VAN TOUR | Our DIY Tiny Home for Van Life | INCREDIBLE Conversion with Murphy Bed

we're rich and kirsten and in october 2020 we decided to take the plunge and begin our journey into full-time van life over the six freezing months that followed we turned our empty cargo van into a fully equipped tiny home complete with a murphy bed a powerful electrical system and a beautiful camper van kitchen and if you're interested in the specifics of how we built the van be sure to check out our full time lapse video or the van build playlist on our channel [Music] now that we're fully moved into the van and with a summer in the canadian rockies on the horizon we felt that there's no time like the present to finally share the fruits of our labor with a van tour the most important part of any van build comes right at the very beginning and that is choosing a vehicle that meets your needs and for us that meant choosing between a ram promaster a mercedes-benz sprinter or what we decided to go with in the end of ford transit the reason we chose to get a ford transit is because we wanted a vehicle with all-wheel drive which the promaster doesn't offer immediately eliminating that and then we were left with a choice between a sprinter and a transit one of those vehicles costs quite a bit more than the other this vehicle is a 2024 transit and if you want to get yours in an all-wheel drive configuration as well you'll need to get at least a 2020 model year or later because it was a brand new introduction in the year 2020 which meant that we had to buy our ford transit brand new in order to get back now our vehicle is a little bit smaller than you typically see on youtube this is the medium roof ford transit with the 148 inch wheelbase but it is not the extended length version which means this vehicle is 30 inches or about two and a half feet shorter than the extended length 4 transit and about 10 inches shorter than the high roof 4 transit which meant we had to sacrifice a little bit of interior height or my ability to stand perfectly straight inside of the vehicle although the added maneuverability that we get from a vehicle this size to me outweighs the sacrifice of having a bigger vehicle and being able to put things like a wet bathroom inside of the ford transit just so you know anything we purchased from amazon for this fan build we've made available on our amazon page link in the description below if you're looking for every single thing that we purchased for this van down to the wood and the screws we've made that available as well as a full budget of our van conversion on our patreon page so feel free to join us there to get access to exclusive content just for patreon members our van came with a pretty basic entertainment system which was fine with us however we do have a backup camera which isn't always standard but super necessary for a van like this the nice thing about being a 2020 model of the ford transit is all the usb outlets that we've been given there's one located here at the front cup holders and another one above the driver's seat here which is amazing especially if we want to hook up a dash cam in the future but also just to be able to connect our devices while we're on the go we decided not to install a swivel seat because our living space is in the back so we didn't think it was necessary for us to add living space up here because we have so much in the rear of the vehicle in addition we also chose not to put a headliner shelf above because ford's actually installed this awesome headliner shelf above which stores all your 2020 essentials or it's 20 21 now so still essentials and of course hand sanitizer which i feel like we should have been using this for years before i'm honestly never gonna have a car where i don't carry hand sanitizer anymore up here we have a shelf for all of our outdoor essentials like hats a light as well as mitts and gloves because sometimes in the rocky mountains it gets pretty cold the only feature this vehicle doesn't have that we really wanted and honestly didn't realize it didn't have until we purchased it was cruise control it's not a big deal you can get it installed after market we just haven't gotten around to it yet but it doesn't make or break our love for the vehicle itself one of the unexpected features of this ford transit is all the cup holders there's some here but there's also two on each side that are huge specifically this bottom one which is big enough to fit our three liter bottles the most prominent feature of our van well from the outside of the van at least is this cabinet right here which has allowed us to bring plumbing into our van we have a faucet with a working water pump we do not have hot water in this van we honestly just didn't feel like it was gonna be totally necessary to us we feel like we can wash dishes with cold water and that's totally fine we chose to go with a very simple basic plumbing system because we're not plumbing experts and that means that there's less things that can go wrong in our van we also don't have a wet bath or a shower setup which helps simplify our plumbing system to begin with so our plumbing system consists of two tanks underneath here both of them are removable they are reliant aquatainers and each is 26 liters we are planning on storing an additional freshwater jug but we don't have it purchased at this time we have a third one of those reliance aquatainers but we haven't been able to find a way to make it fit properly in our van in a way that we're happy with and in order to access the reliance aquatainers you can simply pull off the cabinet face it's magneted on we also have two drawers that we've built into this cabinet we have one which pulls out this way for our toiletries so for example we have deodorant toothbrushes toothpaste body lotion you name it it's probably gonna be in here and we also have a drawer at the bottom for random cleaning supplies and our garbage