hi there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of unique homes and showcase
stories of people living alternatively in this week's episode we'll be taking a tour
of Ben's accessible self-built house truck after an unfortunate skiing accident Ben was
forced to change career paths but that hasn't stopped him on his quest to live life to the
fullest Ben's going to take us on a tour of his incredible tiny home on Wheels and show us that
no matter what situation you find yourself in there's always a way to make it work if
you're determined but before we begin if you like videos like this one make sure that you
subscribe and hit that notification Bell so that you know every single time we publish a new video
where will you go
hey welcome to my tiny home I'm Ben and this is a perspective Anne [Music] foreign
up I always loved the outdoors I grew up in Mount Shasta and it was just like a child's Paradise
right when I was 22 I had a skiing accident I was a pretty avid skier I'd been skiing since
I was old enough to walk I took a trip up to Tahoe and hit a little pole and actually
completely obliterated two of my vertebrae so T56 vertebrae in case anyone knows what that is after
the injury I set off to try to make my life into something without being able to do what I used to
do I did construction before that and now I was like well I'm not going to be doing construction
anymore so what's next during that time I had a really interesting experience that I think is not
only stuck with me but it's also really given me a lot of perspective on how lucky I am and
even perspective on just what a what a blessing life is I did a lot of camping growing up and I
really always just felt better when I was near the ocean or near a lake or doing something outdoors
and quite honestly when I was living in a house I didn't get to do that stuff very often I would
sit at home way too often and you know have my little bubble around where I live the reality
is now that I am in all kinds of new idyllic places all the time and I get to be a little bit
of a homebody which I've always been and still get to go out and have my home in new places
[Music]
so this is an old Snap-on truck the truck had about 114 000 miles on it we got it it's got 135
now so I put about 20 000 miles on it it's got the 5.9 Cummins diesel engine the Allison 1000
transmission it took me 15 months to build this to the point where I could hit the road I think
I spent somewhere upwards over fifty thousand dollars on Hardware and Parts and infrastructure
to be able to build this not counting you know the countless hours of Labor that it took to get
there when I was doing the build I'm like okay inside is going to be comfortable and nice and
modern but on the outside I am not approving a single thing because stealth was kind of a big
idea in my build I my build process I wanted to be able to park it places and have it just look
like a crappy old delivery truck so it's about 25 feet nose to tail got the lift that sticks
out another five feet or so down there I have a little Custom Body Work ran over a fire ring and
a camping spot under here is my 90 gallon water tank you can just barely see my diesel heater
is mounted in there it recirculates the air inside to warm it down here we've got my city water inlet
and down this side I'll let you kind of walk it because the curbs here I have the door which I
actually pretty much almost never opened there's a little bit of storage under there and there's
like my truck batteries and stuff but I actually there's steps to go in they call this a step van
it's a delivery truck that has steps on the side I covered up the steps and put the passenger seat
there so I kind of used that whole piece of floor space because I'm never going to use the steps so
there's no point for me in keeping them going down the side I have a little more storage I
have an air compressor in there my water hose is extension cords for plugging in the shore
power and all that and the gray tank is mounted at the very back and the end 45 gallon gray so
this is a 1400 pound cargo lift and I actually got this remote this is a crane remote crane
operation remote and I just used the module and hooked it up so that I can go up on a remote and
it's handy because uh normally these things are on like a tether and you have to hook it up and
hold it and I didn't want to do that so I did the remote and it's been working out really good I'm
still trying to figure out something to wire the other buttons though and I also did this
which is not my greatest piece of work but I use this winch here just to fold the lift up
because normally it's a manual fold and I'm obviously not going to be outside the truck
folding it up manually and then jumping in the side door so I put this winch here and I just use
it to lift it up before I drive away so it's not flopping around back here also got the the pump
going to the outdoor shower here which is so hot right now that was totally a necessary show off
foreign
over here is the bathroom area this isn't quite finished but this is intended to be a wet room
so this whole area can be wet and drain water I haven't finished the indoor shower yet I've been
using the outdoor shower and other facilities but the idea here is that you can pull the
curtain have some privacy use the restroom so my toilet setup is very something specifically
that works for me I got a seat to sit on and I got a bucket to go in I went with low Tech
