Working on our van conversion TOGETHER + building our table and drawers! | Van Build Series

Look who I found! We're finally in Austin working on the van together. Finally! It's been since January since we've both been here to work on the van since we bought it which is nuts so hopefully having an extra set of hands will make things go smoother. Rookie hands. Yesterday we took the day off to go explore Austin a bit. We filmed a really fun vlog with all of our favorite things to do and eat in Austin so that'll be coming out soon so make sure you click the bell so you get notified when that vlog is live And now we have two full days to get some good work done on the van. We've gotten quite a bit done so far so let's show you what we've done. So what we've been working on is getting the tops of the benches in. We have all three and we're fitting them, test fitting them with the hinges here. These are kind of in and also drilling the holes that these are going to be the handles right here so I've got another drill hole to drill right there and then I'll jigsaw that out and it'll be sort of like this one. This one's a little further along so action. That way we don't smash our fingers when we try to open and close this because so far it's been risky. No one's lost a finger yet but it's been a close one. So we added this wood right here so that way our table has something to lay on when we convert our seating area into our bed at night. So the tabletop will fit perfectly on here and then we'll have a nice sturdy surface to lay on. So right now I'm working on getting our lagoon table installed. So we've put a little backer on the back of this bench. We're going to attach this to the back bench and what this table is or this contraption is is we'll attach our tabletop to here and we'll be able to raise our table, lower our table, swivel our table and then at night we basically just unattach this and put it away. We rest the tabletop down and then we have a bed. Womp womp. The bolts aren't long enough so the table will not be getting installed right now. Now we are working on making boxes to go around the wheel wells. I think I've mentioned this before but we're doing this so one we can stuff this with insulation and hopefully help with some road noise and just insulate the van more and then two we'll have some space on top of the wheel wells that otherwise would have been useless because of just the curves and everything that we can actually store some stuff so it'll give us a little bit more store or just space to work with to maximize the space as best as we can. Our hero Adam ran to Home Depot and got us the right bolts to install our table today. Let's see if it fits, if it works. Drop it down. Okay. How exciting. How many games of Catan will be dominated on this table? Tightening up that one. We have a dinner table in our van, workstation, game table, anything you want to call it. And turns into our bed. And it turns into our bed. So many purposes. So it swivels and it can raise and lower and all kinds of stuff. But the issue we're having is this. It's kind of a little wobbly. And the thing is it says on their website, this is a lagoon table, it says that it's not supposed to wobble. So we're not sure maybe our table's too long. We did just try to like change where it was attached underneath to make it more centered. But I don't know. So yeah if you have any tips for us with this lagoon stand or swivel thing. Swivel yeah. Swivel to prevent this. We're talking, we're thinking about like putting a couple legs that like kind of retract up under but that's what I can think of. There's also a shim. Yeah there's a shim that'll go here but that's just going to help with like raising it up have a higher starting point. That's not going to prevent any wobbling. So yeah that's where we're at right now. Kind of a bummer but still exciting. Very exciting in my eyes. Well it is now the next day and we're trying to get some stuff done but we keep having a few roadblocks. We were hoping that this weekend having the three of us working on stuff we could each like work on a different task and things would go faster. But it's proved to not be the case. Yeah like her dad will tell us how to do something and we're like okay we'll do it and then we get there and it's like wait hold on wait hold on wait how do you do this and then he's got to walk us through each piece so then he ends up doing it. So basically like instead of teaching one person how to do stuff he's having to teach two people. So I feel like it's actually taking longer. Which was kind of the goal of it all anyways like he's teaching us how to do stuff but at some point it's got to be faster. Gradually released like for us to do our own thing. Yeah which we are trying to do our own stuff. So right now my dad's working on the wheel well boxes because we had some uh. It's round two of that. Yeah we had the second one but round two of the first one because we had it all cut and everything but then we pieced it together incorrectly and so when we set it in there to set it in there it it didn't fit because it now the measurements were wrong so. So my dad's redoing that um but the good news is that we got some part of like the bench's wheel well area done. We got these walls put in so basically this wall right here was not there it was just insulation and so now we have that so at least we have that kind of closed in now we just need to work on the actual wheel well area. And while my dad's working