Buena Vista, Co

So an overview of my summer in Buena Vista, CO. Starting from the parking lot view when I first arrived, I loved everything about BV. It’s a small valley town between the Sawtooth Range to the west and the Mosquito Range to the east. Recreation areas and National Forests are all around you:

Four Mile Recreation Area

Also Four Mile Recreation Area

Sunset at the south end of the valley, looks fake! (Taken with my cellphone on the side of the road because I didn’t have my camera with me…drat!)

Antero Reservoir

West side of the Sawtooths, from the Continental Divide

Since I mostly worked four days on, three days off, I took advantage of the chance to do a fair amount of remote camping. The camping was AMAZING. While there are a number of campgrounds in the area I never paid for a camp spot but found plenty of free boon docking. All of these were within 45 minutes of where I lived/worked.

Boon docking spot

Another boon docking site

Boon docking on the Middle Cottonwood

Morning tea at creekside

When I didn’t go camping somewhere I went hiking, there are dozens of peaks to bag and trails to enjoy. I didn’t get to all of the ones I wanted to do, but I made a worthy effort!

Living and working in BV means you are always near the river. The headwaters of the Arkansas River are about an hour north, but the Arkansas River and it’s tributaries are all around:

Arkansas River from River Park in downtown Buena Vista

Some of the renowned white-water of the Arkansas River

Arkansas River just below Hecla Junction

BV is a great home base for all manner of outdoor activities from fishing, rafting, hiking, camping and peak bagging. I am seriously considering working one more summer there in order to see more, hike more and camp more there! For people living van life or RVing there are plenty of campsites and boon docking areas. I highly recommend it!

Sunset on the Continental Divide

Van-life Odds and Ends

This post will cover a bunch of different odds and ends that don’t justify a whole post but that people are curious about.

Spare Tire

When I bought Bombadil the spare tire was mounted underneath the van, this mounting arrangement is quite common in vehicles of all kinds from the 2000’s on. It was obviously designed by someone who has never actually HAD a flat tire, which rarely happens on dry perfectly level areas, which is the only way that arrangement is even vaguely practical. I understand it is to increase the interior space somewhat, but I HATE it. I purchased this spare tire mount instead. With some modification (drilling) this worked fine on my 2002 Ford Econoline E350. I would recommend it if you have the tools to do some drilling into the mount.

Passenger Seat

Because Bombadil was a cargo van, he only came with 2 seats, driver and front passenger. I did consider taking out the passenger seat, especially since I travel alone and don’t expect that to change. It takes up valuable floor space. After a great deal of thought I decided to keep it but put it on a swivel mount so it can be turned to face the back. Swivels for my make/model/year proved to be VERY pricey…upwards of $250.00 plus shipping. I chose to get a “generic” one and drill two new holes in the floor. This is the one I bought. I used two original holes and drilled two new holes and sealed the two original holes that didn’t line up with this base. These seats are not made to swivel and so you actually have to open the passenger door to get the seat 180 degrees. This hasn’t proven to be a problem since it has remained facing the back since I installed it. I have the seat slid all the way forward (since it is now facing the back of the van) so that I can still see my passenger side mirror. I still have the option of removing the passenger seat at some point if I need/want to.

Window Coverings

Window coverings for privacy (and to help with temperature moderations as well) are a must for me. I made mine from Reflectix and scrap felt from a fabric store, Super 90’d together (any word may be verbed). Since the first 5 months I lived in Bombadil in Asheville, NC this came in and out of the windows literally every day, sometimes more than once. These are holding up nicely to heavy use! I put the Reflectix out in the summer to help keep the heat out, and in the winter I put them in with the felt out to keep the heat in.

Ladder

I feel that I need to have a ladder available because of the solar and fan on the roof, my middle brother and sister-in-law donated a collapsible ladder which I have mounted to the inside of the back driver door with these mounts. I don’t think they would hold up to daily use, but they are fine for once or twice a month pulling the ladder out and putting it back in.

