A week, A van, & a dream

     Today we’re going to talk about my vacation. I got a week off and it was beautiful. Now in April in Minnesota you can get anything as a matter of fact as I write this it’s the last day of April in 2017 and there is a Winter storm watch for Northern and Central Minnesota. Nothing like that happened on my days off though. It was a beautiful time and I got a lot of stuff done.

I put a sub-floor in, a laminate floor on top of that, painted and finished the walls, and built a counter top which I sunk my homemade sink into. There’s a blog about that sink here. All of this got done in a week.

     Before you tell yourself that I must have all of this experience doing this sort of thing let me assure you that I don’t. I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to construction and constructing things. I did however make it a goal to learn as much as I could about it while doing fun stuff in life. Hence the van. The sub-floor that I built, and I’m sure that I did it wrong, was made with plywood cut to the shape (more or less) that the floor of the van was in. I did put this sticky stuff that I bought at Lowe's which I forget the name of. It’s suppose to keep heat out and take the noise down. It was a lot cheaper then that name brand stuff.

Now I saw pictures of people doing floors like this and they had this special tape they put on the boards to make the pieces hold together better. Eh, I used duct tape.

                             ****shrugs shoulders and makes a funny face****

I don’t know if it’ll work. I just did it. Afterword I got to thinking. I probably should have made sure that the floor was level which is something to remember for next time. 

     Then I started putting the laminate flooring in. Now everyone will tell you it’s super easy. They’re lying; however, having said that I will also say I’ve done harder things. Think post hole digging in August then think a lot of post hole digging in August and you’ll be on the right track.

Okay the laminate wasn’t super hard, but it had challenging parts. I think if someone does it a few times they will get it quickly or if someone has a nice square area to put it in you’ll be fine. A Chevy Express 1500 is known as a curvy lady. She is not square anywhere.

     Elissa, and I also finished with insulating, priming, and painting the walls as well. We found the primer and the paint in the basement. We used them when we painted the house a couple of years ago. We have the same green on our windows and edging. 

     The counter-top was relatively easy. It had it’s tough moments, and I’m sure would have been screwed up without the help of my neighbor who asked me if I was going to be using a guide when I sawed the board. I had no idea what that was so he showed me. Then he changed the blade on the circular saw I got at a pawn shop. Imagine my surprise when I realized that cutting the wood could be easy and not have burn marks with the new blade.

I built the legs for the counter from what I figured they needed to be to hold the top, and I was right. I got the shape, the support, the size everything right.

     Next came the hard part. I had to drill the holes which would become the cut out for the sink. I measured like three or four times. This wood was my baby. I had sanded it, and preened it with mineral oil I didn’t want it screwed up with one miss measured hole.  Eventually I got it drilled, and cut out but I had to keep cutting and slowly widen the hole for the sink. I did it slow and took my time so that it would work well. Elissa was right there helping with her eye’s as well. As you will see in the video it turned out terrific.

Now the next steps are to start building the bed and begin putting the ceiling together. Keep tuning in to see how this goes.

Thanks

Trevor

Van to RV Plans

     With Summer not to far off it’s a good time to start planning where and what you’re going to be doing. My wife and I will probably be camping a lot this year which brings up my van to rv conversion project. I live in Minnesota and the van is much to large to get into my garage so any work that I’ve been doing has been outside and in the snow. Yes, you’re right that does mean that it’s been going slower than usual even for me. If we go back in time to my other entries you’ll notice over and over one common denominator. I have very little experience with construction. Which means that this whole project is a big challenge for me and something I am very excited to learn about.

Today, let’s talk about the counter top, flooring, and the water situation.

Countertop, sink, and the junk that holds it all in place.

    

    We’ve decided on the counter top and the type of wood it’s going to be. We’ve also decided on the height, length, and depth of it as well. The counter top is going to be Aspen with a butcher block oil all over it to protect it. The height will be between 33 and 43 inches, the length around 5 feet, and the width/depth (I get those confused all the time) about 18 inches.

Counter top

 Aspen, as you can see in the picture is a light wood and sort of reminds me of Pine a little bit. The height was completely dictated by the window it’s going to be sitting in front of, the length will be five feet because that’s all the space we've got on that side of the van.

    “What’s going to hold it up”, you ask? Well, that’s the part I’m excited about. If all goes well it’s going to be a light skeleton frame tall enough to fit two or three of these plastic drawers under and strong enough to hold the counter in place. 

Storage under the sink.

      As far as an outside covering I think we’re going to use anything we can find for the sides but leave the front open. When I say open what I mean is we’re going to have some kind of draw string curtain covering. Now this is just an idea and it can change. The reason we’re leaving the front open is weight. We’re trying to keep the weight down. Weight and gas mileage don’t play well together and as it is we get between 12 - 18 miles per gallon. Imagine with all this wood.

Under the sink

The Sink

The cute drain plug

     The sink is made out of a big red plastic rectangle thing we found at Goodwill. I’ve drilled a hole large enough to put a drain in and after I get the counter top oiled up I’ll cut a space in it. Of course it’s one thing to say something like this and quite another to actually do it. When that happens I’ll be sure to get photo’s and we’ll have fun watching it.

Water

    We’re still deciding on the containers, but have decided on where and how it’s going to work. There will be two containers located right underneath the sink. One will be fresh water and the other will be gray water. That’s it. Chances are they’ll both be bungee corded in place.

Flooring

     We were looking for the perfect flooring for our little camper van thingy. That's a technical term by the way. 'Thingy'. We checked out Menards, Lowes, and any other place that we thought might sell that sort of thing. Eventually we found an open box item. It was way cheaper and although it’s not our favorite color we’re good with it. You can see it’s darker, but that’s okay with us. We did get this at Lowes, and we figure one box will cover the floor in our little van. 

      As you can see the plan is finally at a place where we can really start putting it all together. Now all we do is hope for some sunny days. When that happens I’ll be sure to take more photos.

Keep it tuned here for more updates.
Thanks for taking the time to read and hang out here. You're awesome!!


-Trevor Marty