VAN BUILD: The soft stuff
When Spencer and I hosted our wedding last September, we opted for canvas drop-cloth tablecloths rather than awful polyester rented ones for roughly the same price. It worked out really well for our camp wedding, and then we were left wondering what to do with all these drop-clothes!
When we bought them, I had high hopes that we would re-use them for some cool project in the future, even if it was simply for their original dropcloth purpose. Little did I know we’d be dying them and reconfiguring them into various soft things for the van!
We spent a crazy weekend with my parents in Yorktown, my mom sewing pretty much nonstop for three days. We bought 2" upholstery foam and cut and sewed a cover to fit the bench seat. We had some extra, so we used it to make cushions for the back as well. We closed them with industrial velcro to make them easy to remove and wash. We then dyed the covers with liquid Rit Dye. We mixed some small batches first to get the proportions right before going for it with the newly sewn covers.
Then we switched to the curtains, which we insulated using Thinsulate. These were significantly more challenging! But worth it in the end. We made inset covers for the back and sliding door windows, a rectangular cover for the side window, and two gigantic curtains to thermally separate the cab from the rest of the van.
The strategy for the smaller window covers was to sew pockets for the Thinsulate, then dye the fabric, then insert the insulation into the pockets. For the gigantic curtains, we opted for sewing very long darts into the material after it was dyed, with a full roll of insulation in the curtain. This proved to be a bit too much for the sewing machine, but my mom wrestled them through with great determination while we cheered her on. We later installed snap-head screws in the plastic above the cab, which the curtains snap to. These have proved invaluable — the cab heats up so significantly and so quickly, plus the curtains allow us to create privacy very quickly by hanging them up. We like the snaps rather than a curtain rod scenario because then the curtains can be fully removed and laid on the bed when not in use!
We were planning on installing magnets in the other window covers in order to stick them to the van body, but instead used these mega magnet hooks to simply stick them up! These are really handy to have around, so it worked out well in the end.
In retrospect, this was a huge amount of work when we probably could have purchased something (ie, an insulated blanket) to reconfigure for not too much money. But it was a fun (if crazy) project and it felt good to reuse something from our wedding!
