VAN TOUR - Unique DIY Van Conversion for Full-Time VAN LIFE off-grid

We're Kate and Katrina and we spent the last year slowly building out and customizing our van Henry. After living in the van for a whole month our transmission decided to go out. Just one shift out of first and we're still in the process of getting that figured out so the van actually doesn't move right now but that doesn't mean that we can't show you the inside so let's do it. So our van is a 1991 GMC Vandura and I actually bought this van from my high school best friend and I was with him when he bought it in high school so it's kind of a cool story and it's really cool to see this van just have a whole new life given to it. I can't wait to show you the inside. Let's start in the cab. We basically kept it completely original and didn't do any type of conversion up here. We really like the retro style and didn't want to change it but we do have a few favorite features that I want to point out up here. One being our sunglasses slots. We each get one and it's so convenient. Another one we did add this it's a phone mount and it's so nice for Kade to have so he can see his own navigation and I don't have to be telling him which way to go. Another thing that I absolutely love is this right here. It used to be a magazine rack I believe but we found out that maps perfectly fit in it and we think it's the coolest thing ever so now it's our map holder. Another favorite feature of mine is the fact that my Yeti fits over here and the door slot. It's too big to fit in a cup holders but I love having it up here as well. Kade also stores his guitar up here when the van's parked. When it's moving we put it on the bed. We also kind of store our Reflectix in the same way like it'll be in a bundle up here or on the bed depending on where we are. We cut the Reflectix for each window and we just have like normal Reflectix. We don't really consider ourselves stealthy. We try to avoid camping in towns as much as possible. If we are camping in a town it's usually at Cracker Barrel anyway so. Now let's move on to the living area. We redid our door panels and one thing that was already there was a cutout slot for a fire extinguisher originally and what I wanted to do was put a plant there but a couple weeks before we moved into the van I came across a video of a van that looked very similar to ours and it was on fire so I was like maybe the fire extinguisher is there for a reason so safety first we kept it. Kade also made this incredible shoe rack for us. It fits when the door is closed it perfectly fits into this slot and then when it opens it's so nice because it takes all the shoes with it so you're not tripping over any shoes when you're trying to get out of the van. It holds a pair of boots for each of us and a pair of slips. The nice thing about it being there also is you can literally sit down on the van like it's a bench and just slip a pair of shoes on. Over on this side we have our sticker wall. We try and get a new one from every place we go and then on the back of the chair we kind of have some quick grab essentials that you need. We have bear spray and bug spray. Don't get them mixed up. We also have a headlamp and then this is Clyde's pouch of quick grab essentials so it has his leash, poop bags, and then a run line that we like to hang up when we get to a campsite. Then you can also see that he has his water bowl there and his food bowl is back behind here. He likes to keep it covered up so we put it under there. We also have this flip-up table. We use this thing all the time. I love having it. You can use it on both sides so sometimes I'll stand out here and like cut vegetables or work on my laptop or you can sit on the inside in one of our chairs and do the same thing. Welcome in. As you can see we can't stand up in this van. The clearance in this van is about five foot. I'm 5'9 and Cade's six foot so our solution for that is hidden back here. We keep these handy chairs, one for each of us. We just bust them out and this is how we spend a majority of our time in the van either sitting in these chairs or sleeping in the bed, laying in the bed. Behind this chair we also keep two hooks where we keep like our puff jackets, raincoats, and then a hat for both of us. Up here we have our bookshelf. Cade gets half and I get half. Our only complaint is we wish it was bigger. Behind it we like to keep games so we keep chess, cards, our pocket disc, all kinds of fun things back there. And also this bookshelf is very conveniently located and you'll understand why later. One design choice I really wanted was some macrame in the van and so we opted for a uke holder. We don't want things to be like rattling around while we're driving so our solution to this was to put a magnet on the back of the uke so it just clicks onto the magnet and it stays there pretty well unless we take a curve that's really big. This is our big cabinet. I want to draw some attention to the cutest knobs in the whole world. I absolutely love them and my mom gifted them to us. So this cabinet is the only cabinet that we have that is secured. You can't pull on it. In order to open it you have to twist this and you see why. All right this is like all of our kitchen essentials. So starting from the bottom we have our blender which we make smoothies every single day so that is one of the best things we have in the van. And then we have all of our