Building a Tiny Home on Wheels - Custom Box Truck Build - Pt 3

Previously on Tiny Home Tourist Truck Build, we got our new windows installed, our nomadic cooling AC unit installed, and we also transformed the exterior by adding a heavy-duty bumper and some new wheels. Today on Tiny Home Tourist Truck Build, we're gonna be going from an empty shell to a nearly full-blown interior build. Our cabinets are going in, we're gonna tackle a design issue with the countertops, painting is getting done, and our beautiful Thetford fridge is going in. Now, building out this box is gonna be a little bit different than we're used to because it has square walls and ceiling, so everybody's pretty excited on that. Time to get started on the interior. It's gonna be an exciting day. We've got the insulation, furring strips, and walls and ceiling all going in. When choosing a ceiling, we knew we wanted to do a shiplap tongue and groove. We reached out to woodplank.com to inquire about some of their products. We were really impressed with the quality and the packaging. None of them were bowed or anything like that. Sometimes you have to go through 30 of them to one of the bigger box stores before you find 10 straight ones. The good thing about these is that they're already primed, so we're gonna go ahead and paint those black and get those up. We're getting our insulation put in. Super easy to install because you can use scissors to cut it. The nice thing about purchasing it this time, though, is we purchased it from Van Life Outfitters, and that process was super easy, and it also came very, very fast, way quicker than we ever expected. They're very knowledgeable in different types of insulation. They've done some research when it comes to 3M Thinsulate and wool, and there's many, many different perks for going with the 3M Thinsulate versus the wool. When comparing our value, they're actually very similar. The thing with Thinsulate is it doesn't hold moisture, whereas with wool, it can, and it can start to smell like a barn. ♪♪ That's nice. The first cabinet Kevin is starting on is the desk couch electrical cabinet. Our whole build kind of revolves around this. When living tiny you have to be aware of every little inch in order to maximize space and storage and also be aware that if you change measurements to one area of your build that's probably going to affect another area of your build. We're going with lots of half inches for this build to save on weight. There are some three-fourths inch that we're using for some of the lower cabinets. Our goal with this area is to have a desk to work at, a comfortable seating area, and also kind of have the brains of our electrical system there. If you remember we also have an exterior cowgirl door and that leads to us being able to have our dumbbells also stored in this bench. That's the side piece for the couch, this piece right here. Does this need to be removable? I'm guessing he's going to be using some of this part right here for electrical if we have to access anything. So you're talking from here to here. I mean the most convenient would be to have it removable even if it's just taking out a couple screws if we ever needed to get to that because I feel like it would be hard to look up that or down that. Okay. Does that throw a wrench in things? Yeah. Oh boy. I mean it's not as big, sorry. I'll figure it out. I mean it could even be just like a panel of it or something even. That would be great. So from that point to that point just leave it removable? Yeah I think so. That makes you feel better. We really wanted a comfortable seating area. We see a lot of bills that have those fabric covered foam pieces and those aren't all that comfortable to us. So we're able to hop on to Amazon and found this Sep 9 49 inch couch. We talked to them about the structure of it and it sounded like it was going to work. All we had to do is basically not use the legs and it's worked out perfectly. We both love the style and the comfortability. The goal of the kitchen cabinet was to not only house our food and kitchen utensils but also house our water system. On the left hand side we would have our water tank. On our exterior we had a cargo door that would lead to our water inlet. On the other side we have our three drawers with our induction cooktop. And the right side corner is going to be another huge wish list item for us. A nice size fridge freezer combo. Today our fridge has arrived and we've partnered with Noracold for their eight cubic feet fridge. When we were looking for a fridge we wanted one a little bit bigger but not too big where it looks too big for the space. This is the N8DC 12 volt fridge. We are really excited to be able to put this into our rig. Much bigger space, much more room for fresh veggies and foods. Once it arrived we were amazed at how well this matte black matches our design and style that we're going to be going for. Fits pretty good for not measuring. This fridge is DC only so no propane required. We were able to hook this up directly to our electrical system without any converters. The thing I really like about it is how easy it is to set up. They have this little port right here so you just take your negative and positive and put the connections on them and then all you have to do is plug it in after that. That and that and then it's ready to go. That's how easy it is. Today's an exciting day. Cabinets are going in. Edge banding, edge banding, and more edge banding. I'm pretty sure