Toilet

Ok this is a big one for plenty of people. I decided that I did want one in the van. There are cheaper ones, there are more expensive ones. This one works for me with a minimum of fuss and no smell except while you are using it. I have the “Basic” model, in white, installed in the van. I use pine or aspen shavings meant for pet bedding as my “medium” for solid waste. Cheap and easy to find at most Walmarts and any pet store. I am very pleased with it, it is well worth the money for me.

Refrigerator

I did not want to try and deal with keeping a supply of ice for a cooler. I did not want to go without any refrigeration. My solar system was sized so that I can run a 12v refrigerator 24/7 (among other things). So I decided on this Dometic fridge (technically I could use it as a freezer, it does allow me to set the temperature that low/cold). When I bought it it was cheaper than they are now, I paid $746.54. It has performed flawlessly and while I can hear it, it has become background noise and doesn’t bother me at all. I did order an extra 12v cord so that I could cut off the cheap 12v connector (meant to plug in to cigarette lighter type ports) and hard wire the fridge (with an appropriate fuse) directly into the solar system. It would void the warranty if I did it to the original cord.

So that’s how I have managed some of the daily life things that people have a hard time imagining while living in a van. I have been living in Bombadil for 9 months now, no regrets!

Now I Lay Me Down...

What kind of mattress to use and where to put your bed are serious topics of discussion in van building circles! Partly because a good nights sleep is so important, and partly because the bed is generally the largest thing inside a van (by volume).

While I am about average height for a woman (5’ 5”) I am the shortest person in my family. This has finally become a boon! It means I can sleep comfortably across the back of the van. I have several requirements for my bed. When I was still in the planning stages before I even had a van, and I was analyzing how I live in an apartment, I realized that while I of course sleep in bed, I also prefer to read, watch Netflix, dink around on my laptop and play my PS4 curled up in bed. I spend at least as much time sitting in bed doing things as I do sleeping. My van bed needed to allow for this reality. I also decided early on that I didn’t want to have to pull out/pull down (Murphy bed style), or otherwise “make up” my bed every time I use it. So the bed was going to be “always out”, fixed if you will, just like in a normal apartment/house. That means that I need to maximize the storage underneath, while not making it so high off the floor that I can’t sit straight up in bed.

I have never seen anyone else put in a bed like mine so I will detail the process as best I can. I came up with this idea partially based on some things I helped my youngest brother build when I worked for him building pipe organs, thanks for that B!

Here are the bones of it:

The bed platform without a mattress. Partial cabinet on the right.

From the rear.

I decided to put the bed over the wheel wells. While many people box in the wheel wells I needed more height than that for storage, and while I could have made the “box” high enough I felt that was a waste of space. I also didn’t want a support in the center of the bed interfering with the under bed storage, but with heavy use, particularly in the center, sagging was a real concern. One end of the battery restraint system that’s under the bed does come up almost to the bed rails and if the rails sagged much they would rest on that, if it came to that. I ended up using these squared steel tubes that I bought at True Value Hardware. Lowes and Home Depot have aluminum ones in 72'“ lengths but the steel ones they only carried in 48” lengths, though they did offer to order them for me. Aluminum flexed to much for my needs, so I got the steel. They come bare metal, I eventually painted mine black to avoid possible problems with rust due to condensation in the van.

First I made the sides (or head and foot depending on how you think about it) which are screwed to the walls of the van as well as having corner braces which bolt thru the floor of the van:

Here is how I made the cutouts for the steel rails using my jigsaw and a chisel:

I cut the steel rails to 69” with a hacksaw, tedious but not actually very difficult. I put some pieces of felt on the bottom of the notches and against the van walls so the steel tubes won’t rattle when driving. This made the frame without having to have a center support.

The frame of the bed (pre painting the rails and putting up the half wall).

The actual platform is 3/4 inch maple, I drilled some 1/2 inch holes for ventilation (again in case of condensation). Originally the platform was one solid piece, but once cabinets started going in I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get that piece out once all the cabinets were in so I cut it half so that if I need to remove it I can. The platform(s) is screwed into the 2x4 ends, I put more felt on the rails so that if the cut center bounced while driving it wouldn’t make noise.