easy cheap and then for liquid waste I set up something that is a little strange but works
perfectly for me and everyone that has had to use it or needed to use it has found it fine as
well it's essentially a beer bong what I call it a pea bomb and it's pretty simple it's just
a tube and a funnel and you just drain the liquids down into the gray tank and for my purposes it's
just handy and convenient and again it means I don't have to carry around jugs or try to
empty it by sort of manual methods which for me just wouldn't work can you imagine
me carrying a jug of pee and spilling it bad day all around I have the kitchen area which has sink
stove I got this nice little cutting board here which I use actually for a desk a cutting board
a table it's kind of just a very handy surface for a lot of stuff so I do most of my cooking and
also use a nice long nine foot long counter space I've got here I've got my refrigerator here which
is uh runs on 24 volts DC power this was a nice little adaptation I came up with which is a low
drawer so you see instead of having a drawer that has a side all the way I had it cut real low that
way I can reach over and grab things and still utilize this space pretty well yeah over here
is my bedside table I got my little stuffed cow because I love cows I keep all my remotes here in
this little remote holders and kind of worked everything from bed which was another part of
my design process all my lights are on my phone switches so I can turn everything on and off from
my phone and anything that I couldn't get on my phone has a remote right here so I can lay in bed
and shut everything on or shut it off from bed and moving over to this side of the van here I have my
other control panel my victron monitoring here so I can see all the power output the victron here
for monitoring my battery here I've got something that I think is a actually a really good ad that
I have not seen in a lot of Vans this is an air cleaner so I installed this air cleaner with
temperature humidity and air purification capacity this is actually one of my favorite parts and it's
such a simple little thing but it's been such a great piece I have a wireless charger that I
put into the counter here but beyond that I also you know you need some plugs so it's got a little
pop-up and you've got three AC plugs and then two USB plugs just built right in here which I
use that so often it's not even funny it's just like the simplest thing that has become one of
the most valid and valuable useful parts of the van just because I wanted to be able to push the
button and have it pop up and it turns out it's it's just super convenient [Music] [Applause]
the bed itself sits up in the ceiling when I'm not using it and then I bring it down to be able
to lay down so this kind of doubles as living room and bedroom depending on what mode the van is in
okay moving towards the front of the van we've got one of my favorite items which is nothing
to do with the van but it has everything to do with my travels this chair is called an
omeo and it really is like the facilitator for so much of my Adventures because this thing can go
off-road it can go off Trail it's just a real game changer going from a manual chair which I've been
in for a long time and switching to this which has really just opened up so much of my travel life
I get to go places I could never go in my manual chair or probably wouldn't want to even if I could
exceeding is everything to me this chair is very important to me this chair is very important to me
and of course this chair is also very important to me because I spend a lot of time in it I had
this chair made for me to spec it's got heating massaging electronic adjustments to everything
when you're sitting all the time your seating is very important and I really knew that going into
this so I made sure I had the had the thought for thought and the money to be able to do this
the way that would work for me long term and not just make it happen but make it happen exactly
as I needed it to okay now obviously I can't drive a vehicle without hand controls I can't
use my feet for the pedals so one of the first things I did was to install these hand controls
took me a couple hours to install but it made the vehicle useful for me and made me able to drive
myself around and that's kind of an important thing when you live in a vehicle right so
that was literally I think the first thing I did in here other than starting to pull
out some of the old Snap-on Hardware that was inside and took it for a drive right away and
I haven't stopped since I freaking love driving this thing it's just so much fun
to get in this big beast and drive down the road like you own the road and it's been fun
and I really also just love the front here because it has Windows that wrap
all the way around so when I pull into a camping spot I try to find the best view
all right well this is intended to be the living room space I got the two swivel seats so I'm able
to kind of spin them around and make this still usable space when I'm parked and this was the
idea because this is you know two or three feet of the van that if you're not using it while you're
parked it's just dead space I actually can't go into anyone else's van very easily so I usually
end up entertaining and inviting people over I've also had up to like 11 people in here pretty
comfortably because there's so much space I have people bring their camp chairs over or just sit