some paper towel garbage bags anything that you can imagine you need for household cleaning that would probably go under your sink at home is under rsync as well now there is one important hidden feature about this setup that we haven't shown or talked about at all in any part of our van build series and that is that this faucet has a swivel head which means if we ever need to wash our hair or shower it's no problem we do have a solar shower in the back if we want to have a bit more of an intensive shower but in the short term this is a pretty decent way to wash our hair our sureflow water pump that is in the cabinet right here is also switched which means we can just flick it on and off over here makes life pretty easy the most important thing to me when we were building out this van other than the bed was the kitchen but before we head on there just wanted to show you quickly this nifty shoe storage that we have honestly this could be completely wasted space but we have a toe kick under our cabinets which allow us to actually tuck shoes up under our cabinets and also under here to make good use of space we've also put in these great coconut fiber rugs here at the front entrance and also at the rear which we velcroed in which means that we can easily take them out to clean them without them bringing in any more dirt into the van we also have in here as you might notice some white rugs which if you're my mom you think are highly risky however they were two dollars from ikea so if they get mucked up big deal will bleach them my future problem inside throughout the van from edge to edge we chose luxury vinyl plank flooring the brand we chose is lifeproof because it's durable it's click and lock and it's also water resistant which was really important to us when we're outside tricking in stuff all the time we sealed the edges with vinyl stair edging or vinyl stair nosing depending on where you're from and it turned out pretty great we'd say it would be nice to have hardwood but in a van it's just not practical we almost made the mistake of buying adhesive vinyl planks which would be a huge mistake because it won't stay stuck throughout the various climates that we're planning on taking our van through so having click and lock was essential to making sure that we kept this as long as possible having a kitchen in a van was a big deal to us if you followed us from last year you would know that we lived in a minivan for two months where we didn't have any ability to cook inside we only could cook outside which means we were constantly subject to if it was raining windy it was just not always fun at least in here we can close the door be out of the wind and cook in peace we made i would say a pretty huge kitchen all things considered it spans about 44 inches in length this countertop and it does a really effective job of keeping all the cooking essentials that we need we have chosen a combination of both propane and induction for our cooking our main is our induction cooktop here we did choose not to sink it so that we could have more counter space i could maybe work up here if i wanted to have a standing desk or if we just wanted to have space to spread out on or cook a meal that doesn't need to be actually cooked it was really good for that we also carry with us an msr pocket rocket this is for our back country camping mainly but it's great for making coffee because it is a tiny little stove that you just connect up to propane and it sits really well here or even over here so we don't need a big layout to be able to cook so up here right in our cooking space is our carbon monoxide monitor which is really important when you're living in a van we also designed this open shelf here which is perfect for storing any fruits vegetables and bread right now we have none which is a little bit sad because richard eats a banana a day in this upper cabinet here i haven't checked it since we stopped driving anything could go oh no we're good up here we keep our coffee thing so normally our kettle will sit up in here we also keep our pour over tons of coffee this is two pounds of coffee we even have real wine glasses which i'm so ecstatic about and they're even real glass although i think they might be pyrex although i would much prefer we had sippy cups instead of wine glasses because i just don't want that breakable glass in our pan futures problem we also keep in here some tupperware containers for leftovers all of our dishes which are cheap ones from ikea a hand grinder we could use an electric one but this one's actually not too bad we have lots of dry food in here salt pepper uh maple syrup because we're from canada duh and this one i'm a little bit embarrassed about we keep a giant container of nescafe instant coffee this is just really great for those quick mornings where you need a quick shot of coffee and don't have time to do your whole brewing thing so i'm embarrassed to say but this stuff's actually pretty good we do keep everything secure with these magnets that we found on amazon these ones hold up to about 25 pounds they're pretty strong we also use compact blum hinges and pistons in order to keep the cabinet faces up we didn't have a ton of drawer space but i really wanted a pull pull-out pantry and i got it the top shelf is filled with all of our herbs and spices yes there is a lot of them 15 to be exact plus tex-mex mix we also keep all of the essentials like different curry powders flour gnocchi of course different teas some pasta and rice as well as sugar and oil and crackers because we're absolutely obsessed with crackers so this drawer houses all of our pots and pans and a big cutting board we also keep a four cup measure for our mixing bowl it's great because it has a lid on it so you can just put that back on put it aside and forget about it although it doesn't fit in the fridge we also have these small propane bottles that we use for our msr pocket rocket