I bought my “mattress” from FoamCenter.com, I bought 2 “camper” size mattress’ one 5 inch thick “Best Firm Quality” and one 4 inch thick “Best Medium Firm Quality” in order to get the density that is comfortable for me. They have a wide range of sizes/densities to choose from. No standard sheets fit this bed so I use a Full size flat sheet and tuck it in all around, it’s a bit of pain to change the sheet, but I only have to do it every few weeks.

With the addition of some pillows and handwoven blankets (thanks Mom!) my bed is very comfortable for sleeping and all around lounging!

A Sense of Place

I have been thinking a great deal about “place” in the last few months while I work in Colorado. The same place can garner a wide variety of reactions from people. The desert for instance:

“The region is altogether valueless. After entering it, there is nothing to do but leave.”
-LT. EDWARD BEALE, Congress report on Arizona, 1858”

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.”

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, The Little Prince

“...nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters...”
― JOHN GEDDES, A Familiar Rain

“Desert beauty was "sublime" in the way that the romantic poets had used the word -- not peaceful dales but rugged mountain faces, not reassuring but daunting nature, the earth's skin and haunches, its spines and angles arching prehistorically in sunlight.”

JULENE BAIR, The Ogallala Road: A Memoir of Love and Reckoning

High Desert in San Isabel National Forest, Colorado

Cities too garner a range of feelings:

“New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the likes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and above all, the ennui, the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters jobs, crimes, loves…A whole city erected over a hollow pit of nothingness.”

HENRY MILLER, Tropic of Cancer

“…New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there…. Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.”

EZRA POUND

We moved a fair amount when I was growing up, and as an adult I continued to criss cross the country. I can clearly remember both west and east coasts as well as the mountain west and most recently the south. For me all of the regions of the US have their beauties, and their cultural idiosyncrasies. I have found pleasure and awe in nearly every place I have ever lived or visited.

Lake Watauga, TN

Lightning Struck Tree in Yellowstone National Park

Coastal Maine

Ice Storm Winchester, VA

Bluff Above the Lower Falls Yellowstone National Park

Pre-Dawn Rocky Mountain National Park

Abandoned Barn Johnson City, TN

There is interesting research being done about our brains, sense of place and memory.

Many people connect to a place on a level that they cannot articulate, only feel. My sister is a self proclaimed “beach person”. It’s the place she loves the best, the place where she goes for peace and healing, the place she chooses to be when given the choice. I feel that way about the Rocky Mountains. The mountains feed something in me that goes hungry without them. Coming to Colorado after being in the South for many years has reminded me of how true that is. At the same time I live in a van so I can travel, I will not stay in Colorado.

“When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities.”

REBECCA SOLNIT

I will always come back to these high places, to these mountains, but I am to curious and restless a person to stay in one place anymore. Living in a van gives me the “comfortable habits” of a home place, but I can take those habits to a different location as often as suits me.

Fan, Lights and Wiring

So I waited and waited for a weekend without rain in the forecast to put in my fan since it requires cutting a hole in the roof. But time was running out and I had to take my chances. My housemates boyfriend worked in construction and he got some scaffolding from work for the weekend for free, and set it up for me Friday night after we got off work so I would have all day Saturday and Sunday. It wasn’t ideal, the height of the platform in the above picture was to high for me to cut the hole in the roof even laying on my stomach. The next rung down was to low to clear the roof. I ended up standing on that cross piece along the bottom of the window sorta laying against the side of the van. It was a struggle but I managed.

This is the fan I installed: MaxxFan I have been very happy with it, it hasn’t leaked even in very heavy rain, I can use it in the rain. I especially like being able to change the direction (pull outside air inside or vent inside air out) it makes the heat in the van a lot more bearable. I would absolutely recommend one.

So the fiberglass topper that I needed to put a 14x14 hole in, is in reality an outer shell and an inner shell (both fiberglass) with an air gap of varying size because the roof slopes, and the sides of the topper had pink house insulation to fill the gap. I assumed the top did as well but I wouldn’t know until I cut into it. Ideally the outer and inner shells should be cut together so the holes line up. A SawzAll or the like is the correct tool to do this with, but I don’t have one and didn’t want to buy one to cut one hole. Probably could have borrowed one, but I have no experience with one, and wasn’t keen on letting someone else cut an oh so permanent hole in my soon to be house. I do have and regularly use a jigsaw however. It turns out you can find really long jigsaw blades. I also had to get a really long drill bit ( large enough diameter for the starter holes for the large jigsaw blade as well, half inch was big enough if I wallered the holes a bit). I found these two items at Lowes for a total of $23.00. You can see pictures below with a normal size jigsaw blade for scale:

There aren’t as many pictures of the process as I might like because of scaffolding and being rushed by oncoming weather.

