The final product
Time was not on my side blog-wise. I literally finished the last bit of work a day before starting my roadtrip around New Zealand, so it took me a little while to write about the last phase of building.
The upside is that the pictures of the final product were taken after I started the roadtrip so they really depict the actual situation in the van.
The kitchen is all set now. The drawer is stable and holds the weight of the gas bottle and the cooking gear (the pantry is a cooler of veggies and a bag of dry food, which is inside the van). The sink and the water system is working perfectly, supplying drinking water and dish-washing water for a few days. Two weeks in, I still didn’t need to empty the grey water tank, which is great.
The shelves are doing a great job holding stuff I probably don’t need, but it’s nice to have a place to put stuff you accumulate along the way. I got some storage boxes from various opshops, which is also make a good souvenirs.
The bed is very sturdy and there’s lots of storage space underneath. In the pictures you can see the red cooler and the white bag which are the pantry that I mentioned earlier. I got the storage boxes underneath from opshops and they fit perfectly under the bed. That’s where my wardrobe and camping gear sits, basically.
The curtains and the bed were the last bit of work I did just before leaving. As my design suggested the curtains are fixed to a wire on both the top and the bottom, so they are blocking all of the light when closed. It’s kinda tricky to take pictures of the bed, but it’s comprised of three big pillows and it’s comfortable and spacious.
This is me working with a sewing machine for the first time, while altering the bed mattress, which was stressful and exciting at the same time. I’m glad I could add it to the repertoire of tools I worked with during this project.
This is the ceiling, decorated with fairy lights which is a must in every house on wheels.
And that’s it. I’m very grateful for being able to make a campervan with my own two hands. I learned a lot about design, carpentry, plumbing, and using tools, and also learned a lot about myself in the process of building stuff.
I’m also thankful for my friends who helped me along the way, the more I think about it, the more I realized how impossible it would have been without them.
A special thanks to my neighbor, Kartik, which is a builder and a jack-of-all-trades, who helped me a lot with his knowledge and let me use his tools. He invested a lot of time and effort and I don’t think I would have finished the project in the quality and the time that I did without his help.
