Woman Does the Very Best Van Build I've Ever Seen! Magnificent!

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to my next video we're still here it's rubber Tramp around we're having a great time and I met Terry woo and saw her van and said please please please let me take a video of your van and you kindly agreed thank you so Terry woo how did you end up in the middle of nowhere in this beautiful band well I was in Austin and I made a friend that said have you are you going to RTR and I'm like oh what's our chair and so that's what's my introduction and I decided to join you and look to learn a little bit more about the people I think I've got the lifestyle down pretty well for the way I want to do it anyway my world's photography so that's been my background and my Facebook friends and my social and so now I'm expanding that to this world good so I like minded people who are living in bands yeah on the road yeah and how so how long have you been on the road full-time since May since May of this year yep i car camp since 2004 I didn't do that full time it's more vacation so I knew what I knew that kind of the lifestyle and how to deal with showers and toilets and all that kind of thing what I wanted to do and what space I wanted and so you're an outdoor person you love being outdoors and it occurred to you one day that you could combine them yes I pretty much when I went to New Zealand two years ago and I rented a car and car camp by myself I just said what am i doing I want to be out here all the time right so you're supporting yourself with your photography um I am but it's also money from selling a software development company in late 80s or late 90s so you're kind of living off savings and that's great trying to build a photography business at the same time yes I have been it's been bringing money in but not at the same rate as I spend it most of the night right I think that's most people's experience with photography yep so just nice supplement yeah I teach iPhone photography do workshops and do tours in Washington State of the Palouse area we yeah specifically I phone specifically I thought correct there's an app called Snapseed that is for editing and every phone has that available two minutes free and it's I call it Lightroom in your pocket if you're a photographer you understand what I'm I do you like what you're doing you like living in your bow very much very very much why don't we go ahead and take a look at Terry Toulouse van so Terry we will start back here and man I could just see right off the top of my head that this is some beautiful work did you hire someone to do it nope I asked my dad if he'd help me build a van he's got a great woodworking shop and so he taught me how to use the tools and all the equipment and let me go and I say I got to play for four months and just create and make art really and and it's art it does look like art it looks like a work of art it's gorgeous so of course like a lot of vans you have the bed in the back right so a few things that other people did but I didn't do it in the kitchen fashion is having the fourth footfall outdoors so I am a sports person so I have my backpack and rock climbing gear and so forth in here so it was all determined by my backpack how deep this drawer was which then determines the depth of this drawer and it also pulls out the four feet boom on and so I've got two of them that pull all the way out and then I wanted an outdoor workspace or just a place to eat from or whatever so I made sure that this height was for me when I stand in on flat ground and then I also have storage underneath here so there's plenty of storage yes storage and that's that's one thing I am and then I love crafts and so I just wanted to be able to take whatever I wanted to do on the road so I have just different odds and ends and even a sewing machine can fit in this one so and the determination of the bed height was by these bicycles I've got two in here I've got a road bike and a mountain bike and this is to be able to put the bikes together and so they're all crammed in there the beds actually four feet by six - which is unusual because I didn't put the side panels all the way across along the ribs and just left it opened and took advantage of that extra storage and length of the bed that I got all right so and what kind of van is this we haven't got 2017 Ford Transit high-top medium-length so I do spend more time in the city than I thought and so I'm able to park in downtown's without any issue which has been very nice it's yeah for a lot of people is critical yeah so yeah what's the one side my goodness this is a beautiful van it's a work of art thank you so much you have succeeded yes and your father yes I'm credit to yep he did the face frames and he did the drawer below the refrigerator there with the inlays and so forth how he did that and I took over so I did all the drawers and doors and like I said he did all the face frames his idea to do the pocket doors between the cabin here so I have those two I'll show you that later yes so I guess some of the touches that I did this is actually my nightstand basically it's got storage on the side so then you can also have storage here too so it just again another place to tuck away I'm pretty darn organized but talking about the bike tire so we can maybe start there and you if you look in there you can see that the bike tires go right into that area and of course if you're gonna build all that wood you're gonna have a beautiful cutting board yes the woods that I have in here are Maple Purple Heart and wind gay and that was by my choice my dad does some cutting boards these days and he does it with a lot of exotic woods and these are the ones that I picked from his cutting board concept mm-hmm so what I did to start with a lot of people asked me is when I knew what Van I was gonna buy I got foam core board and I did a quarter inch scale model so I knew how I wanted the van to be that counter tops 34 and a half inches rather than the standard 36 I wanted to build it for me one of my favorite pieces is my pull out pantry this for those of you who have done build yourself you know nothing's square in here so it's actually got a 13 inch track on the top and a 22 inch track on the bottom took me a week to design and build this it's just kind of crazy but I really love it turned out really pretty I think really nice gorgeous and practical yes that's so that's the one thing I'm seeing everywhere here is its beauty with practicality perfectly combined thank you yeah that same concept the practicalities in this drawer where I did double layers and I the stove works off of the one pound propane bottles so I didn't have to vent anything and so the propane bottles at the bottom of this and then I have all my kitchen supplies mm-hmm very very practical another thing that I did that before I left home and went to my dad's I decided all the stuff I wanted to bring I went into the bathroom and I said okay what what do I want to have and I made boxes and so we built actually the cabinet's two fifties boxes so everything was organized and ready to go mm-hmm and you know you're saying everything is curved you can see the curve right here yeah well that is well cut thank you that is really well kinda having done a little bit of that and never made anything that well cut I I can really admire that thank you very much and here again just to give you idea when we say nothing is curved so I do have a microwave in here I'm not using it so I'm gonna probably pull it out I'm just not finding the need for it like I