The installation instructions were very clear to me, I purchased extra butyl tape because my roof is sloped and you seal the resulting gap by building it up with butyl tape, I didn’t think the provided butyl tape was enough so I had extra on hand (and I did use the extra I bought). I went over everything I could think of that I might need ahead of time cause once the van was under scaffolding I couldn’t run out and get anything.

I spread out and taped up painting plastic inside the van because cutting fiberglass gets fiberglass everywhere. I used wide blue painting tape to help keep the cuts from splintering, I marked for the cuts on that tape. From there I followed the installation instructions, cutting the hole and installing the fan frame:

Then I cut the inside piece to match the slope of my roof as per the instructions. At this point the weather started to get dicey, complete with flood warnings. So I hustled to get the fan in and covered up so that the sealants could cure out of the rain.

The next day I did the wiring for the fan as well as wiring in LED lights. I used this kind of cord covering to tidy up the look of the wiring as well as keep it from being snagged accidentally.

The MaxxFan and the LED lights are hardwired into the solar system, the only “problem” I had was when pulling the wire behind the preexisting cabinet, one side went astray (they should both be on the left of the cabinet bottom support like the black solar panel wires), I redid it correctly. I also installed this USB and 12v charging station which I use for charging my cell phone, Kindle, camera and my backup charger.

I took the scaffolding down in the rain Sunday afternoon so I didn’t get any pictures from above of the completed fan, but here are a few pictures from the ground of the fan both open and closed taken some weeks later. I have no regrets about the fan, I would install again!

Kitchen and Plumbing

That’s the kitchen cabinet, plumbing, water storage, stove and all!

When I was in the planning stages I determined that I needed a real sink, big enough to brush my teeth and do dishes. And I wanted running water but I did not want to have to have electricity for it. I have seen plenty of people use a hand pump, they are inexpensive and simple to install. But if you have ever used one (they are often on sailboats) they are annoying in practice. Having to have one hand on the pump 2/3 of the time you use it makes things like washing your hands or dishes more complicated than you might think. Ultimately I decided to install a foot pump instead (also common on sailboats) so that I could have running water without electricity and I can use both hands!

The cabinet is not large, so finding a sink that was deep enough to wash my 3 pans but not to big to fit in the cabinet was a challenge. Bar/prep sinks were the ticket, although an expensive ticket! This is the one I used after several months of searching. It was pricey but it has performed very well.

The cabinet top is cherry butcher block, it was a gift from a dear friend who had just remodeled her kitchen. She had some leftover pieces which she offered me for free!

This is how I did it:

I decided for space reasons (there isn’t much) that this cabinet would block one of the two side doors of the van. For those who wonder this has not ended up bothering me in the slightest. I go in and out of the one side door multiple times a day without feeling cramped in the slightest. When I give the “Five Step Tour” of the van (two steps up, three steps to the back) no one has trouble getting in and out. The blocked door does still open, I use it when I am emptying the grey water tank as well as when I want a view while I cook in nice weather. The tricky thing was that the cabinet needed just one foot since it overhangs the step well.

The second tricky thing was mounting the foot pump. It’s a marine foot pump, meant to be bolted through a hull. While I did bolt the cabinet itself through the floor of the van, I tried to avoid any unnecessary holes through the floor since it’s a prime spot for rust to start. But the foot pump, because it’s generating your water pressure, has to be very firmly mounted (you are stepping on it over and over again as well) but still be accessible for maintenance. Several schematic drawings were involved before I came up with something workable and sturdy enough:

The pump is actually bolted to a piece of 2x4 which can be slid in and out of the restraining structure for maintenance.

