have this glass shelf in here only when i am stopped oh i don't uh i've had three times where it has fallen down and so far it has not broken and i'm now when i travel you're not changing it three times i'm i'm lucky i'm not going to push anymore so this just goes down underneath my bed when i okay but it holds uh my toaster oven oh okay when i'm in uh and you know just stop somewhere and then i see now you have another refrigerator down here i do this one is for my regular everything else okay other than vegetables all right and then for my vegetables that is where i use this uh this ice co smaller one and do you like this ice cove i do i do like it a lot this was the first one it would it worked great as a freezer it just takes so much power that i have turned it into a vegetable bin okay and it really having it at the highest setting which is around 50 it it really does keep the vegetables a lot longer well with two refrigerators clearly you must have some pretty good power so what are you using as a power bank in here i have a pecron q3000s okay i want to say that it's close to 3000 watts okay i can't be for sure because it's been a while all right but it's it's adequate to do your your refrigerator it is adequate for these refrigerators if i have cloudy weather for like three days i can run for three days okay and then didn't you say you have a jackery also i also have a jackery 500 and that takes care of fans uh computer phone recharging a heating pad okay so you have a lot of power and then on your roof you have how much solar i have 600 watts of solar panel and i have engineered a little tilting frame so uh in the desert i can in the winter time i've been able to to pretty yeah stay pretty self-sufficient well you know one of the things that people are always very curious about is how you use the bathroom do you have something in here do you stop at rest stops the gym and i thought that what you have is just absolutely ingenious so do you want to share it with us thank you very much okay uh i'd say my main criteria was space okay i didn't why you know the the the things that are available that are actually are the composting toilets and all that just seemed to take up too much space for me so what i devised was a couple of things okay this is my my uh container okay where i have a uh oh okay this is a laundry detergent empty and then i use a little oil flour funnel okay and that works really really really good now the other thing is what i thought was just so cool and this other thing i actually got this at the free pile at the rtr a couple of years ago in 2020 it is a litter genie a litter genie well it actually is for litter kind of but not the kind that it was well at first i actually was just using it for imogene picking up you know that type of thing yeah but then one day i realized you know if i put a doggy bag in here it kind of looks like a little porta potty so that's what i do and then you pull that and i pull this up and i i can either take it out and dispose of it or if i am boondocking i can pull this handle out and wait up it drops down into a plastic bag down here which is what it does with the kitty litter you pour the kitty litter in you move this and it all falls down so that's kind of a a budget uh what are those really expensive natures had it's a budget these thousand dollars this was free i think the most expensive thing of this is this container here it was about thirty dollars so you have a budget nature's head i like that right there you know what nomads are the most creative people out there i think don't you i i love being able to fit all the little puzzle pieces together well let's look now at how to get a good night's sleep in your i keep calling it your antiques roadshow van all right so now this is is it about the size of a twin bed it is it's a little more narrow than a twin bed and probably a little shorter than a twin bed but okay it's me okay and that's what it's all about is what works for you yes yes for you know for i've always got that eye for maybe somebody else guess and all that and at some point i realized that just with the space constraints that i was just gonna make it to fit me right and uh that i feel like that was a big step because uh you know it's just about me now what what does your bed consist of it is a it's a three-folded one of those chairs like that you can use as it's it's a six-inch memory foam so it comes up and to be uh either a hassock or uh or a chair or a bed this space is just two of the three cushions though oh okay just two of them so you took a three-fold you made it into a two-fold okay and then you were telling me you have a um a sleeping bag also on on there well i have the sleeping bag to hold the them together but also okay if i have guests it's a way of of uh storing extra bedding okay all right and is that comfortable it is very comfortable it is very good okay i'm a little i've had to get used to the uh width of it that is a little challenging especially with imaging and moving and things like that uh and at the end of the day or at the in the morning i feel refreshed and i've learned to sleep in it and having the space in here um you know the choice i'm glad i made the choice absolutely i love to be able to move around in here i have so many different unique features i don't know which ones to highlight but one i don't want to miss is your heated floor and can you tell us how that works well the uh it's only heated just this one 18 inches wide okay feet long okay it costs less than a hundred dollars for the materials what yes and i figured that even and i heard some pros and cons about it read pros and cons about it i decided for 80 and i would chance putting it down there when the floors went down and worry about hooking it up later when i did get the chance to hook it up and now that i've been out on the road for a year i can tell you that this my deck and this roof window the three best things that i love about this van if i am plugged in i can't use it i don't have enough power for that but if i am plugged in the heat generated from that i really feel just heats up all the wood in here i always think of heated floors as a luxury that cost thousands of dollars but you're saying it cost you 80 bucks 80 bucks wow and my carpenter and i together wired it up i got a thermostat down here okay so it's really very compact okay so your thermostat is right under there next to your refrigerator okay and it is it's got a uh um actually an extension cord plug so it's got like a 14 gauge or a 12 actually i think it might be a 12 gauge plug and i keep it when i have shore power okay it plugs it's plugged into my floor is plugged into that so anytime i have short power you just know i'm going to have heated floors wow that is a luxury hmm i may have to look into that okay all right one thing i didn't want to miss was your garage and not very