Van Conversion – The Final Chapter -

Wow!! this has been an epic journey requiring a huge amount of time and effort to get this beast finished. Join me now for the next instalment of the Van conversion – the final chapter.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE BED

Building the bed was a milestone in the conversion. It meant that we could order the mattresses. The bed was made in two parts. One was a fixed section at the rear of the van that has a lift up lid for storage as well as a small door at the back for storage of the gas bottle and other things. Em refers to that as her garage!!!

All timber for the bed was purchased from Bunnings. Tongue and groove pine lining boards (also used on the ceiling) were used to enclose this structure. 12mm Plywood was used on top of this unit and hinged to allow access to the storage underneath. A shelf was also added to the end of the bed that could be lowered for the gas cooker if Em wanted to cook outside or used as a table for other things.

The next step was the section between the end of the bed and the fridge which was to be constructed as a pullout so that the bed will be a small double bed in size. There was also another cupboard door constructed so that storage could be accessed.

SHELVING UNIT BESIDE BED

Emily wanted somewhere to store books, art supplies and swimmers so they would be close at hand. They ended up constructing a shelving unit out of melamine and used the same Bunnings benchtop as the kitchen. The shelving unit also would hide the wheel arch on this side. It ended up being a good amount of storage.

OVERHEAD KITCHEN STORAGE

To store all her food Emily wanted an overhead cupboard. Tony and Em constructed this cupboard from plywood. A router was used to make two channels for the doors to be able to be able to slide open.

ADDING AN AWNING

Emily wanted to have an awning that would provide some additional shade when she is in the one place for a while. The one she chose was from Anaconda and was the DUNE 2m x 2m. Installing the awning was a little tricky as holes had to be drilled through the roof. To achieve a good attachment they left a part of the ceiling exposed so that the awning could be attached directly to the metal uprights.

KITCHEN TILING

To give the kitchen a bit of colour Emily chose a colourful tile pattern from Stick on Luxury . They were a little tricky to attach in such a small area and we did need 14 tile sheets so that we could match up the tabs etc. However, the colour and effect was definitely worth the effort. Paired with the pink linen curtains they look gorgeous. The fridge Em purchased was a Dometic fridge freezer.

FLYSCREENS

Em will be taking the van to Uluru and spending a lot of time at the beach, so we felt that flyscreens were essential. They did prove tricky though as she had to be able to remove them to open the windows. To solve the problem we purchased magnets designed for the purpose and flyscreen mesh. Unfortunately the magnets would not stick to the rubber nor the flyscreen!!! Plan B was to use the hot glue gun but that wouldn’t hold on the rubber either. In the end we found this Selley’s product from Bunnings and that held the magnet to the rubber. We were then able to use the hot glue gun to stick the magnet to the flyscreen. We also used some black stretch ribbon from Spotlight to cover the joins and neaten the finished product. Thankfully they worked a treat.

CURTAINS

The window curtains were all straight forward. We used curtain wire with hooks and eyelets from Spotlight. The fabric also came from spotlight and Emily chose a neutral block out fabric. We sewed pockets to thread the wire through the tops of all four curtains. Two of them would just hang loose and two required another pocket at the bottom.

We purchased pre made block out curtains from Spotlight and hung them on a curtain rod to separate the cabin from the back area. This meant all we had to do was reduce the length. I made tie backs out of the extra fabric to keep them out of the way when Emily is driving. I also did this for the curtains we made for the back of the van.

Making a curtain for the sliding door was a little more difficult. We were not able to attach the curtain to the door because there was not enough space to still allow it to slide. The solution we came up with not only looks great but works really well too. We used a small piece of timber cut to the length of the opening which would be attached the timber above the door. Emily found three old leather belts at Vinnies.

Tony used a router to make channels in the timber for the belts so that it would all still sit neatly against the side of the van. We then attached heavy duty velcro to the timber. Block out curtain material the same as used on the other windows was used to make a big rectangle and velcro was attached to the top. The curtain could then be rolled up and out of the way when coming and going through the door.

VAN CONVERSION – THE FINAL CHAPTER – ALL THE PRETTY THINGS

The fun bit of the whole build was the decorating and bringing in all the pots and pans. Em and I glued rope to cover any timber joins that were not so perfect. Fairly lights were also added. I hope you enjoy all the pictures of the final product.