I am using 4 of the white containers shown for fresh water for a total of 10 gallons of fresh water. The blue container is for grey water, it holds a little over 3 gallons. The smaller containers are easier to fill than 5+ gallon ones are. I did have to make sure they weren’t to tall to allow for the shelf for my stove.

In case of leaks I did not want the water system directly on the van floor so this cabinet has a raised floor lined with plastic to protect everything from moisture. You can also see where I bolted the cabinet thru the floor here:

I used the leftover half a sheet of paneling for the sides of the cabinet. It matches (naturally) and there’s no real stress on them that would require something sturdier.

The countertop piece that was gifted to me was to wide and not long enough. One of the guys at work has a wood shop out back of his house and used his band saw to cut the countertop for me. I planned to use part of the off cut and glue it to the end to make it long enough. The problem was it turns out I didn’t have a clamp long enough (almost…but not quite). So I cut out the hole for the sink (using the supplied template) and clamped from the hole instead. I then used 4 coats of wipe-on poly to seal the whole thing. Even with the band saw cuts and super tight clamping there were still some very small gaps, I filled these with kitchen silicone to keep crumbs etc. from getting in there. I thought the difference in texture might bother me, but it doesn’t. The clips that came with the sink for attaching it to the counter would not work in the very tight confines of the cabinet so I ended up using the corner shaped pieces you see in the picture instead as they are so much smaller.

I attached the countertop with multiple corner braces and hung one door on each side for easy access to fill fresh water, empty grey water and get my stove out when I am going to cook (it sits on the shelf over the fresh water containers).

Next step was installing the faucet. Here I encountered an unexpected problem. When I ordered the faucet I had looked at the directions for installation, noted the size hole I would need to drill so that I was sure there was enough room for said hole when I cut the big hole for the sink. That part was all fine. The threaded section that is used to clamp the faucet to a countertop wasn’t long enough to clamp to my butcher block counter…

There was no longer room to use a hole saw to remove some material underneath because the sink and stove shelf had already been installed. I didn’t want to do it from the top and essentially countersink the faucet cause all kinds of crap would get down in the hole and there’s no good way to clean it out. There was un-ladylike language! There were pictures and text messages exchanged with my youngest brother to come up with possible solutions. What I ended up doing was drilling the hole where originally marked. Then I took a piece of wood, chiseled out a countersink hole in the bottom to allow room for the nut to be tightened (I couldn’t find a hole saw small enough and a forester bit of the correct size was $40 which was more than I was willing to spend for something I needed to use once). Then I essentially clamped the faucet to the piece of wood, painted the wood and then fed it down the hole and screwed the piece of wood to the countertop (I didn’t want to glue/epoxy incase I need to tighten/fix/replace the faucet). Not what I had in mind in the beginning, but it was the best solution I could come up with and it works fine.

I saved the chunk I cut out for the sink and glued some pieces of old pack strap to the back, giving me a sink cover I can use when I want the counter space. The butcher block is an inch and a half thick so just finger cut outs weren’t enough to lift something that heavy out, the straps work great and aren’t in the way.

Then I just needed to plumb from the sink to the grey water container. I used this RV part to do that. I had to cut and modify it a bit, but it ended up working perfectly for super cheap!

That’s it! I have been brushing my teeth, washing my hands and dishes for months and months now. No problems, no leaks!

I put up some pegboard on the side door in front of this cabinet. I put spices (and my toothbrush) here so that when I am cooking inside Bombadil they are right there over the sink. But if I am cooking outside on my collapsible table I can open that door and have the spices right there as well!

Working Nomadic

This was the view from the parking lot when I started my new job!

I have been working on the van build posts, but the purpose of Bombadil is to travel. So I gave notice at my full time job, and at the end of April I left NC. I spent some time with family in ID, and then I headed for Colorado! I have a seasonal job in Buena Vista for a rafting company. I live on the outpost in my van in the parking lot. Like most things it has ups and downs, but the views are amazing!

I will work here until September when the rafting season ends. I am working as a “Guest Services Representative”. I get people checked in, have them sign waivers, stock and sell merchandise, clean bathrooms, make lunches for all-day trips, answer questions and give directions, help people with their GoPros…etc etc. It pays slightly better than minimum wage.

