VAN TOUR: STUNNING TINY FORD CONNECT HAS IT ALL

[Music] hello hello globies welcome to another episode of glorious life out and about you know fan life comes in many different forms from full-time to part-time to all kinds of things in between and today i'm going to be interviewing someone who's doing van life her way on a part-time basis where she's out for long stretches at a time but she also has a home base i think this is going to be very interesting she also has a tiny little ford connect that is just beautiful inside and you're going to be surprised at some of the features that she has so come on join me [Music] so hello marie and welcome welcome thank you so much for sharing your beautiful home on wheels your tiny connect that is just decorated beautifully thank you it's my pleasure now i understand that you have a very interesting background that may be a bit different from a lot of people who are doing van life you were a teacher is that correct that's correct i taught world history and us history to uh junior high schoolers oh that's a challenge [Laughter] so you you earned your time on the road i did i earned my halo as well you did indeed so you have been traveling in your van this connect for about how long well i just got it in october so um uh if 2020 so only six months or or so but uh i did do some camping in my suv my car camping in the back i'd sleep in the back and you are doing van life part-time but you're out now on this trip you're going to be out for at least six weeks right right yeah dee and i um my partner in crime decided that it would be fun to uh promote her youtube channel uh ladybug out right and um and so we both have red transits and we thought we would go explore and have some adventures and get them on youtube and see if everybody likes those very cool so why don't we take a look inside and see what you did differently from the last connect that i toured which was also beautiful okay so i see you have a sofa now do you sleep on that or does it pull out or how do you i do it pulls out it's um in fact i'll show you it actually is um it pulls out this way and i can't do it now because i've got something in the way but it pulls out to be about the size of a twin bed i do keep my stove on top of here as well i've got a two burner coleman stove and that's where that gets stored when i'm traveling now i see i see you have overhead storage here can you tell me how that is secured yes we wanted to make sure not to drill any extra holes so we went with the holes that were already there and so uh what we did was we attached it down here with an l bracket and then um there actually is a hole right here that was already pre-drilled that the l-bracket goes through and then he put a screw through there so from this view we can actually see the l brackets a little bit better now i see you also have a sink and do you have a water system i presume i do in fact if you look underneath here this is my storage area for water i have a six gallon fresh water tank and a two and a half gallon uh gray water tank in the back it's basically just an old kitty litter uh bottle that i took out the kitty litter to use for my portable toilet and then i use that and it's easy to take off and dump so i see that you have a faucet here it looks like it's usb is that correct yes it is in fact it's got a cord back here it's plugged into the faucet and then the cord goes and gets plugged into my usb port over here i don't leave it in full time because it has a rechargeable battery but what i like about it is it's got two ways of producing water either if i press a cup up here or a continuous flow so you can hit it just to get a quick cup of water or you can have it if you're filling a pot you can have it and that's very cool i like this because um the water the electrical pumps are noisy i didn't want to mess with electrical pump at all and they would take up more room in the back and this is a perfect solution i do have it's supposed to be sitting on one of those sparkle bottles so what i've done is i took a can of chili like little diced chilies and i set it on top so that the cord can come out the bottom um so creative yeah so the cord can come out the bottom that way now i'm also looking up here and it looks like you have some hooks and you've put some metal underneath here yes uh magnets are my friend and so i wanted to have a metal here and i also have it on underneath the other uh shelf as well so that i can attach my light switch and uh any in fact my paper towels are attached by magnets to it as well so you have a very inexpensive but practical lighting system oh yeah absolutely i found all of these on youtube and i bought them in amazon but this is nice it is battery operated now let me ask you what kind of power system are you using to generate your power i have um 100 watt solar power on the top of the car i also have an isolator that's attached to my deep cycle battery so when i drive it recharges and that has been plenty of power but in case i needed more power i actually uh you can't see it now but i usually store it up here i have a dokyo 100 watt flexible solar panel that i open up and put in the sun with a long cord so you have a total of 200 watt solar panels yeah but i have not had nearly needed that much but and did you say i think you said what the battery was could you say that again it's 135 amp uh agm battery now i'm going to ask you something that everyone will be hitting me up on youtube if i don't ask you yes you know you want to ask i know i do i know everyone wants to know so how do you go potty okay so um what i've got here is this is a um it looks like a footstool but it's collapsible and it'll collapse to this size and this thickness and so what it is is it's got it's got a seat and i have you know liners in there and um and they usually go over the side but i don't have them on there now and then you just go do your business and i put kitty litter on the bottom and then again on top so you have a mini potty for a mini minivan now let me ask you this since we're on hygiene and that type of thing how do you shower and keep clean i of course the infamous baby wipes uh but um in here i've got enough what's called negative space where i can put um i do have a collapsible bucket right here that i keep it's not coming out for some reason but and then i will fill it with water and i can shave my legs i can wash my feet i can wash my legs and then i'll just take a washcloth and uh with a bucket of water and just