Kevin is sick of edge banding but it creates a very clean line door, very simplistic, and that is key for our design that we're going for. Kevin is installing the doors and adding hardware, getting them prepped before they are painted. We are going to install Eloshang's 24 inch drawer slides and of course we stuck to the theme of black. So they look really great. Kevin mentioned that they are really easy to install and they have a really nice glide to them. For the inside of the cabinets we're going with a golden oak stain so it matches the cedar shakes that we're going to be doing on a future wall later. We really like the look of having just a little bit lighter inside the cabinet so it's not so dark. We're also putting some polyurethane on it so it lasts a lot longer. And as you guessed it, keeping to the design, we are going to have black cabinets. We think it looks really good with the wood. So black on the wood, such a great look. We are loving it. Many people actually question us on our dark style, having dark ceilings, dark cabinets, and feel like it encloses the space. But we disagree. We think that it just looks really great, has really clean lines, very minimalistic look, and we've never felt like it encloses it just because of our design trying to keep it open as much as possible. So we've been really happy with how it turns out despite a lot of people questioning us. A few years ago we were painting the basement in our house and the gray ended up looking like a lavender. So when we went to look for the paint for our build, we were looking more towards the warmer side. But funny enough, for our gray we actually went towards the cooler side because of the warm color lights that are our overhead lights. I don't know how to describe it but it matches really perfectly and looks really great. Kevin's finishing up the cabinets, getting the handles on, and also the Apex Stones gas struts. And that's one thing you're not going to want to forget because having gas struts on your upper cabinets makes it a lot easier when getting into them. So with the countertops that was a big sticking point for us. We knew what we wanted but we didn't quite know it unless we saw it. Originally we were going to go with some one-inch teakwood. Then we realized they were a little bit over our budget. Then we thought we were going to go with some one and a quarter inch Hevia butcher blocks. Kevin had some laying around the shop and we decided to play with those a little bit. We got the Hevia and then the Maple here. So it's pretty brown and now we're going to do the Maple. That's definitely lighter. Are you good with what we see here? I'd probably take it into our van and see what it looks like in that lighting because it's all different lighting. Yeah yeah. All right. This is a little bit more yellow and that does have more of a kind of a reddish sort of tint to this. When you have that separate from this it doesn't look as red but I do see like some reds in there but that's I think mostly from the wood itself. It's a little red so that's not what we're you want. Okay here we go. I don't think that's what you want at all. No no 100% yeah. We did some staining and they still just were not looking the way we wanted. We started doing some searching and came across a YouTube video of someone who used some Menards edge glued pine board and it looked pretty much what we were looking for. They actually used flooring polyurethane. We went to Menards and as soon as we saw them we're like oh these are the ones we want. That knotty appearance was what we're looking for which we didn't know what we were missing until we actually saw those in person. So we picked those up brought those back and ended up just going with the flooring polyurethane. Went with a black ceiling and Nomadic Cooling has a very sleek black face plate for their air conditioner. Looks really really nice against it and it blends right in. Also has a control panel right on the front that we can quickly access along with the remote. When we installed it we wanted to have it near the bedroom area towards the back of the truck. We did not realize prior to installing it that it actually has some directional vents on the front four of them so you can actually face them towards the back and towards the front to have air conditioning going all throughout your rig. The air conditioning came with pre-connected wires so we just took those connections and added them to our electrical system. We were able to then turn the air conditioner on right away. My eyes lit up because I knew how much this would change our life on the road because a lot of times I get heat induced migraines and that can make our daily life a little tough. It's very energy efficient which will allow us to run it more especially on those hot summer days. It's coming down to the end and Kevin is installing our life proof scratch stone flooring. This stuff is easy to install and we've actually had it in a previous house and van of and it's lasted really well so we knew we wanted this right away. Within just the past three weeks we can't believe how far this interior has come together from just an empty box with studs to seeing the drawings now come to life. It's all very exciting and we can't wait to move into our new Tiny Home. Next time in Tiny Home Tours truck build series our signature solar system is going to be installed. Our plumbing system is going to be placed in and our gorgeous bathroom is going to come together.