Full Transformation of her Cottagecore Van Build 🌸

I'm Josie and I live in a bus. I call her my cottage on wheels because, well, she's cozy. And yes, I built her myself, which considering my total lack of DIY skills before and the fact that I'm a professional dancer by trade, it's actually a miracle. Why a bus, do you ask? Honestly, the housing market here in England is terrifying. And as charming as my mum is, living with her forever isn't exactly my ideal. So van life it was. The only vaguely affordable option. In this video, I'll take you through the whole van build from start to finish and I've got an exciting competition to announce where there's £10,000 up for grabs. For those of you who have been following this saga for a while now, I thought I'd share a few more of the mistake moments. I've just stapled the thing to the floor. Oh my god. And some never seen before footage. Oh, how many times is that going to happen today? It has been an amazing adventure so far. So grab your cup of tea and let me take you back to the beginning. It all began with a search on eBay. Now these things sell quicker than hot chips at Seaside. So I knew I had to move fast. I viewed three. One was too rusty. One was far too big. And one was just right. My very own Goldilocks bus. A Mercedes Vario 614D. And for the sum of £4,000, she was mine. In preparation, I'd already spent the summer doing a few DIY courses. Nothing too intense, just enough to convince myself that I could handle building an entire home on wheels. I had a few priorities for the build. One, it had to actually feel like home. So comfortable and somewhere I could survive the long British winters without turning into an icicle. Number two is I wanted to be smart about it. Eco-friendly and basically not bankrupt myself. Which for me meant I was going to have to source a lot of good quality secondhand products and tools. Which is why eBay was going to become my new best friend. The first job, strip out the seats. Say goodbye to the seats. Bye, booth. I even sold them back on eBay, which gave me a little bit of extra cash. A van fund, courtesy of the van. Once the seats were out, I could finally see the space that I was working with. All I had to do was get rid of those last little bits that still made the bus, well, a bus, if you know what I mean. Then I put down some new insulation. Mum's in charge of cutting out the insulation. Doesn't fit. Why? I thought you measured it though, Mum. And a wooden floor. Yes, a wooden floor. I'm so fancy, darling. I know. To fix down the floor, I screwed the boards into the battens that I'd laid down earlier for the insulation. And I'm using this two-piece drill set that I found secondhand on eBay. And actually here's a little tip if you're actually trying to keep your van build costs down low, especially if you're like me here and I didn't own any tools before this van build. So if I had to go and buy every single tool that I needed for the van build brand new, I'm not joking, that would have cost the earth, actually. But buying secondhand tools on eBay just is brilliant. And the really good thing about eBay now is that they have this feature called Certified Recycled, which basically means that tools and even car parts and things like that, they have been checked, refurbished, and they come with a guarantee. So it gives you that peace of mind, keeps the costs low. And of course, buying secondhand is a little bit kindness to the planet, so that's nice too. So yeah, if you need tools, but you don't want to spend a fortune, secondhand on eBay is my little tip to you. Anyway, the four did take me a couple of days, and it was a bit of a trial and error, mainly because I was using tools I had never used before. Today was the first day I've used a jigsaw ever! Bloody arse, I'm cringing it. And look what I cut out. I had to build it around a little box. A diesel heater. This is what I've cut out. Can you see that? And look, that's a round edge over there. And it fits. Oh, look at me, so pleased with myself. Next, I had to tear down the ceiling. Gained a couple of inches height-wise by doing that. Learning DIY from scratch, when you've literally never done it before, is a bit daunting, I'm not gonna lie. So very grateful to Pip and Harry for popping in and lending a hand. They're actually a couple of lads that I work with. So at the time of my van build, I was working as a dancer in a Western show in London. So at the time, I was juggling being at the theatre in the evenings, and then coming to work on the van during the day. Next was to cut holes in my ceiling for fans and skylights and things like that. You know, classic van life stuff. Girl! That's a big hole. It's a big hole. Hey. So here's for my next layer of insulation. Yes, two layers of insulation. And I grabbed this YBS Thermo Wrap, I think it is, off of eBay. Honestly, I just really liked that I could see all the sizes that people had. Next, it was time to put up the new ceiling. And I think this was the point where things started to change for me. I was finally gaining confidence with the tools I was using. I've been doing it for a couple of months by this stage. I was starting to feel like maybe I could actually tackle this all on my own. So my next challenge was to tear down the walls. The carpet is off and the ply is in. And put up the new ones. Okay, but there's like a bit of a gap. Oh, it's requiring a lot of strength. I wish I had someone to push against it and me. So annoying. How many times is that gonna happen today? You annoying piece of. Yes. So this is the first time I've ever put a wall up. So I don't really know how many screws you're supposed to do. But so far I'm doing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. 