Yep that’s considerably less than I was making at my full time job. But I make enough to pay my expenses, to chip away at my (modest) debt and put a little into my savings account every month. And after work I can do things like drive to/hike around in San Isabel National Forest!

I work 4 ten hour shifts and then have 3 days off. That leaves me plenty of time for relaxing in my hammock by the Arkansas River:

And hiking in the National Forests and BLM land all around this area. This is Bombadil at a trailhead near Cottonwood Lake, and pictures from the hike:

People are curious how I find seasonal/temporary work. I am sure there are plenty of different ways to do this, but what has worked for me are these websites:

Coolworks and FlexJobs.

I interviewed for 4-5 different jobs before I chose my current one. The interviews were all either by phone or FaceTime since I wanted to work in the West somewhere and I was in NC at the time, but employers thru these websites expect that kind of hiring process. It has worked well for me so far, I have jobs scheduled through the end of the year at 3 different places counting here in Colorado. The nice thing is if any of them are awful, it won’t last long before I am on to the next place. This is a real positive as far as I am concerned!

Cabinets

Having enough storage, or more accurately having the right storage is one of the things that makes van living comfortable for me personally.

Many people are comfortable using rubbermaid tubs for just about everything. But I hate digging thru them for whatever it is that I want, so while I have a few, they are only for specific things. Otherwise I built in cabinets of various kinds depending on what they are for and where in the van they are going.

Because the van has a fiberglass hightop I wanted some “upper cabinets” to take advantage of that space, but I do not want to make it top heavy at all. So I thought about what sorts of light things I could put up high. I wanted to evenly distribute the weight of the heavy things on both sides of the van as well. The gas tank is on the drivers side (although the weight of that fluctuates with the gas level) The two house batteries are the heaviest single objects in the van they sit on the floor on the drivers side. Water storage is the second heaviest, it sits on the floor on the passenger side.

I ended up using two different construction methods for cabinetry. One was standard wood (with 1x2’s for the most part) which is heavier and quite sturdy, and then one with foam, paint and fiberglass screening, which is very light and remarkably sturdy, if not quite up to the loads of full on wood.

I made 2 foam cabinets, one upper and one lower for the drivers side where I wanted less weight. I did those first.

Here are a couple of Youtube links that I watched first before I attempted this:

Into The Mystery Link

Nomad Link

I had never built anything this way before, so I watched the Youtubes and then tried it! The materials are cheap enough that I was not afraid to try and fail a few times if necessary! I used a combination of both methods. I am not going to go over everything in the Youtube videos here, if this construction method is something you are interested in I highly recommend watching them yourself. I am just going to show you how it went for me:

You may remember these from an earlier post:

These are the bottom supports for the upper cabinet on the drivers side. I put them in first in case I needed to notch the paneling for them. I didn’t end up needing to do that thankfully, but it’s easier to notch while the paneling is still flat and not screwed to the wall! These supports are screwed and glued directly to the steel body of the van (yes I had to pre-drill all those holes…self tapping screws…not so much with actual self tapping) like so:

I attached the front piece with L brackets and then used Gorilla Glue to attach two pieces of wood to the fiberglass interior (after a couple of months these started to pull away from the fiberglass, it wasn’t a huge deal since the weight is actually borne on the bottom supports but I reattached them with Iron Grip and that has lasted much better for much longer) like so:

The fiberglass roof is angled so this cabinet is the least square (by necessity) and was the second most complicated! So naturally there were cardboard mockups first!

I dry fit the whole thing before I painted/glued it together:

I tried out the crumpled paper type finish (see this Youtube video) on this cabinet. All the clear coats I tried yellowed noticeably which I did not care for. I kept the cabinet since it was complete when the yellowing began, but I didn’t use this finish on any other cabinets/shelves in the van. Most people cover cabinets made with foam/screen because they don’t like the texture of the painted screen. I actually quite like the texture but it would be hard to clean so in my other cabinets I covered the surfaces with shelf liner from Walmart which is easily cleaned/replaced.

The cabinet underneath this one has the gas tank inlet where I put in the solar power components mounted on a flat board which I detailed in the post about solar power. On either side there is storage shelving and a stand for my 12v refrigerator, respectively.

