She built THIS during Covid lockdown 15k Vardo Wagon Tour

Hey there, Jenna here. Welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny houses and creative homes. In today's video you're going to meet Stephanie. Last year, during the pandemic, she found herself out of work and with a lot of extra time. So unlike the rest of us in lockdown who spent plenty of time on our butts binge-watching TV, Stephanie actually did something productive. She learned how to build a custom bardo that has a ton of character, plenty of If you like these kind of videos, make sure that you subscribe and hit that bell so that you get a notification every time I post a new video. So let's meet Stephanie and take a tour. Hi, I'm Stephanie and this is Misty, my tiny wagon. The reason why I built this tiny wagon was because I wanted to start traveling again. Part of my travel I did in a van, but I'm a little bit older now and so I wanted a little bit more comfort. The reason that I built this during COVID was because my business went completely down. I thought to myself, what do I do with my extra time? This is a perfect solution for me because it's lightweight. You can pull it with a car or a truck and it is possible to build that by yourself. Roof is going up. I'm so excited. I don't really have much of a background in building. I did remodel a couple of homes by myself. I'm really handy and I just did some research on the internet and this is what happened. It turned out to cost me around $15,000. Wherever I go, Misty is a people magnet. I always have people knocking at the door. They want to see it. They want to talk to me about how I did that and I have met so many people. I love showing it off. This is my masterpiece. Of course, I'm proud of it. Let's go on a tour. Come on in. Welcome to the inside of Misty, my tiny wagon. She is 84 square feet. What makes it feel more spacious is because it's built at an angle with a rounded roof. I'm 4'11", and so I'm kind of on the shorter side anyway, so to me it feels huge in here, the space. I used birch plywood on the walls, so very light, and the ceiling as well. It's very thin birch plywood. I added some aromatic cedar and it smells really good in here too when you come in. Luckily, I bought all the wood before the prices went up. I purposely placed four windows actually on each side, one so that I have airflow no matter where the wind is coming from. And when I cook, I wanted to have some airflow here and I wanted to be able to look out the window. I built everything myself. The only thing I didn't do is the installation of the roof and the propane gas lines. This is a three-way fridge, so it can be run by gas, 12 volt or 120. Right now, it's run by propane. Both of my appliances run with propane and I really love this stove. What I don't like so much about it, and I did not know when I ordered it, is I only have that much space to bake. The sink is copper. It's handmade. I ordered it directly from Egypt. I have a food pump for the water and two five-gallon containers underneath for fresh water and a five-gallon container for gray water. Misty is completely off-grid. If I fill up everything, I can spend about five days. The countertop is an epoxy pour, like a river table that I did myself. I learned a lot of lessons doing that because I had leaks and it leaked all over the floor and I crawled underneath and I tried to stop the leaks and I had epoxy everywhere in my hair and all over my body. So, if you have questions about epoxy but not to do, you can ask me. Would you do it again if you could? Yes, but not in place. I would do it in a garage or a workshop and then install it. The spice rack is magnetic and on Misty's Maiden Voyage, all of these turned and I ended up coming into the wagon and I had a huge pile of spices here. So, I haven't filled them up yet because I'm not sure if I'm gonna use them. Some people wonder about the dishes and it takes me two minutes to pack them away but I wanted space to be open. The shelf allows that. The whole wagon has lots and lots of storage. I really wanted that and so here I have my pots and some other kitchen knickknacks. I splurged and I got a little spice rack in here that I love. Under here is storage. Here I have all my tech stuff. I have another power pack. I have my body heater. Under here I have, you know, cooking oils, my potatoes, onions. This is my pantry and over here are my toiletries. So, instead of just adding a curtain, this has a purpose too. It's a towel. Just like over here, I have a towel that I can dry my dishes with or my hands and underneath I have my port-a-potty, my flushable port-a-potty and my garbage and way in back there, I mean, I'm short so I don't mind, I have two closets where I can hang my clothes. So, here I have more storage. First of all, two more drawers. I have all kinds of knickknacks here, things that I haven't even tried yet but and on the other side I have my towels and toilet paper. This is how I access my clothing. So, I can pull these out. This is the one on the other side. I have my pants over here. I also have a pull-out table here. So, this is also an epoxy pour but