pots and pans down there. On this shelf we have our smoothie cups, a jet boil, basically all of our Tupperware, some nail jeans and utensils and then we also do have a magnetic knife strip that holds our knife and that's super nice to get it up out of the way. This shelf holds all of our pantry goods basically and snacks. Kate and I's intention when we were building this van is we wanted to be able to go off into the woods for a week at a time and not have to come back to town before a week was up and so far this cupboard has worked perfect for us. A week's worth of food fits totally perfect in here for pantry goods. The next shelf we have our little tea station so we have we keep our tea in here. We have our mugs and then our bread perfectly fits here too. Then up here we have our baggies and our plates and you might have noticed that we have our full-length mirror here. I really love having this mirror in the van. I knew I wanted a mirror in here and it just makes it feel more like home for me which those little touches anywhere really help. Let me show you the bathroom now. It's hidden down here. It's on locking slides so the toilet doesn't just fly out when we take a turn and honestly like the one flaw in the whole van which wasn't even in the build was my design choice with the uke. Basically when you try and put the seat up it doesn't stay up but when the uke's not there it stays up so every time we want to use it we have to move the uke out of the way and just hook this little guy over there and the seat stays out perfectly. We also store our toilet paper back here and that's super nice keeps it out of the way. I really love having this toilet in the van. We don't use it all the time but the time that I like to use it the most is at night time. Something I just absolutely do not like doing is going out in the dark having a headlamp on being attacked by moths and trying to stay away from the bears and go outside. So anyways this thing is so nice to have. The really nice thing about it too is it's very conveniently located. You have your choice of reading materials and or a great view out the window. Here's Clyde's little home that we built for him. We knew that he needed a space all on his own. What we did was we put pc fans on it and they have a switch at the front that we can turn them on and off. They do pull the air through and out so sometimes when you're sitting in the front seat you get a nice whiff of dog. Also we put these locking I don't know locking things on it so you can hinge the top and when I'm sitting in the front seat I can check on Clyde to make sure he's not getting too hot while we're driving or I can just see him and he can see me. He loves that and I have access to bringing him in the front seat with me. As you can see Clyde loves his space. On this wall we have a plant. I really wanted to have live plants in the van. I chose not to name our plants because I honestly didn't know if they would survive. The weather can get pretty crazy in here. I mean we've had like upwards of 90s into the 100s and this plant has literally survived it all. It has been such a trooper and I think it deserves a name now. So if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them. Leave them in the comments please. Moving down the wall a little further we have our fruit basket or our produce basket. It is so essential that to have this thing. As you've seen we have our cupboard pretty full and you're about to see we have our fridge jam-packed full almost always. So this is such a good use of space. We also have our bananas under here and we hang some more up there. We have this nice little fan that we like to use at nighttime because I have to fall asleep to the sound of a fan. Kleenex is here and then we have a super nice big counter space and below it we actually have extra counter space that pulls out. It's really nice to bring your chair out and sit under it. Use your computer to work at it or we even like eating at it. Then moving a little further down we have our fridge that's also unlocking slides so it doesn't come flying out and it's a 50 liter ice co. We love this thing. It works so perfect for us. We keep all of our condiments on this side and then we just pack it full. It's usually even fuller than this and if you can tell we're making stuffed peppers for supper this week. Also if you can see behind the fridge we have a whole bunch of electrical cords running. Basically they run from the back of the van all the way on this side to the front of the van. All of our walls are original in this build and our ceiling and even the fancy camper lights that you see. So we were not able to put the wires into the wall but what's nice is the way that we ran it along you don't see any wires except for the ones for the fan basically. Another thing that I'd like to point out is we have hidden back here four USB ports so that's what our fan is plugged into. It is also where our phone chargers are plugged into and this is all just kind of where we keep all of those cords that those random cords that we need to get to. You can also see that we have a plug-in. It is so cool it's where we plug our blender into and make our smoothies every morning all of the things like that. We also can turn our inverter on super easy with the push of a button so we can use this plug-in anytime we want and Kade will tell you more about our electrical setup later. This drawer houses