12 screws. I'm gonna put a few more in for good measure. Yes, I am. One at the bottom. And after all of that fapping, this is what the space looked like. My blank canvas. And with the walls, the ceiling and the floor kind of in. Okay, yes, the walls look a little bit mad right now. I've blocked off a couple of the windows. But don't panic. I have a plan. Look at me being a ridiculous show-off. Anyway, let's discuss design. And I have so many ideas. I have Pinterest boards. I have drawings. I have cardboard cutouts. Let's go. The thing is with a van or a bus, it's a rectangular shape, right? So essentially, when you put things in either side, it automatically creates a corridor feel, which is exactly the opposite of what I want. Ideally, I'd be working with a square space. But I can't exactly change the shape of my vehicle. So using what I've got, I'm going to try and create a squarish space for my design. And my plan goes something like this. And the heart of my design is this pink L-shaped sprung velvet sofa that I actually made from scratch. That is no small feat. Oh my God, is that even the right saying? Small feat. That doesn't sound right to me right now. I don't know. Anyway, the sofa will be the whole width of my bus, which is 190 centimetres. That's six foot two. Roughly the same size as a small cow. And the L part will be 165 centimetres, which is five foot five. Roughly the same size as a donkey. So my grand plan was to buy a secondhand sofa, pull it apart to see how it was made, and then reassemble it to fit the size of my bus. Once I'd figured out the structure and how I could reuse as much as the old sofa as possible, I built a new base frame. And this is the main contraption that I salvaged from the old sofa, the front and the back. I basically just had to cut the ends off and then reattach some bits of wood to hold it together so that it didn't collapse. Then it was time to actually put it together. The base frame with this springy lid thing on top. At this stage, it didn't exactly scream sofa, more like a slightly confused wooden box. But once I added the reclining back that I built, plus the L section area, which instead of proper springs, I actually just did with elastic webbing. And then I covered the whole thing in foam to hopefully make it vaguely comfortable. It finally started to resemble a sofa. A bloody awful sofa, but a sofa nonetheless. Now it's time to turn this pile of springs and foam into the sofa of my dreams. Naturally, my dream fabric was pink velvet. But I also wanted to keep things sustainable. And let's be honest, fan builds aren't exactly the cheapest thing, are they? So secondhand velvet it was. I went hunting on eBay and found some slightly pre-loved pink velvet curtains. Honestly, they were all slightly different shades, some a bit more worn than others. And at first I thought, oh no, this is gonna look a bit messy. But actually it gave the sofa this perfect shabby chic cottagecore lived in vibe that I wanted, I think. I always knew that I wanted a proper grownup sofa in the bus because let's face it, I live in England and it rains constantly. And because I was planning to work full-time on the road, I definitely needed somewhere to hibernate when the sky does its best impression of a leaky kettle. I think originally I was thinking I would really need it in winter, but it turns out my sofa in summer is a great spot too. Actually, I have a little bit of a story. This summer's trip to Cornwall, I was driving my bus down there. It was something like a seven hour drive, something like that. Anyway, my bus decided to become its own action film. Suddenly the alarm started blaring and my temperature gauge started climbing. Very stressful. I took it into a garage and they poked around a little bit and they announced that the viscous fan clutch, I really hope that I'm saying that right, was on its way out. And then they announced that it didn't actually have the correct part to replace it. And normally for me, the thought of buying a car part myself ranks somewhere between a root canal and a tax return. But I decided to have a look on eBay's certified recycled section and I actually found the exact fan clutch that I needed. Because everything in this certified recycled bit has been checked, tested, and comes with a guarantee, I actually have it here. I think I bought this myself. I actually had the confidence to buy a car part. Like it felt doable. And it's secondhand, so it's more affordable for me and better for the planet. And now I can give this to my mechanic without worrying that I've ordered a dud, you know? So for someone like me, who's confident now with the drill, yes, but I'm not exactly