After another round of SketchUp work and some more van measuring we ordered our second parcel of struts. Upon receiving them we eagerly headed out to set them up. Framing Continued… This week we were concentrating on the rear of the van working on the bed and seating area. The plan for the rear is to have a 2100mm long sleeping area at night that converts to 1050mm of bench area (this will act as a roof for the garage…
It’s been a long week waiting for our struts to arrive so we can start the furniture build! Let’s Get Slotting An extremely large parcel arrived first thing, it’s our first batch and contains all the struts we’d need to get the kitchen unit and shower units built. We were both super excited and rushed outside to make a start. The parcel had been packed extremely well and it took some doing with scissors to get into as the struts…
Efforts this week have been ploughed into research. We await the arrival of the struts so that the furniture build can commence! With little physical work to get our teeth into this week and in a bid to keep things moving along, Ben and I concentrated on researching some of the other elements of the build. We are excited about the impending delivery of the struts, but as always there is much to do. We decided to divide and conquer…
We mentioned last time that with the new appliances we needed to make some changes to the layout. This section of the build started with the frantic rehashing of the layout in SketchUp. With some minor adjustments made to our original layout, we have now reached the stage where we can start to build the skeletal frame of the furniture. It’s exciting to reach this phase, I’ve been looking forward to starting on the furniture and seeing the van come…
With the base of the van a good way to being ready, it was time to turn our attention to the furniture side of things. Thus far we’ve avoided buying much in the way of interior bits or appliances, as things often seem to change at the last minute and we don’t have masses of storage at home. In order to progress past this point we needed to firm up our choices of appliances. Armed with a comprehensive list of…
Before work on the floor began we decided to take a week off van work. It’s been a hard slog to get to this point and in addition to my shoulder needing some rest after the ceiling, we also we felt that we were owed some time to do things we enjoy. Back to work…. After a nice week off it was time to get back to it. This week we plan to get the floor down and hopefully make…
With the doors completed and the wood arriving it was time to make a start on the ceiling. Decisions I have to admit I had been very conflicted about this stage of the build. On the one hand I am excited to finally complete the wooden ‘shell’ that we’ve created, but on the other hand I had not been looking forward to it as I know it is going to be very hard going on my shoulder. It’s still a…
The van is coming together nicely now, and I hope to be back to more regular updates shortly. Making a Start It was now time to turn our attention to the rear and side doors. Our lovely wooden shell is coming along and we are eager to complete it. This weeks’ task was to get the doors panelled with plywood. We started with the back doors as we felt they’d be more straight forward than the sliding door. We needed…
After the success of the bulkhead walls it was now time to turn our attention to building the hatch door. I can tell you that this task was quite the DIY feat and certainly brought us a challenge. Getting Started I had been really looking forward to this part of the build, it would be the first thing we’ve done so far that would hint at a finished interior. I’ve been super excited to finally be able to show everyone…
Thanks for sticking with us and I hope you’re all still enjoying the blog. I’ve got lots of updates to come as Ben and I have been working hard and making good progress. It’s now June and pretty obvious that without a miracle we will not be ready to set off at the end of the month. Although initially sad about this both Ben and I have accepted that we have done our best and we are still really looking…