many people have walled up the opening we're sorry globies but i had diane move the van so we could get light for the inside and i'm not going to have her keep moving it back and forth and back and forth so we're just going to see this with a little bit of dim light but your garage is so cool how did you think of that what made you decide to do it like that i made uh well number one it's just me and i knew i wanted a twin bed okay also in the 70s i had a van that had paneling and all that nothing to this extent okay um and what i found was when i was parked it was easier well i was always looking at somebody's car or something so this time i just wanted to try something different okay just put the bed on this side okay and then again because it's just me it's a single bed right and that leaves the open in the back back okay where it's easier for me to find privacy okay so can we see your garage yeah oh wow that's a lot of space yes i actually designed closet systems and oh okay chapters and one of the things that i remember from that time is always leaving a little bit of space open and so that is kind of what this represents and there's in the van too little places i know that when these things start getting packed that i either need to well mostly i need to go through things okay but if somebody's traveling with me easy wow that is that's very smart i just love that and then this is my dirty clothes thing oh my goodness so it's a it's kind of on the outside then so yeah that's the that's a new addition i got this this thing here at the free pile oh my goodness here at the rtr thing was in 2020 this was 2022. oh my goodness and this is just a hand towel i had but my dirty laundry is in there okay and it gives more space for my closet in there wow now this is the other side of your garage kind of right it is it is it's on the back of the van okay but it's connected it runs right up to my garage okay and this is a closet this is my closet oh my goodness my dirty clothes used to go in this this is a pretty deep space there but uh-huh i actually have hanging space wow so i just can't believe all the stuff you fit into this and this isn't even the high top this is the mid top yes and this carries all all my uh everything that i have in here okay i do have a big sleeping bag coat that i have a container upstairs up upstairs upstairs with that in so you do have a uh what is it uh i have a cargo carrier that has a a tent and cots and things like that for when people visit me and then i have a couple of uh road cases music road cases that my husband was a musician and i have strapped them down and i put things in there like my floaties and my life preservers and my winter coat and then we can't go on without saying something about your skylight i love my skyline and i have a skylight now so i am oh my goodness oh my goodness so and i see you also have a screen for your skylight i do it has either the screen yeah oh my goodness or and i don't use this very often it has a blackout okay so basically that makes up for not having a big window on the other side it does but you still do have a window though i do you know open it up if i'm uh parked somewhere or camp somewhere where i feel safe i have a window okay uh when i'm boondocking in a city or i i'm not going to say that i feel less safe but i want to be a little bit more stealth i just keep my door closed okay i'm not fooling anybody with the stuff on my right but i i am pretty a plain just trying to keep it plain on the outside well now we're going to go to i call it the psd resistance it's what caught my attention uh about your van at the rtr and i was just having deck envy for sure so let's go look at your your deck oh my goodness so what gave you the idea to do a deck i saw it on youtube i saw somebody else okay and this was before i bought my van and that was an absolute have to have a deck well that's kind of cool that before you got your van you were already starting to think in terms of what were absolutes you know uh a must-have oh yes that's the most fun part about all of this it is isn't it thinking about what you want to put in it really so let's see how this works you designed this and with the help of a carpenter had it built so let's see how this works well first of all i had to give up five inches of uh floor space that's a lot of real estate yeah yeah and we talked about at the beginning i could kind of about the height thing i could still fit in it so i just decided to go for it okay now how many pounds can that hold the slides they're drawer slides they're heavy-duty door slides there's two sets and each set can uh hold 400 pounds so it's 800 pounds theoretically 800 pounds wow i could have a party on here oh my goodness so what do you mostly use it for sitting out or what i i love it because it extends my living space yeah so i sit out here a lot i have i'm going to do something artistic here speaking there's going to be more okay stay tuned a little gaming chair that i can put out here uh i have a there if you see that little hook up there i have a house oh i see oh okay sit out here yeah i see that hook so you oh a hammock chair a hammock chair oh my goodness yes um and so i can i like it because i can cook and i can come out here and sit yeah even if i'm boondocking somewhere even if i've been in a walmart parking lot being able to back up and have this privacy here i've been able to pull my deck out it doesn't look like i'm doing it right you could have a glass of wine out here time or two a time or two a time or two well diane thank you so much and can you tell us what the name of your youtube channel is again i would love to thank you so much for asking it is cultivate life dot there's a dot on the end okay and i'm hoping to have you as a guest on one of my lives very shortly and my globes can ask you questions about you know where you're going next and and maybe deep dive a little more into some of the changes that you're seeing having been on the road a year now and what you're going to do now that things are the climate on the road is becoming different financially and we'll look forward to getting some expertise advice from you and thank you so much diane and we will see you down the road we're always together and sometimes we meet okay bye bye

Channel: Glorious Life On Wheels

Views: 210,749

Keywords: glorious life on wheels, rv living, solo female van life, budget van life, van tour, senior van life, cheap rv living, van conversions, diy van builds, Dodge ram promaster, antique road show, living on a budget, how to fight inflation, living on social security, homelessness in america, invisible people, how to boondock, where to boondock, harvest hosts, boondockers welcome, finding jobs on the road, full time van life, how to live on a dime, budget travel, rv life

Id: yqTgaYuapyU

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 28 2022