the van build continues... insulating framing my tiny home on wheels

Hello and welcome back to the van build series. If you're new here, my name is Steffi and I'm currently turning a Ram ProMaster into a tiny home and this week we're going to be doing all the insulation and the framing of the van. I'm going to insulate the entire thing so that I don't freeze to death in the winter and we're going to frame all the walls and furniture so it'll all be supported. I think it's going to be a lot of work but I'm excited to learn some things and I think it's going to look a lot more close to finished once this is all done so let's go. First stop, the hardware store. I think we've been here at least a dozen times in the last few weeks and the employees are probably wondering why this weird looking dreadlocked tattooed girl is always here but anyways we got a bunch of wood to start framing the walls and the bed of the van. Most of these are two by fours along with some poplar wood and a bunch of screws. The biggest thing in the van is the bed because I'm using a full-size mattress and I want it to fit in the van crosswise so we had to figure out a way to design it so that that would be possible. The width of the van is about the same as the width of the mattress so we had to figure out a way to like make it so the walls would work and it's hard to explain but you'll see. The bed is coming along nicely. This is Artie by the way, he's helping me with framing everything and he's way better at this stuff than me so I'm really grateful to have his assistance here. Here he is starting to build the frame for the bench slash storage box that's going to go next to the bed and for the insulation I started cutting one inch poly iso, the same stuff we used for the subfloor, and sticking it into the larger areas of the wall. It was pretty secure on its own but I also used gorilla tape to secure it even more. Meanwhile Artie started framing the walls and the ceiling by cutting the wood and securing it with liquid nail and screws. This is important because this is what the wall paneling will attach to once we get to that step. The next morning. I continued with the insulation board and the reason that I decided to use poly iso is mostly because it's cheaper than most other insulation options and it has a good R value, meaning it insulates very well. There's a lot of controversy in the van life community about what insulation is best to use but I feel like it doesn't really matter, you don't have to use the super expensive stuff, this stuff will still work just as well. But I did realize as I was doing this that I needed something to fill in the smaller areas of the van and the poly iso board wasn't gonna fit so I went out to the hardware store for the millionth time and I grabbed some spray foam. Spray foam costs about four dollars a can and I think I used around 20 of them total. I just filled in all the gaps that the foam board couldn't fit in and this stuff is so messy so it was kind of a pain to work with but it also makes a cool sound when it comes out of the can and it reminds me of whipped cream which is exciting. But yeah I did that and then I finished insulating the poly iso board sections and the ceiling and then I bought yet again another type of insulation. This is the pink stuff, it probably has a real name but I just call it the pink stuff. This is a very common type of insulation for like houses and stuff but it is made of fiberglass which isn't great for the lungs so I didn't want to use it on the whole van. I just used it in the doors and a couple smaller areas in the corners of the van. It was really easy to work with which was nice but I definitely wish I wore a mask because I could feel it in my throat after and it was just not a great feeling. Then I spray painted the covers for the door to make them look a little nicer and I put those on over the pink stuff and then we bought some more pink stuff but in board form. Why I opted to get four different kinds of insulation for my van I'm not sure but yeah we got this to make a wall section around the bed because the bed is so wide we had to make this area around it a little bit different than the rest of the van so we used this board to make a piece to go around the windows and covered it in this fake leather stuff to make something like this and then we stuck it to the wall using liquid nail and that's it for the insulation finally. And the final step of this week is adding cabinets and a sink so to save some time and a lot of effort me and my dad decided to go to IKEA and see what we could find there. Side note, IKEA is absolutely insane and I can't believe I'd never been here before it's huge and so cool I had no idea such a place existed. Good news is we found some perfect cabinets and a sink and I bought them. It was kind of expensive but they're really nice so I guess it's okay. When we got back I assembled the sink and the cabinets. While I was doing that Artie built a structure using the two by fours over the bed to contain the cabinets and we had to cut a little bit off the edge of the cabinets so they would fit snugly with the angle of the van wall and then we nailed this little white piece over the hole so the ugly part behind it wouldn't be visible when you open the cabinets. And then I placed the sink cabinets next to the bed where it would all go and we put the bed frame and everything back in and wow look at that Everything is basically framed and all insulated and ready for the walls and furniture to be finished which you'll see in an upcoming video but for now I think we made a lot of progress I think this is all going to come together really quickly from here Oh I'm so cringy. Thanks for watching the van build series that I'm creating I hope this is helpful or at least entertaining for some of you. This part was kind of difficult because it was just a lot of figuring things out and it took a long time. We still have the walls and the ceiling and finishing the furniture figuring out the sink and shower and toilet and all that and then decorating which is what I'm most excited for but yeah thanks for watching hope you're all having a great day if you want to see more like behind the scenes and see like what I'm doing to the van before I post my youtube videos follow me on instagram at stephielee I've been posting a lot about the build on there I think that's it have a great day I'll see you in the next video bye