Van Conversion Finishes + Walls | Van Build Series

I took Adam to the airport this morning and now it's just me here in Austin for the next six days hoping to get a lot done while he's gone because he'll be back just a few days after I leave here and then that's our final van build trip until we actually drive our few belongings down to move into the van. I use air quotes because we'll still have to be finishing the van. We're not going to move into it right away. We'll have about a month where we're working on it and also doing some traveling abroad and then when we get back from that, we're going to hopefully move into it end of July. But anyway, so today was my first day by myself again and I had to work all day. I had to work my day job. So my dad was awesome and worked most of the day on the van for us. So thanks again dad. I don't, I don't, my dad had like a dollar for every time we said thank you. He'd be very rich by now. So while I was working today, my dad did our wheel well covers. So the wheel wells are completely boxed in now and one cool thing that we decided to do last minute was add this like a lip and this shelf so we can actually store stuff and make the space more usable because before it would have just been flat and things could have moved around while we were driving. So now we can throw some stuff in there. It'll be when it's closed, it'll be enclosed by the top of this and it'll be like a little box and as you can see the water tanks fit in perfectly on the side of it against the side of the bench. The one thing that you don't see is that we did put have lock wool all over the wheel well covers before we put the covers on. So there's wool underneath and we're hoping that we'll reduce some sound, which sounds not bad to be honest, but reduce some sound and insulate the van better. So that is all that we are getting done today. My dad's pretty pooped. I'm really tired from taking Adam to the airport super early. So we're going to call it a night. Um, usually when we're done working on the van, like physically, like actually putting things together, we spend some time researching things and you know, finding vendors to help us with certain stuff. So for example, I'm trying to find someone that can make all of our cushions for us for a decent price, which is hard. So I'm going to spend some time tonight reaching out to more people also, you know, buying a few more things we need. So the work doesn't end when we're actually like not out in the van working. We still have a lot of stuff we do at night, editing vlogs, all that stuff. So I'm going to work on that tonight so we can have a good day tomorrow and a good rest of the week. So it's been a few days since I last vlogged about the van. And the past few days we haven't really done anything. My dad's been really busy working on some other stuff. So I've just been doing a lot of researching and trying to find supplies we need to get and all that fun stuff. Just trying to keep us organized and on task. So that stuff's important too, but obviously our goal is like actually build stuff as well. So what we did is this morning we went to the lumber, the lumber shop and got a ton of wood. We're hoping that's our last trip to the lumber yard because man, it was our most expensive trip yet. We got a lot of stuff though and we basically, we spent some time this week mapping out everything we have left to build with wood and how much we need. So we're hopeful that we got the right amount and we're able to just make this stuff last the rest of our time working on the van. And so our goal for this weekend, cause it's Saturday now, we have all day today and then all day tomorrow is just to build all the things, cut all the things and hopefully when Adam gets here we can start getting more drawers put in and all that fun stuff. So it's been a few hours and we got a little bit done. And we cut some wood to start framing out the kitchen or doing the face of the kitchen. But honestly it is so hot and humid here. I'm used to more mild temperatures now and even when I lived in Texas the heat was really hard on me and it's really hard on my dad. He just gets so hot and sweaty. So he's pretty pooped. He's had a really like busy few days and I'm exhausted too and I have a lot of like van errands I need to go run. So we're calling it a day today unfortunately. It's only like three o'clock so it's kind of a bummer. But we're hoping to hit it really hard starting early tomorrow morning and have a pretty good plan of what we hope to get done before I leave Monday. So we'll see what happens. Whatever happens happens. I'm just trying to stay positive. But here's a little bit of what we did to prep for tomorrow. So where all that tape is, that is the face of the kitchen cabinet. So we cut some of the pieces and then we just taped them on. That one keeps falling. But we just taped them on. That way we can just kind of see how they'll be and then we'll actually attach them tomorrow. We have the sink in just to see kind of how it's going to work with the face so we can plan accordingly. And then we're testing out what the shiplap will kind of look, how far it'll come out. Because we're going to do shiplap on the side here as well as on the back of the van, the part that you see when you first open the door. We put some bling on the van. We got our logo up on there. So we wanted to put our logo just because you never know who you're going to come across on the road. And in case one of you guys ever sees our van, you'll know it's for sure us and you guys can honk or say hi. We would absolutely love that. Our goal is to meet as many people around the US as we possibly can, whether they follow us on Instagram or watch our YouTube videos or not, or just meet locals wherever we go. So we're excited to have our logo on there. We just think it'll be fun to have our brand out there a little bit more on the road. Since we're building the van in Texas, but we live in Washington