thought I have 270 watts of power on a ceiling for the roof for my solar panels and I am using the Yeti 1250 before they did the lithium batteries so this is another little fun area that I shot my 8 this is actually the last piece I built and I wanted to have a rock garden I collect rocks all the time and I used to bring him home and now I bring him home and I are able to just put them in these jars and have my rock garden travel with me so I don't have any locks on my uppers they're just self closing hinges I do have the lips on my shelves so that helps a lot I've got four plug in power so 110 plugins with some of them have the USB also in the in the bedroom so I'm able to plug in my cell phone at night and be sure that I don't forget to charge it mm-hmm and so there's one at the desk one in the kitchen one in the bedroom and there was one up in this cupboard for the microwave this is my office what I did inside of here is I put mag steel and so they're magnetic so you're able to just take whatever you collect along the way and put it and hide it away rather than having it cluttery really brilliant idea yeah so what I did with the closet is my dad said I wasn't thinking I was gonna get one he's like we can make that work so what we did is let the clothes hang so they are in your foot area but since you're under the covers most of the time you don't even notice them and then we just did the dowels at the top and just bought these are actually Walmart hangers take off the top and then just put in a hook that we've just built so they're nice and tucked up rather than having the longer hanger I did here I did hear somebody talk about there's ones that you can buy that are short but these ones seem to work well and you're one of the few people that I've ever seen tuck your feet underneath cabinets I do okay I'm surprised more people don't it's so much more efficient right right that's what mate allowed me to have a bed that's six too so that was really yeah this is actually my dirty clothes drawer and this is storage right now it does I can put a porta potti there I made sure that I could do the composting one if I wanted to and there goes the pump so speaking of which I have to ask how are you going to bathroom um right now I did do a blog post on that and people asked you have a toilet but they don't get past that point and I said that pretty much in if I'm in the city I'll park next to a place and be sure I pee before I go to sleep and get close enough that I'll use it the facilities in the morning hand if I'm out in the nature I'll scoop and bury so cat holes yeah this is what you're primarily doing yeah I think that's perfectly legal nothing wrong with that and so showering do not have a shower in sight but I do have a shower outside so I can do that truck stops community centers so you know if with the wall there you would think it would be small and feel small but not the wind mirror makes a huge difference I think so too and to me when I put the wall here I only put it up when I'm stationary like this or at night when I'm for privacy so there are insulated wall panels that are actually pocket doors so they do puck behind the driver's seat and I'll just demonstrate that real quick here right now I'm feeling a ton of heat pouring out of the cab too so it actually keeps it cooler or different areas and if I do in the morning need some heat you open that up if you let the Sun in your cabin it's instant warmth and then I did great along the track I just so I didn't stub my toes I do have the way to keep them so they don't rock back and forth when I'm driving nice and compact in there the most important thing you can do to keep your van comfortable heat or cold you separate from the cab okay another thing that I did is I've been collecting lapel pins for years and you know they get thrown in a drawer and I'm like I want to start displaying them so I actually have a cork board behind there and I glue gun them instead so they don't rattle so there's no rattling issues at all one thing I didn't and there's tons of storage rocks and so do you have hot water you have a pump owner we do not I think I mentioned I have 13 gallons of fresh and 13 gallons of greywater so and tanks underneath tanks are sitting right here just it's river i RV tanks just right hand whirring yep and fills of course from the outside yep site so I have a shower on this side I have shore power and then I have my water intake and so you are plumbed you have your pump and your plumbing to the sink you have have a working sink here yep so you could shower you could wash your hair in the sink it might be cold but it wouldn't be too bad no not at all so there you know the sponge bath definitely do happen yeah always take sponge baths in between guests in their showers yep very much in my refrigerator is 110 it pulls the most power of anything I do have the inverter that I'm able to plug into the eddy so if you want to see that system looks like down here this is a gold 0 Yeti yep and I did have the extra battery in the back and right now I'm bringing in about a hundred and one watt support from the sunshine I do have so this has comes from the roof from the panels themselves this is the 110 that goes to a breaker box and then I have the fuses for the 12-volt my dad's a retired firefighter so we made sure everything was safe and neat and tidy if I do have the buddy heater is that cold mornings when I was in Austin but I do find even just my body heat in here does amazingly keep me warm and unless you're going below 30 yeah and so you insulated the walls yep I use the insulation all the way around put it doubled where I could that's not done work in progress always everyone I've ever talked to said nope not done well I have we covered everything is there anything we missed you love your life you're happy with what you're doing when I first started car camping I kind of kept but well I did keep it to myself as far as social media goes didn't want the stigma of sleeping in my car and possibly being homeless kind of concept because that wasn't the deal at all so until a friend that was a good photographer friend he said you need to talk to tell your story and you'll inspire other women and I have and it's been really touching when I have gotten emails that said slept in my car last weekend and I was inspired by you think well speaking of which is there anything you would like to share with the audience YouTube I do Facebook I have mainly Instagram I started the build so I post it every day so you can see the whole build on Instagram and it is artistic adventurer van and I also did a few YouTube videos I plan on doing more when I decide I want to sit down for a minute rather than visit with people and everything else but I did do the beginning of the build which includes the mock-up that I talked about and the insulation and that's also artistic adventurer van on YouTube so those are the best ways to do that I'm also a blogging on Terry Lou blog.com and it's ter Aiello you blog so Terry Lou I just so appreciate your sharing your home with us in your story that's so inspiring folks I hope you're inspired if you're not I can't imagine why not and if you've learned something and been inspired I hope you'll like us on YouTube subscribe to the channel and we'll talk to you later [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 399,329

Rating: 4.922967 out of 5

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, snowbird, caravan, tiny, house, tribe, RTR, adventure

Id: owddK_gIyPA

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019