The Van Build

We went back and forth for a while on how to go about this trip.  We had planned on buying a van from the get-go, but money quickly became an obstacle, so the plan changed to us driving around in my car, a Subaru wagon.  A couple months thinking about that and we both looked at each other and realized that it would be fun if we weren’t constantly setting up and tearing down a full campsite.  So we went back to the van idea.

John had one criteria: cheap.  I had two: reliable with windows.  We ended up both getting our way.  All I wanted was either headroom (which would mean getting a sprinter van) or windows (which meant getting a passenger van).  My craigslist searches only consisted of vehicles that met those criteria.  John limited his budget in his searches.  The van we ended up purchasing was one of the only ones that landed in both of our searches.

As we were looking, I did a lot of a research on how other van dwellers had done the conversion.  On one forum I found, a user shared his bed build.  He used steel tubing in order to maximize the storage space under the bed.  I showed it to John and we started designing our bed frame.

We used one inch steel tubing with a plywood platform to hold the mattress up.  We had a lot of issues with our bed frame.  The steel tubes were all threaded in the same direction, which meant that every time we would thread one end of the tube into the fitting, the other end would unthread.  It turned into quite the balancing act filled with a couple of iterations.

First, we build the bed too long.  We didn’t account for the fact that the tubes wouldn’t thread all the way into the fittings.  Second, we built the bed too high. At first we allowed for two feet of storage space under the bed, not realizing that that would allow for only about a foot of head space.

Now, our double mattress fits perfectly on the frame and there is about a foot under the bed.  We have about 2.5-3 feet of head room when sitting on the bed, which now feels like a luxury.  We have a ton of storage space, which I’ll dive into more detail next.

We finished the build and headed up into the Santa Cruz mountains to camp in Henry Cowell State Park.  It was nice to take a break and to share a shake down with some really good friends.

Only ten days until take off.  We are excited and nervous and can’t wait.

Thanks again for checking in!

Emma

Our friend, Adam, came with us down to San Jose to help finish the build.

The bed is all but made!

Under bed storage. Configuration subject to change.

Taping the carpet in.

The bed all loaded up for a mini vacation!

The bed made. Lights from Goal Zero.

The view from our room.

Checking out the roof rack system.

And checking out the sunset.

John and his dad, Jack, installing a new stereo head unit.