confident under the bonnet, this kind of peace of mind with something like this makes all the difference, I think. And while we're on the topic of eBay, remember that little £10,000 prize that I said you can win? Well, that is all part of the eBay van conversions awards. So here's how the competition works. Grand prize is £10,000 in cash. And the category prizes are £250 worth of eBay vouchers for each category winner. Think clever interiors, sustainable builds, like all sorts. If you're in the UK and you're over 18 and you've used any like eBay parts or accessories for your build, then you can enter and entries are open now. So if you've converted a van, or even if you're mid-build, you need to get your photos, you need to get your story, you need to head over to the official eBay site and submit. Also, did I mention that one of the judges is George Clark? Wow! I just really love that eBay is championing creativity like this. So if you have been tinkering with your own van build, honestly, go for it. I mean, what have you got to lose? Anyway, back to my pink velvet curtains that I also bought secondhand off of eBay for my currently very ugly sofa. So after I de-curtained the curtains, I laid it out flat and began to measure up and sketch out my pattern. So I needed to make four seating cushions and three back cushions. And I chose to make a style of cushion that needed boxing, which is this part, and piping, which is basically this. In fact, my back cushions had double piping. This is the first time I have ever used a sewing machine, and all of the sewing in total took me about two weeks. And I'm going to say that after this, I'm quite comfortable on a sewing machine. And finally, it was time to upholster the sofa. I'm telling you now, this is a two-person job. Lucky for me, my mum was around to help me. Basically, one person has to pull it tight while the other person staples it into place, which if you ask me, is a delicate balance between skill, patience, and just trying not to sweat too much. This whole sofa build happened during lockdown, which is why most of the footage is in my mum's back garden. Sorry, mum. But once the lockdown lifted, it was back to work in the bus, which started by adding reflective film on my windows. Next up, the framework, starting with the bed at the back, because, you know, I want that classic van life thing where you open up the back doors and you have the stunning view. And once I knew how much space the bed was going to take up, I could then move on to my kitchen. I'm building this side today. This side's done. Yeah, so I'm just building a frame. My sink's going to go above here. So I've gone for a two by four size batten to use as my framework, which apparently is quite big for a van build. However, I really like that chunky look that it gives. I feel like it's more rustic and cottagecore. Slash I have a 7.5 ton bus here, so I don't have to necessarily worry too much about weight. Screwing in like a million screws because I do not want this bad boy to collapse. The hardest thing about building in a small space is having a small space to build in. Snug as a bug. So sticking with the whole recycled thing, I decided to do the whole kitchen out of pallet wood. I mean, it's free, which is marvellous. Though, well, yes, you do have to strip it, sand it and paint it. A bit of a faff, really. But I do rather like that it's a bit rustic, a bit wonky. And well, for someone like me, who's hardly an expert, it's actually rather perfect. Okay, so I'm trying to do this underneath the cabinet. This whole thing isn't straight, like this wall is slightly unangled. It just means I'm going to have to scribe, I think that's the right word, scribe. Before this project, I'd never even heard of the word scribing. It's basically when you've got a wonky wall or ceiling and you want wood to be able to fit flush with no awkward gap, then you'd need to, as they call it, scribe, which is just a fancy way of saying trace the wobbly shape onto a piece of wood so that you can cut it to the right shape. You can get proper tools for this. I didn't have a proper tool, so I made one. So make sure you tape it up like that. Voila. And now I'm going to run this along the edge of my wood and it should draw the perfect angle that I need as is the plan. Ready? Under. And this is my balance on your head technique. Honestly, heads are very handy. Why I didn't use clamps? Don't know. Literally couldn't tell you. No idea. Success, I think. I don't think you've ever seen such professional building in your life. Truly. Again, could have done with some clamps here, I think. I actually didn't buy any clamps the whole time I was doing this plan build. I hope that's right. For the second side, I discovered a slightly easier way to do the under cabinet myself by chopping it into smaller pieces and attaching them one by one. By now, the kitchen monster was really starting to take shape. So I thought it was time to order some of the appliances. Naturally, I turned to eBay, my trusty friend throughout this build. My cooker came from there and my fridge too. Fully 12 volt compatible too. And well, at the cheapest price. So really, you can't argue with that, can you? It literally