they do come in bigger bottles but we don't use enough propane and this fits really well in the store for us then in this drawer here is all of our cutlery and utensils and our small cutting board that we use more often we did buy a cutlery organizer for this originally only to find out that i actually took the measurements for this drawer when purchasing it so it was too big for this so now we just have one for now it does the trick we also have this really fancy electric lighter these are really cool you guys got to get one of these they just rather than running out of fuel you just recharge it so it's a little bit more eco-friendly as well and then of course the most important part our fridge we chose the dometic crx 65-liter fridge which is the perfect size for us for keeping about five to seven days worth of food and yeah i am totally embarrassed by what we have in our fridge right now all we have is jam jarred garlic and it's a little stuck right now and pesto which means it's definitely time to do some groceries but the cool thing about this fridge is it does have storage on the side which fits a two liter jug of milk as well as a mini freezer which is not good for my ice cream addiction but now we can also have ice and frozen peas for emergencies all of our drawers are soft closed drawer slides they do cost a premium but they do also help to keep everything in because gotta give them a little bit of a tug to actually open them for our countertop we did choose an ikea carl b countertop it is composite on the inside which might seem like a stupid decision however it is a very lightweight material which is great for a van when you're trying to save some weight and it's easy to work with and affordable we did decide to do real tile in our van for all of our backsplash a lot of people are skeptical about doing this but we've seen a lot of people use this same white subway tile and have absolutely no issues with them we just made sure to use an extra strong mortar when applying it and to grout it really well it adds just that extra touch that makes it feel like a real kitchen in here we chose to under mount our lighting in the kitchen which is great for illuminating the space that you're working in and it's on a separate switch from the rest of the lights in the van in this van we've installed one max air fan deluxe right above the kitchen space which allows us to exhaust out any fumes from cooking just to make a safer environment but also to help minimize any cooking smells i'm not gonna dive too much into the electrical setup in our van because we already have two entire videos on our channel dedicated to this topic one of them is about how to wire your camper van and the other one is about our entire electrical setup so if you're looking for more information on a 12 volt electrical setup for your van i recommend checking out those two videos first our vehicle is powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery that we bought from linac we've put it through its paces we've tested it and so far as far as we can tell based on the viktron app the battery is actually as advertised it is advertised as a 200 amp hour battery it actually has 240 amp hour of capacity but the 200 amp hour is what's considered to be the usable capacity we did decide to make a fairly controversial decision and not use solar in our van and we did that for a couple main reasons we're canadians we spend a lot of time in forests and we think come september october there's not going to be a whole lot of daylight available for us to harness the sun's power so what we did was instead of putting solar in our van we purchased a bigger battery the only way we can actually charge this battery from inside the van is with a 40 amp dc to dc charger that we bought from renegy it's hooked up to the starter battery in our vehicle that's under the driver's seat so that was a really easy installation and so far it's working exactly as advertised we did choose to insulate our van we used a combination of foam board and sheep's wool to keep our van climate controlled but ultimately the most important thing in a van is to have active heating and cooling and because we're planning on using this vehicle predominantly in the mountains the number one most important thing for climate control for us is going to be an active heating element we purchased a wabosto airtop stc2000 this is a two kilowatt heater from obasto and so far it works great this is the only thing that we did not install ourselves in this van because i just didn't really want to play around with fuel lines and i didn't want to drop the fuel tank this heater is connected directly to our fuel tank we decided to mount the control panel right by our bed so when we wake up and it's kind of cold outside we can just hit the power button and get the van up to temperature as for the active cooling well unfortunately air conditioners are extremely power hungry and we just don't have the capacity to power a unit like that we've installed a roof vent which is going to help us circulate air in the vehicle and we also purchased a fan that has an exhaust option as well as an air intake option to give us some more flexibility for the type of air circulation and active cooling that we are looking for living in a tiny space having dedicated storage for things is really important so up here houses all of our clothes we do a pretty good job at sharing the space we each have one single full cupboard and then we share this middle one i'm a little bit more organized than richard i tend to like storage containers quite a lot so in here i have all of my main clothes like my dresses pants t-shirts and a copious amount of sweaters and then in the middle we share space for all of our socks underwear and swimsuits at this point of the van build you're probably wondering where's our bathroom we didn't want to build a dedicated shower stall because it would take