on that we are trying to build drawers for the first time ever. Specifically our dresser drawer. So what we've done is Adam's made an awesome little sketch. So these are my awesome artistry skills here so measuring everything and trying to transfer it on paper I guess to get a better mental picture for myself um and then now we're trying to use uh this plywood here measure out see how much we can how efficient we can be with it basically not waste any wood. It's really fun being here together though. Oh yeah it's way more. It's just like it's fun because you know we're both clueless and so we get to be clueless together we get to laugh get to be frustrated together so it hasn't been like the smoothest weekend we have not gotten done as much as we hoped but the day's still young we still a lot of time a lot of daylight left we probably can get another like eight hours if if we can get on a roll we'll get going so we're crossing our fingers that we get a lot done still before Adam leaves tomorrow. We're not trying to be negative or sad we feel like our moods are not the best today but to be honest this van building process is hard. Yeah it's a huge learning curve like we don't have any handy skills like we've said and um it's just hard. Everyone said it would take 10 times longer it was going to be really hard but I just was trying to be really optimistic about it and we still are trying to be really positive about it because it is really cool that we're building our home and that we get to do what we're going to get to do and travel all around the U.S. but it's definitely a hard process so at times it feels a little overwhelming we feel a little defeated and today is maybe one of those days but it's gonna it's gonna pay off. Yeah I think at the end like like I said yesterday or the day before that at the end it's just gonna feel better knowing that like we kind of did it ourselves versus like just going and buying it. Yeah we're gonna be we're never gonna regret building it ourselves but we may never do it again. Okay we have the drawers all cut out. No news. And I brought Adam a treat. Oh I was wondering what that smell was. Oh my goodness. Only one for you. Woo bacon celebration. Thanks mom. It's the little things you got to reward yourself. I was supposed to pick me up I Is it okay now? It's closer I think. I think it's good. I think the I think the biscuit I think the biscuit was not in the slots centered so he was forcing it. It was my fault. We just had a biscuit situation. We did something correctly. Correct. Finally. Didn't look good at first but we did it. And now we actually have to put it all together for real. One, two, three. Drawers done. Put together. Assembled. But not put in the van yet. No. One more step. Let this one dry. Make a Home Depot run of course. And then get them in. They're going in. Look at that. We have the drawer. That's so cool. Big news of the day. Big accomplishment was we got these drawers in. We made the drawers. We got the drawers in. Got the tracks on. Almost by ourselves. 100% by ourselves. Tom helped us cut it out but we pieced it together mostly ourselves. Glued it all together. Biscuited it and put the tracks on ourselves. And they're almost perfect. We got a few kinks to work out but they all work. And so this top drawer up here is going to be mine. Second one's going to be Catherine's. And then this third one is going to be a shared one. Shared one. So this is where we're going to store all of our clothes. All of our socks. All of our jackets. Yeah. They're nice and big. This is going to be plenty. We'll have packing cubes in here. Keep it all organized and it'll be perfect. Exciting stuff. And then the butcher block will go on top of here and this will be a nice cooking area. Prep stuff. Getting ready space. Whatever. Yeah. Yay. Getting stuff done. Finally. And that's a wrap for my time here. I'm heading back to Seattle tomorrow morning. And you're going to continue on right? Yeah. I have six more days here including a weekend. So I'm hopeful that when Adam shows up again next week because he's coming back really fast a few days after I get back to Seattle. Second week in between. He'll be like dang you got so much stuff done. I always am. I always am impressed. That's what I'm hoping but we'll see. I honestly don't know what I'm working on next so you'll just have to wait and find out because I don't I don't really know because I just kind of wait and see what my dad thinks is the best thing to do next because he's super smart. But you know we got quite a bit done. We got the benches finished. We did not get the boxes inside the bench finished. That's a task for tomorrow. That is one thing I know. We got the table done. We got the drawers in. So not as much as we hoped. It started a little rocky today but we got something big done. Yeah. That was our goal when we started working on this around noon and it's like 8 45. 8 45. It's dark out. It's just it's just a lot of work. We're getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. It's really hot and humid. We smell. We have bites all over us so it's time to go shower and go to bed now. We put in a hard day's work today. Hold it on square. Imagine a line going through that screw all the way through this drill. And you're not imagining it. This is an ab workout. Honestly if you're on this side you just go like this and work on it. Well this is more fun this way. I'm in a coffin. I'm rising from the dead. I'm really bad at this part.