our garbage. It's on pull-out slides which I love and behind there it's just like garbage bags a lint roller and a vacuum charger. One thing that I didn't think about when we were doing our van build but turned out super nice is having a small garbage can actually so you don't it doesn't like start stinking because I feel like you change it often enough that there's no smells really and what we do is actually like I said we like to be out for a week at a time so once this gets full we take it to the back and we put it in the trash room which Kade will show you in a little bit. Then under there we have my collection of vitamins and then we have Clyde's essentials. Clyde came out to see them so toys treats bones nail clippers you know all the dog essentials. Clyde knows this is his spot by the way and his dog food is tucked all the way back there which is why he's checking out right now just making sure he's got a full bag. You good buddy? All right let's put it back okay? Clyde knows his drawer. Over on this side we have our adorable kitchen. Starting at the top we have our spice rack then over here we have a paper towel holder which is super convenient because you can get paper towels when you're outside cooking very easily and then also get them in here when you're cleaning. We have a really big sink which never is this clean because we do not have enough water supply to keep it clean but we do love having this sink and being able to do all our dishes in here wash our hands brush our teeth we don't use this for drinking water but we could we just find that we go through the water too fast if we do that. We also have an adorable soap dispenser that does not slide around on the counter while we're driving. We have our towel rack and what used to be up here was a string of pearls but it took two tumbles rip so and it did not survive the second one. So everyone meet Tornelius. We got a new plant and he is going to go up here if you guys can imagine how adorable he's going to look but we're getting him a more secure holder versus the last one so for now he's going to live there until we get the holder in. We also can flip our flip up counter up when we're inside the van and it really doubles the space. It's amazing how often we use this thing. Under here we have our water system. We have two five gallon freshwater tanks on this side and then over here we have one five gallon gray water tank. We also keep some cleaning supplies under here and down here is our foot pump. That's how we run our water system. We really like having a foot pump. It makes you think about how much water you're using and be so much more conscious while you're using it. We don't think we'll ever have an electric pump because we enjoy our foot pump so much. Over here is our baby drawer where we keep all of our utensils and then this drawer is fake. All right that's it. Let's switch spots. If you look up here you see that we installed a max air fan in our van. We absolutely love having it. It is essential on the hot days and now if you look down here you can see a mural that I painted. We really just like to add personal touches anywhere we can. It makes it feel more like home. This is our bed. It is a full-size bed that we had to cut about like four or five inches off the end so it's 69 inches total in length which makes it absolutely perfect. I can lay down straight with no problems at all but Kate unfortunately cannot but he still makes it work and he finds it comfortable as well. Then back here on this wall we have my calendar and then we also have this really cool little pull-down thing that keeps our pens and also just like a journal. Up here we have our toiletry cabinet. So this houses all of our toothbrushes, retainers, contact solution stuff, bathroom essentials, shampoo, conditioner, all of the bathroom essentials are in here and as you can see we don't have a way to keep this up but all you gotta do is put that drawer out and it stays. Then this right here was original to the van. It is our linen closet slash junk drawer. So all of our linen is on this side, towels, washcloths, you know things like that. We keep our grocery bags here up in the front because we use them pretty often. Over on this side it is a lot of randomness like Rubik's cubes, laundry lines. We also have a pocket shower up here which is how we actually shower a lot of the time so that thing is essential. Then this up here in the front is one of our favorite things that we have in the van. It is an iPad holder that detaches here and basically it's like a tiny tv for us in our tiny van and we love watching Netflix on it while we lay in bed. All right let me show you the closet now. The bed hinges and it's on hydraulics which thank goodness or else I would not be able to pick that up. So over here is kind of my side. These are what I store my clothes in and then my hats are over there. I also have my book bag which has like my laptop in it, some more clothes and like other essentials that I need. This is our dirty laundry hamper and it's a dog food storage container. We intentionally got it because they seal and we don't do laundry very often. It's like once a month so you want it to be able to seal all those smells in. On this side this is kind of Cade's side so we have like all of the camera gear, his backpack which has laptop and all the editing gear. We have his clothes bag and then over on that side is where he keeps