away some of the sight lines and openness of the van so we came up with a solution now if you've been following along on our journey of building out this van you would know that we actually originally intended for our toilet to be in our sink cabinet unfortunately when it arrived it was half an inch too big because the measurements were wrong online that's okay so we had to find a new home for the toilet which happens to be in here so we store our tetford 135 in the bench here it's not the convenient slide-out toilet that we thought we were gonna have but this is far more luxurious than what we had in the minivan which was no toilet as you can tell we haven't had to use it yet because it's still covered in plastic wrap and all the bits are still wrapped up here but it is your standard porta potty you add fluids to the bottom you can drain it out it has a pump up flush capacity honestly i haven't even read the instruction manual yet and don't know where it is so maybe we'll never actually end up using the toilet but it is a convenience feature that makes it easier for midnight grocery store peas in here we also keep some additional tools our laundry bag a spare agm battery in case we need to kickstart our vehicle and surprisingly we actually keep a tent as well we do look to back country camp from time to time and we also like to have a tent in case we need to reserve a spot at a first come first served campsite such as our favorite one wilcox which is located in jasper national park we can also gain access to the storage under our bench by folding down this nifty little cabinet face here which can also double as a nice back country cooking table if need be we also have our coleman two burner cooking stove for extra cooking capacity we've got some bins including a shower bin and a tool bin our sleeping bags and our backcountry camping gear for when it's needed one of the most important things to us when we were in the planning stages of our van build was to maximize our space because we're not dealing with the typical size van that you see on youtube so what we've done here is created two distinct and completely different living spaces so our first configuration is our living room configuration complete with our bench repurposed four inch thick foam to keep our tushies cushioned nicely and it's just a nice warm inviting living room but here is the real deal my personal favorite element of the entire van our bedroom we built a murphy bed which allows us to simply store our bed during the day and fold it down for night time this right here is a full-sized double bed voila and we sleep so well we bought a six inch thick memory foam mattress and i really feel like the space has completely transformed itself it really makes me feel like this van is a lot bigger than it is if there's anything that we've learned so far from living in a vehicle it's that having a really comfortable really spacious bed is worth so much like having a nice kitchen is one thing but having a comfortable good night's sleep is so important in a van i cannot stress that enough because of the way that the roof is arced we did have to have the murphy beds sit out from the wall a little bit which means we were gonna have space behind the walls so we made sure to make great use of the space by putting in some cupboards and some shelves they add a totally different aesthetic than you normally see in a van right now they're home to some plastic plants because i can't keep real ones alive some of our favorite memories and then during the day we store all of our linens up here on the shelves and we also store our throw cushions like these ones in the shelves as well in this cupboard here we have all of our extra linens like pillowcases and towels and in this one over here we keep some books an extra fan and a large mirror which is perfect for getting ready in the morning we should also mention that there are a few added features here at the rear of the vehicle we put hooks on this side which are perfect for all of our jackets we also have blackout curtains that we have both at the front of the vehicle and the rear of the vehicle that we have attached using magnet hooks it doesn't come off very easily from amazon they are a hundred pound magnet hook so they stay up really good bye the best part about building out your own van is you get to do it completely the way that you want to including all the features that you want in a van to make it as comfortable as possible for you this might not be everything that you're looking for in a van but it certainly is everything that we wanted in our van and honestly i'm so glad we did it ourselves and took the time to learn all the skills to be able to build this van if you have a question about anything you saw in this video feel free to leave a comment down below for us and if there's anything you didn't see in our van that you would put in yours well then we suggest buying a van converting it yourself because the project is equally as rewarding as it is difficult a special shout out to our patrons for making videos like this possible if you are looking for behind-the-scenes content and early access to all of our releases in the next coming months we'd love it if you joined us over on patreon we're gonna be hitting the road we've been moved into the van for almost a month now and we haven't been able to leave but the tide is finally turning and we are about to start the van and head out to the west coast of canada to relocate to live our van life so hit the subscribe button to make sure that you don't miss any of our adventures and we will see you on the west coast of the country next week

Channel: Rich and Kirsten

Views: 155,659

Keywords: van tour, van life, transit van tour, ford transit van build, campervan tour, vanbuild, full van tour, self-converted van tour, self-build van build

Id: f2d5x44YOkE

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021