All of the cabinet handles are driftwood collected by my parents while they were on their belated honeymoon in coastal CA and OR. They sent me a small boxful when they got back and I picked through and used what I could as handles. I love the greyed wood and it goes well with both my paneling and flooring. They are unique and personally meaningful.

For the top of this cabinet I used old 18th century maps of the north when it was simply “unexplored region” that I picked up on eBay many years ago thinking “I’m gonna do something cool with these some day”. I love poring over maps and am fascinated by old ones in particular. I laid them out so that I could see as many of them as possible and then screwed clear plexiglass down over the top to give them some protection.

The kitchen cabinet was a more traditional cabinet with some special needs and I will cover it in a post about my kitchen/plumbing set-up later.

I put up a shelf over the passenger side rear window, it is just a normal wood shelf:

There is a small lip on the open edge of the shelf but not enough to keep things on the shelf if I had to swerve very much so I put a hook in each side and run a bungee across to keep things in when I am on the road.

There is a sort of cubby above the seats made by the hightop/roof when it was installed. I decided to put my dishes and pots and pans up here, but I needed to pad it so things are quiet and secure when driving. First I made a sort of screen with some stiff mesh and White Gorilla tape on the edges. Then I cut a couple of pieces of 2x4, painted them, drilled countersunk holes for bolts and Iron Gripped those to each side. I Iron Gripped a painted piece of 1x2 along the bottom and a piece of metal along the top. I attached the mesh on the bottom by screwing it into the wood with some washers at the bottom. The sides are held by acorn nuts and the top by magnets like so:

When I am parked for more than a day or so I usually just leave this area open the mesh doesn’t hang down far enough to interfere with anything. But with it held up with the magnets and acorn nuts even in a hard braking or swerving situation nothing would come out. It’s a comfortable mix (for me) of convenience and security.

Solar Power and Batteries

All with the power of the sun!!!

So first let me give you some links which were very helpful for me when installing my solar power system:

• This is a general overview of installing solar power, I did end up using Renogy panels myself, although I bought them off Amazon for the free shipping.

• This breaks down the difference between mono and poly solar panels.

• This was the first example I had seen of mounting the solar panels without screws/holes in the roof except for where the cables come in, note that they installed on a metal roof, I installed on a fiberglass roof using essentially the same method.

• This entire blog is full of useful information and is worth reading through if you are interested in converting a van yourself, but here is the link for the solar power. I cannot stress enough just how helpful this guide was for me. My set-up is very close to this one, I simply adapted it for my space and my power needs. I did not attach my solar panels to the roof the same way they did, I went with the method above.

Solar power was the most expensive single item that I put into the van, and it is worth every penny for me personally. Here is a list of the big/important things for this installation and what they cost me when I bought them (prices fluctuate):

• Charge Controller and Solar Panel Kit $566.99

• Additional Solar Panel x1 Renogy 100w Mono-crystalline $134.04

• Flexible Solar Panel x1 Allpower 100w Mono-crystalline $184.37

• Batteries x2 Vmax 155ah $699.99

• Mounting Tape x2 3M VHB 4950 $38.50

I spent another $300 or so on wire, terminals, fuses, switches and the like. All together the solar power system came up to just under $2000.00. It should be noted that I also have an inverter which my middle brother Sterling gifted me when he was helping me install the system, that is not included in the amount above.

What I ended up with when I was finished was 300w of solar permanently attached to the roof and one additional 100w flexible panel with an extension cord so that I can park the van in the shade (if any is available) and run that one flexible panel out into the sun so I am still getting some charge, for a total of 400w of solar. 310ah worth of batteries (keep in mind that because these are AGM batteries they should never be discharged below 50% or it will shorten the battery life, so it’s 155 usable ah of batteries). This handily powers a 12v fridge, LED lights, and a Maxxfan. It recharges my laptop, phone and Kindle as well. I have an inverter so I can use 110 powered items like a tv, PS4 or anything else I want to plug in this way. Because of the power loss when converting from 12v to 110 (AC) I only use those things during the day when it’s sunny so as not to unduly drain my batteries.