this one was easier to deal with. However, I made it a little bit too tall for me so this is what happens if I sit down. I'm gonna eat like this but it's okay. Originally, I had planned to wire everything and I actually did wire everything and I had somebody hired to install solar panels on the roof and he bailed out on me. So, what I did, I cut all the wires off, stuffed them in the wall and decided to go completely mobile. So, these lights, these LED lights are actually remote controlled. At night, these little LED lights is all I need. It's really romantic in here and then I have rechargeable LED light bulbs and they're also remote controlled. I love little gadgets like this. So, these are the solar panels for the LED light bulbs and the light bulbs look like this and you just plug it in, put it out in the sun and there you have light. I wanted to have a little bit of separation for the bed, for the sleeping area and I thought an arch would be really nice. I was thinking about my dog, Ralphie and I wanted him to be able to jump up on the bed by himself without me having to lift him up all the time. So, I built this little ramp for him. You can pull it out. What I do now though, instead of leveling it, I put it across the chairs here and he actually can jump up. So, this is my sleeping area. I have a full-size mattress and it's a memory foam mattress and it's super comfortable. I'm really happy with it. More storage over here. Like I said, I wanted to have lots of storage. So, here I put my underwear, pajamas, t-shirts. This lamp is, I believe, from Morocco. It's made out of glass and it looks very, very pretty at night. Now, these mirrors are also from Morocco and this lamp is handmade from India. So, we're international here. I have traveled to about 28 countries. So, I've traveled the world, been around. So, when I ordered the blinds, they were custom-made to order and they turned out to be a little white. So, I wanted to decorate them and I ordered a mandala stencil and just painted the stencil on it. The arch itself, when I built it, it wasn't that hard. However, it needed two people to install the sheets, the plywood sheets. You know, I built it myself. I'm not a professional builder. So, everything is slightly out of angle. So, I had like gaps everywhere and I had to, you know, cover it all up with trim. That's what trim is for. Let me show you my Dutch door. Some of the advantages of having a Dutch door is that I can close the bottom part and still have airflow and my dog can't run out. So, when I bought the trailer, it was a toy hauler and it had a ramp, a metal ramp that I cut off, but I kept those hinges here and added a fold-out deck. So, when I'm driving, when I'm traveling, I just fold it up. Takes two minutes and I can hit the road. It's very simple, very easy to do. It adds about 30 more square feet to my space, my living space. So, this is where I relax. It's so comfortable. I can sit here, listen to music, read a book and just enjoy being out in nature. So, the exterior is cedar tongue and groove. I did not want to paint it because paint always peels off. I wanted to have it low maintenance. So, I have to add a layer of stain every year to protect the wood. But other than that, it's very carefree. I wanted to soften the edges here a little bit. So, I just came up with this cutout. I have my little swirls everywhere and they are actually really handy for hanging things. I can hang towels to dry or Ralphie's leash or whatever. I always set up a hummingbird feeder wherever I go and they always find it. MISTI is completely insulated. I have four inches of insulation in the roof and two inches in the walls and the floor. Like I said, storage is really important for me. So, I have as much exterior storage than interior storage. These jacks I set up when I stay for a few days because it takes the pressure off of the tires and the wagon is not so wobbly. There's more storage over here. I store my propane bottles here. I still have more space. I'll add another shelf and add something else. With the propane, I power my appliances inside the fridge and the range. However, I also have propane gas lines on the exterior so I can hook up my exterior oven. I can hook up my portable water heater and my portable gas fire pit. This is a Camp Chef outdoor stove and oven. You have the cooking area up here and the oven and I actually can bake a bread in here if I want to. This would hook up to my outdoor propane line. This is my outdoor shower set up. This is a portable water heater. So, this is the pump that you put in the water and it sucks the water out, runs it through the unit and heats up the water. I have a spitchet here. I can use it for washing dishes and if I want to take a shower, I just connect the shower head and I can take a shower with a swimsuit on. My plan was to build a space where I feel safe and that cheers me up. That makes me smile when I enter and it does and I'm really happy about that. So, if you are interested in building one, if I can do it, you can do it. I hope you enjoyed this week's tour. Make sure to tune in next week for another tiny or creative home tour.