on the floor there is not a single seat in here that doesn't serve a purpose for me feels good to
know everything in here is here for a reason and that reason is because I need it not because I'm
catering to other people's needs because the world isn't catering to my needs and I'm always having
to make it work you want to come in here you make it work because it already works for me up here I
have a Wi-Fi router that works on cell service it's a pep wave dual SIM card setup so I have
two SIM cards running on the T-Mobile and Verizon networks and it kind of broadcasts Wi-Fi on the
hot spot I have a I have a sell signal booster with an external antenna which both boosts my
my hot spot Wi-Fi and also my phone signal so I'm able to get pretty decent signal most of the time
foreign
how I convert the bed here turn the living room into the bedroom [Music]
now I also like to think of everything as like kind of Dual Purpose I installed an articulating
bed frame it turns out because I can lift the head or the feet independently I can level the bed out
if I'm parked on a slant and I'm not able to lay down comfortably I can change the angle of the
bed until it is comfortable and that was kind of a lucky accident but it turned out to be pretty nice
for a van lifer that actually does a lot of sort of stealth and urban camping it's really nice to
be able to park on an angle and have a flatbed anyway so I can just kind of hop in bed here
and be as comfortable as I need also I can pull down the screen sit back and watch a movie
which is pretty nice I put the projector right over here and can get a good movie night in or
watch whatever I need to do again I have my control panel and all my remotes Within
Reach so this is kind of my station I can do anything from here I can be comfortable here
the only thing I wish is I wish I put the fridge just a little bit closer so I could
reach in the fridge and grab a drink from bed but you know maybe on the next build [Music]
so when I set out on the road I didn't quite have everything done and I'm really excited
because recently I got to do some kind of trim work that really I think made the van look a
lot nicer I needed metal because I couldn't give up any space to be able to turn around here so I
needed something really thin that would allow me to retain this as a way to spin my chair in every
part of the van that's Millie she was my service dog for 12 years and she died sadly about three
months into my van life Journey so we did get to have a little bit of Van lifetime together and
a couple of friends had these done for me because they knew how much I loved her and everybody that
knew her loved her as well I just really didn't have room for another dog in my heart for a long
time because it was just such a big loss but a few months ago I had a time and space where I
felt like I was really ready and wanted another companion on the road and so I met this little
cutie over here and she has been quite a handful she's a rescue from Mexico and she's uh had a
really hard life and now she's just a happy little van life dog and gets to follow me around wherever
we go and really loves to learn new commands and listen and be a good girl and you know
after almost two years with no dog and knowing I'm very firmly a dog person it's been a really nice
addition to my van life journey to have a little passenger to ride along with me again [Music] oh
[Music]
when I started in the van it was it was about getting away it was about finding new points
of view New Perspectives this is the perspective and after all because I wanted New Perspectives on
life I am living minimally in my usage of things and my need for stuff in my waist and it's it's an
it's a nice feeling this is possible no matter what your situation is I have a pretty extreme
physical disability and I do it alone now I know my situation is not the same as other people's and
there may be people who have a lot more severe circumstances or financial worries to do this
but I truly believe if this is something you want to do there's a way to do it there's an entryway
to get a van and get started there are ways to make this work no matter what type of needs you
have what I would hope to instill in people is that believing it's possible is the starting point
but actually taking that belief and turning it into a vision of what you want it to be
takes takes faith it takes a real desire to make it happen nobody's going to make you get
rid of all your stuff nobody's going to make you change your life but if something like this calls
to you if you see me taking this journey and you're like I want to do that that is where
I want to be just do it at the right time is if you're feeling the urge to do it just do it
might not be easy it certainly wasn't easy for me it still isn't some days it's so hard I just
I've had days where I just sit in the van and cry and wish I just had someone for five minutes to
help me with this thing that I cannot do on my own but you know what that was true when I lived in a
house too there is no right time there is no wrong time there is no perfect set of circumstances
it's just do you want it bad enough to do it and if you do there's a way so do it I believe in you
thanks so much for watching this week's video I hope you guys enjoyed it make sure to subscribe
and if you'd like to see another tour of an accessible van build out check out the
links in the description and I will see you soon with another unique home tour
[Music]