I don’t have to many pictures of the install process because we were constantly racing the rain (of course). We started out ok…

My brother is over 6 feet tall, and he has many ladders, we used several of them for the installation since the roof is 9 feet 5 inches tall without anything on top of it! We measured and dry fit the panels on the roof, leaving room for the fan to be installed later. Then we put the brackets on the solar panels and the 3M tape onto the brackets. Then we hoisted the panels up on the roof and put them down where we had marked for the brackets. We pressed them down as well as using a roller to get enough pressure since they couldn’t be clamped. Then we sealed around the brackets with Dicor.

Then it started to look serious about raining…of course!

Once the panels were up we zip-tied the cords together and marked where the hole for the wiring needed to go and drilled the hole through both layers of the roof and then mounted the gland to keep the roof water-tight.

I used Eterna-bond tape to hold the wires down so they won’t flap/move while driving. By this point the rain moved in so we covered the roof with a tarp so the Dicor could cure and started work on the inside. I didn’t make a true battery “box” but just a frame to keep the batteries from moving if I were to be in an accident. The wooden frame is bolted all the way thru the floor of the van since batteries are extremely heavy!

The solar charge controller, main shut-off switch, fuse block and fuses are all mounted to a board which leans against the gas tank inlet so as not to waste that space, the cabinet keeps it from sliding and keeps it all neat and clean. The completed cabinet looks nicer than this, but cabinets will be a different post!

Here is the inverter on its custom made shelf. Both the batteries and the inverter are under the bed in the finished van.

And here is a closeup of the wiring:

The solar installation took us 2 days in total and the solar panels have remained firmly attached to the roof for more than 5000 miles so far. So far this has been enough power for me except when there’s been more than 4 days of rain/clouds in a row. So for me it has been absolutely worth it!

Special thanks to my brother for lending his height, muscle and second opinion on this!

Van Layout - What, Where?

The 18 months that I worked on the van included the wettest year in recorded history in Asheville…imagine my delight. I very nearly took my brothers helpful suggestions regarding scuba gear and canoes for getting work done on Bombadil.

One of the few things that I could do in this kind of weather is think about layout for the van. I believe that one of the keys to ending up with a living space that is truly comfortable for me is some honest self appraisal and cardboard mock-ups.

My van is not large enough to have everything that I can have in an apartment. So what things do I need and what things are really important to me? What things in my apartment do I use every day? How do I spend my time in the apartment? The last one was particularly important to assess honestly. Many people who consider van dwelling plan according to how they think they will spend their time in a van. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but going from living in an apartment to living in a van doesn’t instantly change who you are or what makes you happy and comfortable, nor does it automatically make you spend more time doing the things you think you will want to do when you start traveling. I knew that I was not going to be able to immediately quit my full time job and start traveling. So essentially nothing was going to change for me except where I lived. I was also starting van dwelling in winter in a place where the winters are cold enough that I was going to be spending most of it inside.

For me this meant an interior where I can sit with my feet up, curl up with my kindle, spread out my laptop and my fountain pens and inks, cook real food and then wash the dishes. Because I am a tiny bit organized, I made lists of things that needed to fit into the van and thought about the best way to store them. I made piles of things like “kitchen stuff” in the apartment to get a realistic idea of how much space I would need for these things.

Eventually I made cardboard mock-ups of the big “fixed” items (fridge, toilet, sink/kitchen cabinet etc.) that needed to go into the van and started experimenting with different layouts. The only thing I had decided for sure was that the bed (I will be doing a separate post about the bed) was going across the wheel-wells since I am short enough to comfortably sleep that way. Everything else was subject to change.

I also decided early on to put in a half wall (it is not actually half the width of the van) to serve both as a back/side to the bed and as a storage area in the rear (I call it my garage) where I can store things meant to be used outside, my folding chair and table, the flexible solar panel etc.

This is basically the layout that I ended up with. It doesn’t show the upper cabinets or the platform I ended up putting the fridge on so I could have storage underneath. This layout allowed a bed,/lounge space I can sit straight up in, put my feet up, or curl up. I made the 2 cabinets that face each other the same height so that I can lay a flat “tabletop” across them to make a “desk” when I want/need one. Everything that I personally need to be comfortable!