VAN BUILDOUT

Our first blog post will be a bit longer to document the last few months of building the van out! It all started in May, when Liz flew to Las Vegas to pick up the van! She braved a suburban Vegas Ford dealership alone and took it on its inaugural drive back to LA!

While still working, we spent evenings and weekends upgrading the van’s dinky tires, installing the windows, and giving the van a roof rack and “wittle wadder.”

Liz ended up taking off in our Model Y to move it over to the East Coast, while Stephen stayed back to finish off work. We got a few odds and ends done during that time, including installing the heater and AC unit, before wrapping the van up for storage while we spent a couple of months in Europe and on the East Coast.

When we got back from Europe, both of us spent some time contemplating the amount of work we had bitten off…

Before too long, we got to work installing the subfloor and vinyl flooring, and insulating!

With the floor installed and the van’s temperature moderated a bit by the insulation, some friends stopped by to help frame out the walls and ceiling.

Stephen kicked off the electrical system build, and we installed the bed structure (courtesy of IKEA telescoping steel beams) as well as the beginnings of the water system.

Some help flew into town to get the bed wall in and start to frame out the front cabinetry. Despite our progress, it was the cabinetry that really had us reconsidering our life choices and how much work we had signed up for. We needed a bit of a mental reset, so we took the van on a 2,000-mile road trip in its current state to our friends Becca and Matthew’s wedding in Sun Valley.

We came back from Sun Valley refreshed and eager to make some progress. The shower and kitchen framing went in quickly, and the control panel going in had us feeling excited.

Next up were a few weeks of carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and shower work, including finishing out the kitchen cabinets, drawers, upper cabinets, backsplash, etc. We started finish-painting a few of the upper cabinets before they went in. Seeing the finish surfaces for the first time felt like unearthing a diamond in the rough!

Cue three more weeks of finishing work: sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, more painting, the ceiling, microcement counters and shower, caulk, more caulk, and it was done!

The finished product!

Stay tuned for our first adventure: getting married!