just kind of dry off i mean kind of wash off until i can go to a proper shower it's amazing how much you can get yourself clean with a washcloth and soap and some hot water oh absolutely you know it's just amazing you don't need to be in a tub or in a shower no to stay clean you have just an amazing amount of storage from the fridge case to above to over under your sink to under your bed who would have thought that a tiny little van this size would have this kind of storage right well you haven't even seen this part above oh yeah seat um we hooked on a piece of board right here and um and then this is where all my clothes are it's kind of a mess right now now was that an addition so that wasn't there that was not there you had i i put it on myself and then it just uh it goes there's actually a part of the van that does have a little ledge where you can store maybe some jackets and things we just extended it with a piece of board so you made an extended shelf there right and i did not want to put any kind of covers over it because that limits my space and if i had any kind of cabinetry i'd have to kind of reach back this way i have access to all my my clothing and my clothing is stored in cubes these are a lifesaver i have cubes i love them yeah now let me ask you this how long did it take you to plan this because this seems like just a really well thought out and planned build so how long did it take you to plan this and who built it for you well uh i've been watching youtube videos for years and so it's always been in the works and i've been taking notes and seeing what i liked and deciding what size van i wanted and so forth and i finally decided once i made the decision to buy this type of van and i found it everything just kind of fell into place i already had it designed i had put it on graph paper what i wanted my build was done in two parts uh the electrical was done by the man that i bought the van from in morro bay california dealer's choice his name is daniel hi daniel and his son bryson and they did they put in the fan for me they put in the battery all the electrical they put in the roof rack um my awning they did they were wonderful and they they their price was perfect it was just right in within my budget and what was the name of them again their it's dealer's choice they actually sell used uh transits vans promasters sprinters and they're in morro bay small little um auto place that sells them but his son does the electrical and daniel helps with that as well well so kind of a one-stop shopping thing well to my surprise yeah i got really lucky i hit the mother lode now you had mentioned to me that someone else did the actual cabinetry for you yes i'm fortunate that my uh my partner he builds cabinetry and so based on my specifications he built this uh to be secured without making any more holes in it than it already had so you did not add any holes in the cabinetry holes at all none at all we used pre-existing holes and so he built the cabinet for me and and he had we put this formica on the top here so that so the countertop is from mica i believe it's from micah yeah okay and then i see you have a table here that opens up can you show us that absolutely so it's held together by this i got this at at home depot it holds up rooms in room closets okay and so um my partner dave made the table and he put a laminate on it and then the little leg that holds it up and i can cook on it i can read i can chop vegetables so it gives you an extended space and a dinette yeah or are a desk for study yeah now we were talking about climate control and you were sharing about earlier about your max era fan and but you also have some other methods that you use to control the climate inside and keep it from getting unbearable becoming unbearable can you share what other secrets or tips you have sure well it's important to insulate i insulated the top and the bottom but not the sides and for the windows since i have a lot of windows i do have reflectix and it's a game changer so i put the reflectix on the window and then here on the other side i put material and i just you know sewed it on to the reflectix okay so it looks pretty on the inside but on the outside it reflects the heat can you take that down because i see something behind that reflectix oh yeah okay so behind the reflectix there what is that that's a perforated vinyl and it's on the outside you can see out when you're driving but people can't see in and it also is a great sun shade because it does keep a lot of sun from coming into the van let's go around to the front because you also did something on the front that's different from what many people do in fact it's different from what i am doing and i think i'm going to adopt the method you're doing so let's go outside and look and see what you did on so i am seeing that you have a cover on the outside most people have reflectix or something on the inside but you have this on the outside how did you decide to do that well i actually watched one of the uh videos the youtube videos that howa puts on the on wheels alliance and there was a a young lady that suggested this this way it keeps the heat from coming into your van i hold it together with extra strong magnets but it does have a few magnets of its own and it is secure during you know the worst wind it fits over my mirrors and then also in the door jam here it stays on but what it does is it prevents the sun from coming in because sun shields inside aren't always they don't cover all the nooks and crannies this covers the whole entire window now you find that this is effective and really keeps the temperature down absolutely wow yeah that is quite impressive yeah i like it and it's only ten dollars on amazon or under 15. oh my goodness well thank you so much marie we'll see you down the road and why don't we close out with showing your little twin brother over here my twin sister your twin brother twin brother twin brother camper twin brother camper and twin sister uh van lifer tiny red band revolution okay we'll see you down the road both of you thanks and we'll see you later bye bye thank you you

Channel: Glorious Life On Wheels

Views: 112,498

Rating: 4.9503298 out of 5

Keywords: Stunning Ford Transit Connect, van tour, van life, rvliving, solo female travel, solo female van life, glorious life on wheels, senior van life, tiny van build, micro van build, tiny van conversion, budget travel

Id: MSA07CLgsW4

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021