does. I've always thought that the inside matters as much as the outside. Cupboards included. So rather than leave mine looking like a sad storage locker, I lined them with wrapping paper, a generous sweep of PVA glue to hold it and then a seal so that it won't turn sticky the moment damp gets in. Right, cupboard doors next. Naturally, I start with a cardboard template because let's face it, if I made anything perfectly straight, that would be a miracle. I cut it out with a jigsaw. Then once it was cut to size, I had to check that it would actually fit in the space it was allocated to. Once that was sorted, I needed to measure it because I'm going to split this into two. Because two tiny little opening doors just screams cottagecore, cuteness, cozy to me. Oh, this is a fantastic advert for wearing safety goggles. Don't do what I did. This silence here from me means that it really hurts. So yeah, should have had my safety goggles on. So continuing on, I marked out the middle, cut that in half with a jigsaw. Then I cut out little squares inside of the big squares. Sanding the edges down to make them all smooth because nobody wants splinters. And then I painted the edges white. Don't worry, I have my reasons and you'll find out soon enough. So yeah, this is the Calico fabric that I'm using to put in the middle of my squares. Cutting that out roughly. And then I staple it to my plywood and I use a surface to do this that is not on the floor. The one I did previously to this one, I actually did on the floor in my bus and let's just say it did not go well. I've just stapled the thing to the floor. Oh my god, I am such an a**hole. I will not be doing that again. Back to the questionable building process of these cupboard doors. Yeah, that's right. I'm banging down these staples. I mean, other people would probably saw them off but I really don't like those tools that spark at you. And then taping over the sharp bits because, you know, ow. Better tape over them a few times. Like I said, I'm a very professional builder. I then put those flimsy square door things that I've previously made, put them in the hole where they're going and then got my pallet wood, placed it on top and then I staple gun. No, I nail gun it in. Nail gun it in. And I did it with all four sides until it looked something like this. It's getting better. It's not so flimsy and crap. However, it isn't finished yet. This piece right here is really pretty pallet wood. I don't know why, but some of the pallet wood ended up prettier than other bits of the pallet wood. I kept these pretty bits to the side so that I could use them for like the face of all my cupboard doors and furniture or whatever I make with these pallet wood things. And just like that, my first kitchen cupboard door was up and on its hinges. I was absurdly pleased with myself in this moment and it looked exactly like I wanted. Somewhere between a seaside beach hut and a rustic storybook cottage. You may have noticed that whilst building this kitchen, other areas of my bus have started to progress as well. And that's true. The window frames and walls were also coming along nicely. But building a van, well, in my experience, it's not exactly a neat linear process. It felt like to me, you couldn't just finish one task and then move on to the next. It was a bit of this and then a bit of that. So why don't we pop over to the bedroom to see how things are getting on there? My idea was to create a dividing wall. Now I know what you're thinking. A wall in a tiny bus, really? But hear me out. In my design, I wanted each area to feel like its own little room. The bedroom, the kitchen and sitting area and the bathroom. Essentially, I'm just making a box bed. And a box bed is a bed that looks like it's in furniture. Apparently is the technical term. So here I'm building my frame and I'm using two by two batten. And I decided the wall itself was going to be about 13 centimeters in depth. And that will allow enough room for my little love heart drawers and cubby hole cupboards. It's built from the ground up and is the whole width of my bus. Then I have two pillars at the sides and then I will put a bar at the top. So therefore it creates the picture frame box bed situation. So now that my framework is done and it doesn't look too bad, if I do say so myself. Now it's time to make the love heart drawers in these little spaces here. Essentially, I just cut out little love hearts with my jigsaw. And how these work is you stick your finger in and you pull the drawer out. I thought holes would be better over handles here because as this will be the bed area, I don't want to be stabbed in bed while rolling over by any handles. So it just kind of made sense to make holes. I think they turned out pretty cute. So basically in the pillars, either side of my framework, this is where the little cupboards are going to go. And what I just did just then was put a little block into the framework so I can then put a base for the bottom of my cupboard. Next, I use cardboard to kind of make a template sort of thing so I know what size to cut the wood. Here is my sides and base all cut out in thin ply. And now we're back to one of my absolute favourite little