Living in the van BEFORE the full build.

After the completion of the bed platform and the floors I decided to live in the van for a while to see what I needed and where I wanted it. I used some temporary plastic drawers and most of my camping gear to cook and stay compact. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to live a minimalist lifestyle. Only bringing in what I need when I need it led me to examine all of the non-essential items in my life, and getting rid of everything was incredibly liberating.

Prior to living full time in the van I owned a 2004 Infiniti FX35, I would frequently go weekend camping. After a while I got tired of the constant loading and unloading all my camping gear in my vehicle so I lowered my back seats and built out a micro camper. This gave me the freedom to go whenever I wanted without all the wasted time of packing up the car.

By using the items I already owned I did not put a lot of money into the van at first. The most expensive thing I bought, aside from the van itself was a portable power bank. It was roughly $200 on amazon and it powered / recharged all of my lights, my fan as well as my phone and laptop. The bottom line is that you do not have to put thousands of dollars into a fancy professional build.

If you live in your van as you build it out it is difficult to say the least but well worth it when you realize how you move, sit & sleep. What works for you, what doesn't. It was great for me because I have Groot so it made it easy to see what makes the most sense for our life. How we can co exist in a short top van. I changed the items in the van so many times! Moved stuff around so much I felt like I was nesting.

After a while I realized needed a "kitchen" area to prepare & cook food when I am inside the van. So I took the left over 3/4" plywood and built a small space specifically for the kitchen. It was too difficult to bring all the food and the dog and the picnic gear out to a park bench just to prepare my meal, then lug it all back into the van when I was done. Within this space I have two cabinets, one for the propane tank and one as the pantry and one large drawer for my cookware, plates, utensils and Tupperware. This along with all of the other projects took forever! But honestly no matter how long these projects are taking me I am having a great time doing them.