right now and absolutely love Washington, love the Pacific Northwest. It truly feels like our home. And we just, from the moment we moved to Seattle, we've just felt extremely at home. We never really felt homesick or anything. We just felt like this is where we are supposed to be. So going on the road in the van isn't because we want to leave Seattle. It's because we want to just experience so much stuff. We don't want to be trapped, you know, in the city all the time. We want to be able to live out in nature. So to kind of honor where we live now and how much it means to us, since our van does have a Texas license plate, we got this sticker to put on there. So we got this little Washington sticker with the evergreen tree. And it's just a way for us to show the two places that mean a lot to us, Texas and Washington. So we're really excited about it. It was really hard to put on. Both stickers are very hard to put on. It's a lot of work. I love stickers, but I'm not the best at applying them. So yeah, that's another fun little thing that we got done today. But now I'm going to go run some errands at Home Depot and hopefully get some of the stuff that's actually going to make our van look less like a work in progress and more of a finished product. I'm back from Home Depot and I thought I'd share a little bit about what our color scheme is going to look like and some of the decisions we're making right now for the interior of the van when it comes to decorating. So first we have our floor. So this is a vinyl plank flooring. This is just the sample, obviously. Unfortunately, I got this at Home Depot, the sample like a month ago, maybe we were trying to decide between which ones we wanted to do. And when I went to go see if they had it in stock today, apparently no stores carry it. So I ordered it online. So hopefully get that pretty soon. Not 100% sure how much flooring we need. We're going to start with one box and then see if we need more. This is the Traffic Master Allure plank and it's a grip strip. I've read really good reviews about people using this in RVs, which similar to a van or on the move all the time, different temperatures and whatnot. I even read some reviews on van life with it. So any of you guys have thoughts on this, if this has worked well for you or has not, let us know. We are not installing it quite yet. We're buying it, but we're not installing it yet. So we have time to change our minds or it's just good to know if there's any horror stories out there. I've tried to research. I also found a wood stain. So this flooring is the dark walnut color and I found dark walnut wood stain, which we're going to use to stain our butcher block countertops as well as our ceiling. So everything will match really well. And the other decision I'm having to make, cabinet colors. So we have the cabinets that you've been seeing us working on pretty much the only thing we've been working on the last like two vlogs or so are the cabinets and getting those all ready to go. So we're going to definitely do a white color, but I've learned that there are lots, lots of shades of white and some of them don't look very white, but when you put them next to a brown, like the guy at the paint store yesterday was telling me like a more yellowy white will look more white next to a brown. So I don't know. We have a lot of different options. We're waiting on our kitchen backsplash to show up. We're doing, we're doing hopefully something kind of more unique than we had originally planned, but it'll require us to make sure that the white matches. So we're going to wait and see what happens with that. But I bookmarked a few of the colors I like. This is Benjamin Moore paint. We're going to do cabinet paint specifically instead of just overall paint that you could use on a wall. So there's specialty places in town that sell it. And so I went there yesterday and learned a lot about paint and now we just have to make our decision. That's kind of it for right now. We're also in the process of trying to find someone to make our cushions for us. I have zero sewing skills and I could sew something very simple, but we want like a zipper installed and stuff. So we're trying to find someone that's reasonably priced in town to do those for us, which has been hard. It's definitely more than I thought it would be. So that kind of sucks. And then we're also trying to figure out what fabric we want to use for that. So I'm going to order some samples tonight and then, yeah, figuring out how we're gonna do all of our like window coverings. We don't want to buy those, even though it'd be so much easier to buy them just because some of our windows will be custom because of our boxing them in and whatnot. So learning how to sew for that, we have a sewing machine, so that at least helps us. But yeah, I'm trying to start thinking of all that stuff because I don't want us to forget about it. And then like the last minute trying to hit the road and we're like, oh no, we don't have our window covers. So for me, it's fun. I like it. But yeah, so that's kind of it for right now. And that's it for tonight. Tomorrow, we're going to keep working on the kitchen, work on the closet, but I'm going to call it a night, do some more research, buy some samples, buy some more van stuff and get some good night's sleep. So I'll see you then. It's officially Sunday Funday. We're getting some good stuff done on the van. First up, we are making the face for the kitchen cabinet. So we basically measured out all the pieces, placed them in the van to make sure everything spatially works correctly. And now we're getting them all put together and then we'll put it in the van. We're also working on getting this trim installed around the back windows. We finally got the back windows in recently and then we ordered this trim so that way it's a smoother surface around the cut. The only sucky thing is we ordered the correct size that they recommended for the window, but