Hiya Steemians that love vehicles, living in vehicles, and part time living in vehicles! Some of you have been interested in our van conversion for a while, and I’ve been putting it off as there’s so many fabulous ones out there that I’m never sure it’s worth sharing! Anyway, have a read and let me know what you think of ours, and I would so much love to hear about your conversions too. I know that some of you realise that we're a bit obsessed with converting vehicles to live in, so this post will simply feed that view of us, and that's fine by us. We really can't help it!
Vanlife is such a funny tag, isn’t it? It seems to have taken the world by storm, and it looks pretty gorgeous and lovely on the outside, doesn’t it? Those camera angles sure make vans look spacious and luxurious. Don’t get me wrong – I love living in vehicles, and have done so all my life. The happiest I’ve been in living in cars, vans, buses and trucks, starting with a trip around Australia on Jeff Kennett’s surf team (@centrelink and #teamaustralia folk might get this reference, if not, ask) in a mid 70’s Toyota Corolla with a single camp mattress, towels for curtains, and snuggled up next to a backpack and my surfboard.
It was no co-incidence, then, that I met the love of my life when he was living in an old mobile library – you can read about this here. I found another picture of the old girl the other day – isn’t she beautiful? When I look at that I think about the romance that went on inside in the haloed honeymoon days of our relationship, with the woodfire tick tick ticking and… well, you don’t need to hear about that. Here's he in the snow, the morning after our third night together. As an Aussie, I was so excited about the snow in England, but he's barely awake and not so impressed here.
Then, we lived in a Bedford horse lorry. Again, I wish I'd taken more photos, but who was to know Steemit was coming? I've popped a link to the story about her below, if you're interested.
Then, we moved to Australia and lived in this bus, which was sweet. It didn’t actually drive, and would have cost a small fortune to even start her up, so we bought a crappy old Econovan for a couple of hundred bucks, which was my son’s bedroom for a time before we bought the silver caravan pictured. He had all his school stuff and clothes and everything in there, and he’d wake up, come in the bus for brekky and then we’d drive his bedroom to school to drop him off. He was pretty happy when he got his own caravan that didn’t drive off everyday or was used to haul building stuff or surfboards.
We just chucked a mattress in the back of the van and off we went around Tassie and up the East Coast of Australia and all sorts of places, with Jamie swearing all the time as the petrol smells came in somewhere as we drove and he is hypersensitive to smells. We were pretty happy to see her go and we had enough cash to move up in the world and buy a Ford Transit. The only photos I can find of her is pushing her out of the mud in a festival in the Pyrenees, Australia, and another collecting firewood. This one is an added bonus for you, if you're read this far, as you get to see Jamie bending over. Vans are awesome for collecting firewood and going to festivals in.
You know, I can’t even remember what we did in the back of that one, but I do remember lying in the back of it all the way back from Byron Bay because I’d hurt my S.I joint so badly I couldn’t sit. I ended up driving her into the back of a truck, which was a bummer. It was the way of the universe, though, when my friend was upgrading his VW Transporter and sold his old one to us for a song. We actually couldn’t convert it for years because we had to have a seat in the back for Jarrah – but it was long wheel base, so we could fit a double mattress behind that seat, the esky under Jarrah’s feet and so on – we squished in somehow, and Jarrah was small enough to sleep along the width behind the driver’s seats on a camp mat.
When Jarrah got his licence, we got straight into conversion mode. We’d learnt so much about conversion over the years that there wasn’t a lot of thinking involved, just doing. The most important thing was the insulation and cladding, because condensation is a bitch. We went straight for foilboard and whatever you call that other white fluffy stuff.
Rather than proper ply, when for a plastic backed one which is great as it’s super light-weight and wipe clean. The hardest bit was cutting the templates – we got big sheets of plastic, held them in place and marked them with a sharpie, then used those to trace around the boards and cut them out.
We also lined the floor with foilboard and big sheets of plywood to have a solid base to work with, and we knew that would also make it warmer. We’ve been in some really freezing places in this van and have been far toastier than anyone around us. We found some cheap linoleum – the idea of wooden boards is PRETTY for hashtag vanlife but after years in live-in vehicles we knew it wasn’t practical, and it’s hard to keep clean. Plus, there’s not a lot of floorspace in a van anyway, so why bother spending all that cash on boards or making life hard for ourselves? I’ve never regretted that decision, that’s for sure.