his tripod stored which it's super dirty over there right now. We also have a vacuum cleaner somewhere down stored in here and it looks like we need to use it. The front half of the bed is just like all of our storage that we can get to right here and now we're gonna move to the back half where Cade's gonna show you the garage. Cade worked out for the first time in a long time and you can tell by the way he's moving around he's pretty sore. Okay here we are at the back of the van. This is my portion of the tour. So this is our Rocky Mounts bike rack. It is awesome because it actually swivels away from the van like so and we got this because we have the barn doors on the back of our van and we keep a lot of stuff back here so we need to be able to access it whenever we want. So welcome to our garage. I'm just gonna kind of run through everything that we have back here. I'm gonna start with the door panels. We redid these along with the ones on the side of the van and they're cedar panels. Super awesome. Have these little cargo nets on the side so these are like bug nets that we can hang up on the windows and this one has our Starlink cable. We recently got Starlink right before our transmission died so we haven't got to use it very often but that's there so we can use it when we're traveling again. And another thing on this side this is a bottle opener kind of cool. This actually came with the original conversion from 1991 so it's really cool and my buddy that I bought the van from we put this on together as like a final touch so it's kind of a special little thing. Never used it but it's pretty cool. Okay so back here we have our seven gallon stainless steel water container. This is what we use for our drinking water. So to get to it we just take out our tool bag so this just has like tools and extra oil and a bunch of random stuff that you should always have. Then we got to take out our levelers. So these are just little blocks that you can park on to change how your van is sitting to get a more level sleeping spot so these are essential. Just take these out and then we can slide our water out to here and then fill it up right here. And we just take this into grocery stores and fill it up in the like filtered water thingies and we kind of get some funny looks because it looks like we're catering a party or but it is awesome. We love it. So other things that we have back here. This is our camp stove so we don't have a way to cook in the van which I don't think we would like it if we did anyway so we just have to set this up when we want to cook. And this tote just has a bunch of random stuff in it. It's kind of like a utility tote so it's got our water filter, toilet treatment stuff, propane, car jack, stuff like that. Also back there we have a little buddy heater. Mr. Buddy heater. We've never used it but we just got it just in case it gets cold but it's been like 100 degrees ever since we left so I don't know if we'll need it anytime soon. Okay so on this side we have my hiking boots, a little camp table that we set up. It's got like a roll top and we set that up to cook on and just whatever else outside. We have a little cheap $30 tent that we set up to basically just save our spot or it's kind of like our guest bedroom if we ever have guests which we never do so that's that. We also have a yoga mat. Usually there's two. Some hiking poles and there's our Starlink satellite dish thing that we haven't really got to use yet. And then on this side this is where our electrical system lives so I'm not going to run through everything because I just made a video that goes through the entire system so you can click on the link up here if you want to check that out. Basically we have a Battleborn 100 amp hour lithium battery and a 1000 watt inverter and then we also have 200 watts of solar panels on the top. On top of that we can also charge from the alternator when the van's driving so that's just a little bit of a rundown of our electrical system. It does everything we need. It's great. It keeps our phones charged, it runs the fan, the fridge, Clyde's fans, we can run our blender, all that stuff. So here's a cool little feature that came with the original conversion. There's a little control panel right here. You can unlock and lock the doors from right here so when we're laying in bed I can just reach over and lock the doors which is really awesome. The other two switches don't work anymore so we don't use those ones. And one thing I'm told I forgot is our trash-a-roo. So it's just basically a dumpster can for a van. That's actually good marketing. They should use that. Van dumpster can. So it's just like a external trash bag so when we fill up our little tiny trash bags we can put them all in here and whenever we get somewhere where we can dump them we just take them all out and dump them. And it's really awesome to be able to have somewhere to store trash that's not inside the van so it doesn't stink and stuff. We also store like whenever we have wet clothes we'll put them in there until we can dry them or like wet shoes or whatever on the outside. Yeah it's pretty awesome. All right that's it for our van tour. Thanks for checking it out. If you have any questions that we didn't answer go ahead and just comment them and we will make sure to answer all of those. Also we post new videos every Sunday so make sure you subscribe and we will see you next week. Van tour!