there's certain sections of the window that are pretty wide and you have to really stretch the trim over it. So it kind of looks a little weird, but it's better than how it looks right here where it's all cut and you can see all the primer and whatnot. So it's definitely an improvement and it'll work pretty well. I got the window trim up and this is a big moment for me because besides the installation, it's really like one of the first things I've done a hundred percent by myself. So I feel accomplished and I'm finally feeling like I'm contributing to this van build process instead of being just like learning a ton of stuff and slowing everyone down. So yay. Now we're shopping for some decor, my favorite part. We're getting these super cool pillows because as you guys may know by now, we love Hawaii and these ones remind us of Hawaii. But while I was shopping, my dad was working on the van more and I just opened the van door and saw what he's been doing. And I'm really excited because although it's not like final and it's not in place, I'm getting a much better idea of what the van's going to look like done. And I'm so pumped. Look at this shiplap, Joanna Gaines would be so proud of us. So it's not fully attached yet. It's just kind of secured in there so we can get a good feel for what it'll look like. These will obviously be painted whatever color we end up painting the cabinet. Same with the shiplap. It's just primed from Home Depot, but it looks so cool. And I don't think I've shown you what the kitchen facing looks like yet, but basically all of this stuff around all of the openings, that's the facing. Looks awesome. It looks, you know, the kitchen looks the same as it did earlier, except now it's just cleaner. It's not like the cut pieces from making the cabinet. It's just more clean. And this is how, this is what you'll see whenever you open the doors and everything with the doors will kind of rest on. And so it looks really good. We also got more of the closet facing in, so it's not totally done. That'll be something that'll get done this week and Adam will work on while he's here, but it's a step in the right direction. And one other thing that I have not shown you yet is our cabinet hardware. So we got these little guys from Ikea. There's this size and then we also have a longer size, which will go in our dresser drawers. And they're just like black, very basic. We really like to kind of like the modern look of them and we think it'll pop against the white cabinets. And they also don't stick out too, too far and they're also more rounded. So if we run into them, cause it's a very tiny space, we probably will run into them a time or two. They won't hurt as bad. So we really like these. They were pretty affordable cause they're Ikea and hopefully we'll like how they look when we actually get the cabinets together. Stay tuned for that. All right, I am back here to work on Brisket. It is time to get my hands dirty. First stop is of course Home Depot. Second stop is the paint store because looking to paint and prime some inside of the cabinets here, the bench seats. So let's go. So my big job for the day is sanding out the inside of the benches here. Getting closer, getting closer. So we're going to sand them out so that we can put the primer down and then hopefully get the paint on it as well before I leave. Sanded it down the best I know how. So it feels nicer in there than it did before. So next we're going to apply the primer. I put some tape along this tubing here to keep some primer off of it just to keep all these pipes looking nice, no stray paint marks anywhere. So here we go. Wish me luck. Oh my gosh. It's a warm one today, but I got it mostly done. I'm not a painter, but I don't know. It's covered with primer. Okay, so what we're working on right now is we are getting some wall put in. Very exciting. So we've got these little braces here so that the plywood quarter inch that we're putting in right here will have something to go up against. And we'll attach it there, fixing to put in some more insulation there. And then we will get the backer on there and then the shiplap will run along the wall just like right here. It's going to look really cool today. That's what we're trying to get done today is this wall right here. At least, yeah, even have the frame the window out. That'd be so cool. It would look like we got something major done today. So that's the plan. Stick around to find out what we get done. All right. Check this out. This is cool. We've got the whole, most of the wall here up there where the insulation still is, upper cabinets will go there. We've got this plywood backer wall here going, and then we've got three rows of shiplap. And then if you look in that one there, there's a hole for an outlet. So getting real here. It looks like a mess, but check it out. Long day today. So tomorrow we're looking to do this to this side. All right. So here's the work from yesterday. And as promised, got this side in, the plywood backer, and then now we're going to put in the shiplap. Got walls up on both sides. Looking pretty clean, I got to say. So that wraps it up for my time here. This is my last trip of flying down to work on the van. The next time we see Brisket will be when we drive down here, when we move down. So I'm flying back tomorrow morning, and then once school's out in about two and a half weeks, we'll pack up our car with a backpack, a weigh suitcase, and maybe a couple other things and drive on down here, take a couple days. And then when we get down here, we'll have a few days to work on the van, and then we go to Italy, or should I say Eataly, going to get all kinds of pasta, pizza, gelato, you know, the works. And then when we come back from there, we'll have a few days left to work on the van, and then it'll be the end of July, and then trying to skedaddle on out of here. So when we get down here, we'll keep working, do what we can do, and we'll see what happens.