Our old van only had some homemade, built-in storage, and a piece of plywood thrown over the wheel wells and topped with foam for our bed. That served us just fine for many years.
This time around though, we want a few more creature comforts, so we started off with a wish list:
- A full-sized bed--Many of the conversions we've looked at have had beds not much bigger than a single. We decided we want something around the size of a double bed.
- Indoor Cooking--We like cooking outdoors, but we want the ability to cook inside if the weather is lousy, or the bugs are out in full force.
- A table--Our sailboat has a booth configuration, and we like that--eating at a table, having a table to work on, and bench seats to lounge on opposite one another.
- Simple systems--like water delivered from jerry cans with a foot pump, no hot water heater (more about our hot water system later.) No furnace, no interior shower, no generator.
- Storage--lots of storage for food, clothes, tools, outdoor stuff...
- The ability, if needed, to haul things in the van like plywood sheets, building materials, and gardening supplies.
- PortaPotty. We lived with a PortaPotty for the 9 years we lived in Arctic Alaska, and we have one on the boat, so we're not as grossed out by them as a lot of people. We plan to use the facilities available at campgrounds and rest areas, but at times when that is not available, the PortaPotty will be appreciated.
- Since we need to keep the height of the van under 90-inches for the ferry, and the manufacturer's brochure says the van is 88 inches high, we cannot add anything that makes the van taller, so a raised roof vent is pretty much out of the question. We've decided on an opening sunroof to provide ventilation, without adding height.
I made a cardboard mockup to help us visualize what we're thinking. At the back of the van, against the back doors are two facing bench seats, 56 inches wide. Underneath the benches the two ends that face the back doors are open for under-the-bench storage of things like sun chairs, boots, tools, chains, rope, etc. The front half of the benches are partitioned off from the back half, and are accessed from inside the van through lids that lift up. The table comes off the pedestal and drops onto rails between the two benches to make a 74-inch long by 56 inch wide bed. Removing the table also makes it possible to slide in several sheets of plywood or sheet rock for some future DIY home improvement project.We are debating if we can have overhead cabinets along the walls above the benches, or if we would constantly bonk our heads on them. We'll have to make a full-size mock up out of cardboard to see if they are feasible.
The galley is just under 5 feet long, and 20 inches wide, it is behind the driver's seat. It has storage underneath and overhead cabinets that are 10"x10" x 5 feet long. Next to the side sliding door is a 15 by 20-inch cabinet that houses the porta potty--easy to access and easy to pull out for dumping.
Decisions and dilemmas to be solved:
- What flooring material to use
- should the galley be shortened in favor of including a ceiling to floor cabinet?
- We've installed sound deadening material (Ultra Touch by Bonded Logic). But we aren't sure what else we should do for insulation/vapor barrier. There are as many opinions on the Internet as there are snakes in Georgia.
- We keep going round and round about what kind of cooker we want, and how to deal with the fuel.
- We want a window over the galley area--a Sietz Window, but they are not easy to find in the US. One dealer told us they are great windows, but they are packaged so poorly, that 50% of the windows were broken when he received them, so he quit carrying them.
- We haven't decided what to do about carrying additional passengers, since we've only got two crash tested seats…should we add others, and if so how and where?
- What to do about the electrical set up.
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