We could then make the frames for the seat and bed situation. We had two objectives really – an easy to put together bed, plus being able to transform it so we could carry long things like surfboards or bits of wood and building stuff for endless projects. This also had the added bonus of being able to reconstruct it so there’s also a table on the inside, which is handy. We’ve had the entire family in there once eating dinner in the rain – that’s my parents, two nephews, my sister and husband and me and Jamie. To be honest we don’t use it that much on our own as I can’t be bothered making the bed again.
Me, waiting for my morning coffee. I look pretty happy here, don't I?
The other thing I really wanted was LOTS of storage room for food and everything had to be super easy access. As I’ve explained before my post on the cooking arrangement in the van, it was really important for me to be able to pull over and make a cuppa or a hot lunch without rifling through a lot of crap. In the end, turns out we have two food areas – one in the front near the fridge for most of our food, and the one in the back for cooking equipement plus the things we use regularly like olive oil, spices and srirarcha and so forth.
Missing a door at this point
We have had a bookshelf in every vehicle we have converted
The 12V fridge was also a must. We live in Australia, and it gets hot. Eskies are great, but I hate the way they smell and how your food ends up floating around in fetid melt water. They aren’t too expensive and well worth the money. There’s a roll out space under the fridge for extra things like Jamie’s clothes and other equipment. 25L of water is strapped behind the passenger seat, and we could easily fit 50L if we needed it. I like all the space when you open the sliding door – plenty of room to get changed in and get stuff out.
I won't write a lot about the cooking situation, as I've written about it before (please read the post before, as I totally love our solution!). I will say though that the removable cookbox is sooo good, and I much prefer the kero stove over having to carry around a gas bottle.
Incognito street park, Melbourne party time
If you would like to read or view more about our vehicle obsessions, here are the links:
@mrprofessor spot the ukelele!
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Noooooooooooooo don't spoil before I read
I like to read all the nice posts before I go to bed, it's like a relaxing moment, this one is in the list!! Only if you don't spoil it all hhahahahaa
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Haha plot giveaway... 🤣🤣🤣
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You made an amazing content my dear friend. We sould connect and support each other by follow each other. I already upvoted you and following you, please think about that.Thanks and greeting from @chanthasam
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Thanks x
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Vantastic thanks for sharing more about your vanlife:)
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I am wheely grateful for your comment! He he xx you were one of the steemians i thought might be interested 💙
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Haha and yes you are correct:)
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yeah i love this! i'm not so savvy (well neither of us are) on fixing vehicles so never got into van life as it seemed scary to have such a big rig to be responsible for lol! but i have lived in tons of tiny spaces (out of backpacks, bike touring, tents, up to 100 sq ft homes and now we live in a cozy 150 sq ft!) and you did really well here with the organization and storage. that's the hardest part in my opinion. lol on the bending over ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i like your decorating too !
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hahah you noticed. i always wonder how much people read so that was a little easter egg for those that did he he. Yeah we're lucky with Jamie's mechanic and handyman skills all around. I clearly married him for it (and his butt hahahahahahahaha) and he has taught me a lot about generally figuring out a problem and fixing it via common sense and research, though I also have Mum's awesome resourcefulness for that. Tiny spaces are absolutely the way to go. Our house isn't big by any means, especially by standards around here when everyone has HUGE mansions on the coast (we're just in the hinterland countryside so it's not as glam) and I still think we could go smaller! I'm massive on organisation - I'm like the storage solution QUEEN, man. Everything has it's spot in the van. Sure, I can be messy (fuck, you should see my cutlery drawer!) but I love a spot for everything. Small spaces don't work without it. Thanks for reading - you gorgeous gorgeous Steemian!
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This is the first time i am reading about vanlife! Sounds super fun or maybe not, cannot make up my mind. But interesting nonetheless.
That picture was not a bonus at all :D
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Ha it all depends the way you look at it. I'll try to think of an appropriate one for you next time - maybe a chicken?
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Maybe sizzling pork chops being grilled on a barbecue in the middle of nowhere* :D
*Provided you aren't vegan!
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Hahahahahaha!!! Love it. No pork chops though, but I'll think of something suitable for when you least expect it. ;P
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The vanlife tag is so funny now. All those perfeft vans with no actual things in them. I quickly realised with my first van that vanlife actually means getting told off by grumpy locals, sometimes having to shit in a bag, and lugging big ole water tanks from the cemetry tap lol. Still love the life tho. Just not the weird magazine cover make believe
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Yeah so true. It never looks like it does in the pictures. Or SMELLS. He he he. Oh my god bag shitting. I forgot about that one or maybe blocked it out. Defo did the lug from the cemetery taps! It was a good life, proper traveller truck days... our van days are differeent now but life has changed and thats good too.
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