design quirks, decorating every little single nook and cranny by lining it with wrapping paper. Because honestly, if the inside doesn't make you smile, like what's the point? So in the bedroom, we are facing yet more scribing, of course. So I'm taping a pencil to a lunchbox this time, it seems. So once I had the line drawn and then I had to cut it out with my jigsaw. Winnie, you're really ruining my... Thank you. And it fits perfect up here. Now I'm just going to paint it. Oh, paint it and then put it up. And finally, I could move on to the shutters, which arguably are the main focus of this whole box bed thing. What you can see here is my six little doors that will make up my bifolding shutters, three on each side. It's made out of 12mm ply and I just cut it using a railsaw. Now is the fun bit. I get to decorate them and each side is going to be different. So in the bedroom, I'm going beachy boho and in the sitting room, I'm going colonial grid mirror. So I was thinking, stacked up like this and then some sort of border and then I'll show you on the actual shutter. This is a mock-up I've got going on. I just can't decide whether I want pallet wood, boarding or beading border. I went for the pallet wood border in the end, which meant I had to get the pallet wood and cut it into thin strips. Lots of sanding. Then I used a combination of wood glue and my nail gun to attach it to my plywood shutters. And when it came to starting the other side, first, I cut wood into strips and painted them. Then I bought these square little mirrors with sticky back and I added glue and I stuck that down along with the strips of wood as a border. Next, I cut out angles on beading to make a border for each individual square mirror. A mum came on this day to help me stick it all down. It was a little bit fiddly. And then the other side. Oh, hello. Now I've got to put on all the hinges on all of the shutters. Come on, let's get this done. Yeah, you guessed it. I smashed a bloody mirror. And not only one. I remain slightly obsessed with these shutters. They give me the luxury of privacy in a space roughly the size of a large wardrobe. Close them and it's a snug little bedroom. Open them and the whole place feels airy again. The rest of the bedroom came together too. The bedroom walls finally went up which meant I could hide all of this horrific wiring and pretend it had never happened. Next came the country style headboard. My attempt was to make this tiny room feel as cosy as possible and it is really wonderfully comfortable and it does stop the condensation from the window soaking the pillows. But word to the wise, it does steal a few crucial inches from the bed. I wouldn't call it a regret of mine, more of a note for future me if I was ever going to do it again. Then came the big storage dilemma. I needed a cupboard, but I hated the idea of ruining the lovely symmetry of the space. So I decided if it had to be there, it had to be a feature. And that's where the Beauty of the Beast wardrobe idea came from. I wanted French dresser vibes and I built it entirely from plywood. I dressed it up with a few mouldings I found on eBay and gave it a distressed chalk paint finish. Added a fancy handle, again from eBay, and suddenly it looked like it had wandered out of a chateau. It was practical, a little theatrical, and just the right amount of fairy tale drama for this bus bedroom. And obviously I had to do a decorative headboard for the other side to tie it all in, you know, for good measure. The bedroom was coming together nicely and Winnie hadn't wasted no time at all in picking her throne. But I suppose every project needs a supervisor. Next up was the slightly less glamorous but absolutely essential part, the space under the bed. Mine was home to my electrics and my gas tanks and also an outside shower, so it really had to be a practical space. But I didn't want it to feel like a dungeon, you know. First off, I decided that I would like to build a pullout table. I also decided that on top of that, I wanted a massive pullout drawer to store tools and odds and ends and things like that, which required some hefty runners. I spent a fair bit of time making sure that everything felt cohesive with the rest of the van. I wanted it to echo the French dresser theme of the bedroom cupboard. So yes, it needed to be practical, but also somewhat charming. Now let's move on to the cab area. This is the part of my build that I like to call the hallway. Step one was a full carpet exorcism. Out with the ancient, questionably scented one and in with something fresh after a serious scrub down. Next, I banished the navy blue plastic dash with a can of spray paint. And then I decided to wrap the walls in hessian. Then it was all about framework. Framework for my new cupboards because I really needed storage in this area. Storage for my hats, my coats, my shoes, Winnie's dog treats, food. This is my huge shoe cupboard. And then a place for my stereo. So don't look too closely, but it's actually right. For decoration, I actually use pages from an old atlas I found in a charity shop. So the cupboard doors for my storage, I like to call my Flintstone doors. They're made out of leftover chicken wire, scraps