Have you been dreaming of pulling up next to Lake Annecy in a cute little van half-way through your six week tour of Europe? Despite it feeling hugely overwhelming to get there, it is so doable! Hopefully I can give you some tips that will lead you one step closer to creating your dream van lifestyle. Two years ago I decided to embark on the journey of renovating and traveling in a van due to always wanting to travel but in a sustainable and budget friendly way. If you have been dreaming about joining me on this journey, continue reading for some tips of what to do and what not to do when creating your van life.
If you followed on from my last article which discussed the process of purchasing your van, you may now be thinking now what? Now the fun can really begin… The renovating! Remember, your style of van and the extent of which it is already renovated may differ from my personal experience but fret not, I will try my best to cover all bases.
If you head to my van Instagram account @Mink1_99, you can see what my van first looked like. As previously mentioned, it was part converted which was something I purposely looked for in relation to my DIY skills. If you are converting a van from nothing, I highly recommend checking out this article which covers everything you need for insulating your van. For those who are starting with a part renovated van, the chances are you van has already been insulated! My van came with a basic wood interior as well as a carpet wall (extra insulation), my first job at hand was cleaning this up. Although, I do not have a carpet floor, I kept the carpet wall because it not only adds an extra form of insulation but it also massively helps with potential moisture. Whether you are just wanting to use your van for trips or to eventually live in it, moisture can become a big issue regardless as you will be staying in a small space. Also, because my interior was predominantly wood I did not want excess moisture that would later lead onto rot issues!
Think sustainability
I try to be as sustainable as possible where I can so I kept all the previous wood that my van came with. For your van, you may have seen many with a wood paneling interior which are super cool and easy to fit. If this is something you are considering, look into different offcuts of wood paneling as it not only will save you pennies but also helps reduce material waste! Regardless if you keep any previous wood for your van or buy, always wash down the wood with sugar soap. You can make your own sugar soap if you’re feeling extra sustainable but if not you can always buy some from most hardware stores. Lightly washing any wood not only cleans it, especially if it has been there for a while but it also preserves it! The colour of the wood in the van was quite dull and because of the plan I had for my renovation I painted over it in white to lighten up the interior. Moving onto my carpet wall which may be something you choose to yourself, I ripped out the previous carpet that was placed. Yes I know I mentioned being sustainable, but you can’t always be a hero. When replacing my carpet wall, I purchased an off-cut piece from my local carpet store! Not only was my carpet wall now a brand new carpet, I also reused the waste from someone else and it only cost me £25 which massively helped my budget. Similarly, I did the same for my flooring. Previously the van had a carpet floor which I wanted gone not only because practically a lino flooring would be easier to keep clean during my travels. I purchased an off-cut which cost me £15 that we then fitted and sealed into the van!
Now with my flooring, nothing really went wrong because fortunately my Uncle fitted it whilst I was working my day job at B&Q (work discounts equals happy budget). When it came to the carpet wall, that was quite a different story. I guess some would label me as stubborn due to my reluctance in letting people help me when it came to the van. This stubbornest soon got the better of me. Ripping the old carpet off and tracing the outline on the replacement was easy enough, filling me false hope of what could possibly go wrong? To secure the new carpet to the wall, I used a spray adhesive glue which in UK weather conditions worked amazing in keeping the wall intact, you will later see why that was not the case in warmer weather across Europe. In hindsight, having a spare pair of hands would of made this task much easier because whilst spraying the carpet, it then quickly needed to be placed and held onto the wall to set. Moving along the wall meant that the heavy unfixed carpet was pulling the still setting carpet a way. I had entered a vicious cycle of stuck then unstuck carpet. Eventually, afters lots of glue, the carpet was firmly in place. With a few edges needing a small trim, both the carpet and flooring was complete alongside a valuable lesson of asking for help learnt.
Design layout
This next step may require more thought than the previous steps, simply because once you start building it may become costly and time consuming to change anything big. Always have a brief idea of the layout of your van and what you want the end goal to look like. There are multiple things to consider such as:
- Where is your kitchen area going to be?
- Where will you place your bed? How many beds and what size will you have?
- How much storage will you have and how will you lay this out in the van? (storage is super important!!)
- Will you be fitting a leisure battery in? If so, where will it go?
- Fridge? shower toilet?
The list can go on depending on how big your budget is and how much you plan to renovate. The list above provides a simple basic idea of what you need for your renovation. When designing your layout, always remember storage and space! You want to fit things in a way that gives you maximum storage and space so that your van is enjoyable to live in as well as gives you plenty of room to store everything you need. Once you have planned a basic idea of your layout (this may change throughout your process but that is ok!), it is time to think about windows and ventilation. My van came with windows already fitted which again helped me decide the layout of the van, a simple google search will help you find any local places that can fit windows in your van! For personal preference, I went for a van that has tinted windows. Also when purchasing the van, I checked to see if the areas of where the windows had been placed had any rust at all which is a thing to consider if you’re wanting a part converted van.
With the basic maintenance of the interior completed and a plan for how I wanted my van to look once completed, I felt pretty happy with process and excited for the next step..
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