of those maps, rope handles. And naturally, every single cupboard is lined also with the maps. I wanted to be able to close off the cab from the rest of the bus. So I decided to fit a sliding door made from a reclaimed French shutter. I cut it to size. This was so nerve wracking because they're my beautiful French shutters. What if I cut off too much? Ah, I then got clay. Then I had to make sure that I hadn't cut off too much and it actually fit it now. Hooray! That's a relief. Here I am cracking on fitting the brackets for the sliders. And look, one shutter's up. That's the first bit complete. But it doesn't quite fit. Yeah, I've got a massive gap here if you hadn't noticed. But that's OK because I've got two shutters. And I don't know if you can tell, but this is like one bit and a little bit. So basically, I'm just going to unattach the little bit off of the other shutter, put it on a little hinge here, and then voila, it should be fine. Should be, should be. In other words, OK, right. So this is my doorway. Yeah, OK. And so this is basically one of the French reclaimed shutters that I have. You know, I have two. This is just one of them. And it works really, really well as a sliding door. However, it doesn't quite fill the gap. I still have quite a big gap on the right hand side. So what I was thinking I could do, cut off the small bit on the other shutter that I have and then fit two hinges on this right hand side wall and then have the small shutter on the hinges. So basically, one side slides across, the other side hinges out. I feel like that would be great. And it worked perfectly and it's bloody stunning. It's so lush to have an original feature of something in my bus. So seating. I decided I was going to reupholster the driver's chair. Most people have advised me to take off the original cover and like redo it. So I decided to not do that and to make my own way. Oh dear. Doing it, which involves spray painting a really nice colour on the back and I'm literally going to sew on top. I'm going to treat this chair like a tailor-made jacket. So the plan is to cut four separate panels, sew them together and then stitch the whole thing neatly over the top of the existing seat. But first off, I've got to make templates from my panels. I'm using newspaper for this, folding the newspaper and pinning it to the chair to fit each panel. The end result is it looks like a newspaper chair. Then I pinned my templates onto my fabric. Now I'm measuring an inch away from each template on the fabric and that will give me a sewing allowance. Next is to cut them out and then sew them together. So I've sewn all the pieces together. Feel like it looks quite good. I'm going to iron it before I sew it on but now what I'm basically doing is tacking it to the back of my seat. I'll start with this middle line. Sewing that to that middle line. And then I'll go down these middle lines and I'll do the edges last. Once I fitted the seat back together and put the driver's seat back into the bus, I added a passenger seat for good measure. This is actually a retired London taxi seat that I grabbed secondhand off eBay and I had a welder build a sturdy frame from the chassis of the bus to the ceiling so it's proper safe and seatbelt legal. There is one more space inside that I haven't shown you yet. The bathroom. It's really just two tiny rooms, a shower on one side, you know, washing the hair and a toilet on the other. I guess calling them rooms is a little bit generous. I was quite adamant to keep the spaces separate. I'm just not really a fan of those wet room thingies. I don't want a soggy sock. Style-wise, I wanted a beach shack theme in the bathroom and there is a design hack here that makes this whole area of one big bathroom. So here's my bus and here is the mirrored door that closed off the kitchen. If I open that door, it leads you into a little corridor with a mirrored door at the other end. And if I slide that open, that takes you through to the cab area. However, if I stayed in the corridor and then closed the mirrored door to the kitchen, I then create a big bathroom here. See, look, I told you it's quite a big bathroom, hey? For such a small space anyway. Like, I feel like this is quite clever. Right, outside we go. The bus wasn't exactly showroom ready. There were a few rusty bits that needed sorting. So I just sanded them down and filled them, essentially. It's a little bit of a messy job and I wasn't perhaps the best at it before that it's particularly big. This is after the putty. It's not too bad, is it? Plus all the usual prep work. Priming, cleaning, scrubbing, the lot. Um, this is gonna take me longer than I thought. Look at it. Maybe I needed a brush or something. When it came to the colour, I wanted something neutral. Not too shouty, you know? So it wasn't immediately obvious that there's a solo woman living inside. It is finally colour reveal time. I hadn't even seen the colour before I opened this pot. Looks like yellow. This was not the colour that I was expecting. I was expecting the colour fawn. You know, fawn, a baby deer. In the picture, it even had a touch of pink. I was expecting a brown, beigey, pinky colour. Not a pot of honey. It looks the same colour as the roof. No, I expected it to be brown. This is my, I'm not sure how I feel about that, face. And this to me is a honey pot. So as I couldn't return it, I decided maybe it would look different on. So I went for it. And here it looks kind of a sandy colour. And truth be told, as I put it on, I still wasn't sure what I thought of it. With all of the prepping and the cleaning and the rusting and the sanding and the priming and the painting, it took me a total of three weeks to complete. But it's so much cheaper than getting the pros to do it. So totally worth it. So for me right now, she kind of looks like a safari bus. And I think I'm into that. Finally, we're onto the finishing touches. And honestly, the details are just as important as all the rest of the big stuff. First up, the kitchen. I wanted rustic countertop. So I got a secondhand, very orange pinewood table and gave it a little makeover. Sand down the horrendous shiny orange colour. And then I got this bristly sanding tool for my drill. And I actually sanded down the natural grains in the wood to give it a rustic, wobbly feel. It took me a while, but the results are amazing. Like, look at that. That looks so rustic. I can't even believe it's the same piece of wood. Plus adding some driftwood here around the edges really gives it the vibe that I wanted. Didn't realise you could buy driftwood on eBay. Result. One of my favourite little touches in the whole bus is my branch shelf. It's practical, it's pretty, and it feels wonderfully boho. I didn't have enough space to mirror it on the other side. So instead, I just installed a branch purely for the look of it. Because sometimes, because it's pretty, is a good enough reason. Yeah, so I'm trying to install this there. But I think I've done this in the wrong order. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have installed this until I've installed this. Anyway, you live and you learn. Here we go, bashing it comes. I'm using pallet wood for a backsplash that runs around all the sides of my kitchen. Let's just hope it's the right size so I don't have to get it out. And this is me just trying to fit it in behind the stick that I've just installed. Time for tiling! And I just wanted to say a big thank you to Fiona, my mum's next door neighbour, who gave me these tiles for free that I just had to cut in half with a tile cutter. And I'm sticking them onto the pallet wood backsplash with wood glue. They're really beautiful, wobbly, kind of rustic tiles. And once grouted, it was bloody gorgeous. And it looked like it had always been there. I knew that a fireplace in a tiny bus full of wood would need a lot of planning. So I got a lot of expert advice and every surface around it, the boards and the tiles, all of it is fireproof. My mum came to help me with the tiling, but the actual stove itself was installed by a certified fitter. On that note, the welding, the electrics, the gas, the plumbing, all of these things were done by professionals. I figured learning woodwork and building was enough of a challenge for me. And because every fireplace deserves a little bit of charm, I built a small kindling box with a sweet little door. All the way down the ceiling, the bus has these metal support frames, which felt a bit too industrial for the cosy cottage look that I wanted. So I built fake beams, simply just covered them with wood, really. Painted them a soft cream and I left the ceiling white. And for a touch of texture, I lined sections of the beams with ribbon and rope. It's a tiny detail, but the effect is surprisingly gentle and country rustic. What van would be complete without a surround sound system? So I wrapped mine in fabric and ribbon. One of my quirkier ideas, I'd say. Another one was hiding the fuse board behind a framed photo of my mum and brother. And another one was giving my bedroom headboard a bit of a patchwork finish for that extra cottage core touch. The very last job was sewing thermal blackout blinds, a non-negotiable for full-time van life. And just like that, after three years of sanding, sawing, screwing, saving every penny I had and holding down a full-time job, the build was finished. I want to say a big, big thank you to eBay for partnering with me on this video. Honestly, it couldn't be a better fit. As you can tell, so much of my build came from eBay. So working with them on this video feels like it was definitely meant to be. Oh, and don't forget to enter the eBay Van Conversion Awards competition for your chance to win that £10,000. I actually entered it last year and while I didn't win, I did win the category Most Creative Build, so I'm pretty chuffed with that. The link's in my bio. Over these three years, I've changed just as much as the bus has. I started out having never used a power tool, needing a lot of moral support to just pick up a drill. Now I can look around at this home and know I built it with my own hands. It took me a long time, longer than most van builds, I'd say, but that time was exactly what I needed and gave me the space to grow into someone who's confident in creating. I have to admit, I really love the home that I've created and thank you so much for following me along on this journey.