hey guys Jenna here welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of tiny and unique
homes today we're taking a tour of Rachel's ambulance conversion which she lovingly calls
the glambo this home on Wheels features Ample Storage a large shower and artistic
touches that create a personalized space allowing her to live comfortably on the road
Rachel highlights the unique challenges of an ambulance conversion her motivations for
taking on such a demanding build and reflects on how it has redefined her idea of Happiness
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make this house
hey everyone I'm Rachel this is Thomas Welcome to the glambo [Music]
before living nomadically I realized how much I was living for work and basing a lot of my value
and my happiness and work not being able to really leave and travel got to me pretty quickly I've
always had like crazy ideas I wanted to challenge myself I was like could I really do this could I
do this could I do this could I do this for months and then finally I was like I'm gonna do it I'm
gonna do it I don't care how hard it is uh I'm gonna figure it out ambulances have a lifespan
of 10 years typically in their jurisdiction it's a 2006 it ended its career in 2016 and then it was a
plumber truck it still looked like an ambulance it had a lot of the equipment still there was so much
stuff it took me three months to gut this out and then I started the build process by myself because
my dad was like don't bring that thing to my house and turns out I didn't have the skills that I
thought I had I don't know so after calling my dad crying so many times finally he was like all right
bring it over which started the next chapter of finishing the build the rig costs with shipping
about fourteen thousand total after buying the rig doing the bailed out and then doing some
rebuilds I'd say I'm between 20 to 25 Grand I've been living on the road full time for about six
months I'm very grateful to my dad because it's something he didn't want to undertake and he did
because I asked him too I know how privileged I am to not only have his help but have him as
the foundation of this I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him and not living how I want to live
welcome to the outside of the glambo she is a 2006 Chevy Kodiak C 4500 the
exterior length is about 24 feet the Box width is about eight feet
I haven't gotten her professionally weighed yet but I'm guessing she's about 14 or 15
000 pounds driving this has its pros and cons on the highway it's decent I need some suspension
work max speed is maybe 65 but I think you'll learn in this journey to go slower dirt roads
it's a lot harder just because it is such a heavy rig and it's an ambulance it's not an
off-road vehicle so it's not exactly fun but we get places we got here and that's what counts
the engine is a 6.6 liter Duramax I think it's a V8 the mileage I get is garbage it's not great I
would say 10 to 12. we can take a look at the engine I don't know a lot but it looks cool
holy [ __ ] tons of dust oh my God [Music] one of the reasons why I wanted this and I was so
drawn to it is because of the front end it's just so cool it's so beefy I feel extremely safe in it
when I'm driving I think people fear me the top was always white and then it was ambulance red
that's not really my color I'm more of a teal Gale don't call it green laughs a question I
get almost every day is about the horn it doesn't work no but that doesn't mean it can't work when I
was building this out we just cut a lot of the wires so I'm sure it's just a cup wire that I
need to get done and rewired but the wiring is extremely overwhelming and probably one of the
hardest things when you get an ambulance it's very daunting but once you get past that I think you're
smooth sailing so the lights most of them work the ones that I need to be street legal definitely
work some of them break a lot like this one you know that's just what happens when you live on
the road lots of turbulence the back is lifted by airbags you'll probably telling that it's
low to the ground that's just what happens with airbags they over time they deflate after like 24
hours and then you have the compressor inside to lift them up when you're ready to drive [Music]
a huge part of why people are drawn to ambulances is the storage a lot of people
in Vans will put like their plumbing and their electrical inside but lucky for me
I have all that outside last year I upgraded finally got lithium batteries I would say one
of my biggest tips for people is save up go with lithium batteries it's worth it I swear they last
for what 10 years and a pure sign wave inverter that changed my life so I have 400 amp hours of
lithium battery and then I have a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter on the roof I have 1065 Watts
my entire roof is solar panels so ideally I want to work remotely I've done that throughout
my career so I wanted to not have to worry about power so the only thing I would probably
upgrade is maybe a little bit more battery if I wanted to include AC in my rig I would have
a perfect spot in the front above the cab to add a mini split it's just they suck a lot of power
so this one is my Plumbing which is still kind of under construction I'm so sorry I've upgraded a
lot of things in the last two years I used to have portable gray tanks that was such a pain
in the ass for me to have to take these heaviest gallons remove them dump them and then put them
back so I finally got a gray tank what I ended up going with for the water heater is a seven gallon
unit it's probably a little bit too big for what I need I only use it for my shower so next time
I might exchange it for a full gallon but for now it works but you can have a good visual of
what this looks like as this happening this is my dad being a smart and I've emptied it and then it
kind of messes with the pump so he was like all right Rachel because I'm a child I guess [Music]
so this is just a cool exterior drawer that I have it's a lot of
tools spray paint and then beyond this is like where my kitchen is
so a lot of the Interior is built around the exterior storage [Music]
a huge feature of the glambo the exterior of the glambo are my mini lights
these three holes that you see were ambulance lights and I didn't want to keep that I wanted
to remove as much ambulance as possible so I just remove the lights and turn them
into little windows so I have a ton of light inside and then I you know
trimmed them out made them look all Glam and I love them plus they're great for Tom
all right so now we can take a look at the back doors and the
this is the what everyone calls the garage we've got a lot of storage back here I could
definitely utilize this a lot better but I'm still again new on the road so I should get a screen
if you want to send me a screen I don't know what happened here
Things fall in cracks and crevices in a van and I don't remember this happening so
that's nice oh hey welcome to the glambo where there's [ __ ] everywhere [Music]
all right come on in [Music]
welcome to the inside of the glambo she's been through several Renovations and I finally have
a version that I absolutely love when I wanted to do this I wanted something that
was really homey and open and I think I've kind of nailed it I have that square box that allows
a very open ceiling it's about six one inside which is fine because I'm a short five three so
I've got plenty of headspace and now I have a couch I have all of this space and a tiny bit
so I think the standard interior of like a van is about six feet and for me I have about eight
so I was able to squeeze my bed in here I think a twin is six feet long I don't know if they'll
quote me on that but then the storage box is my closet so that's about two feet so I've got
eight feet of width in here which allows for a big open space this black space you see here
was a door two exterior storage so there was a box starting here that ended here and that
was about yay high so we had to cut all of that aluminum to make room for the bed I've always
had a twin mattress just to utilize as much space as possible we didn't have to cut it a little bit
I wish it was bigger but you know you got to pick your battles does the trick got storage underneath
so I have always been a crafter and a bit of an artiste I had to sell most of my supplies while
getting ready for this lifestyle just because one you can't really fit a whole bunch of canvas and
paints but I enjoy having a hobby especially if it's artistic so this tree painting I painted
probably 10 years ago and I've just held on to it because I love it I realized while living in the
rig that I needed it to be more personalized so I was Googling some ideas and this block project
came up and I was like oh that seems like a challenge and it was it was uh let's just say
it's not made for mobile Rigs and the pieces over the last five months have just slowly broken off
as I've been driving it's pretty humorous but I redid it just for you guys and I just remembered
how great it looks and it's pretty sick if you want one um a thousand bucks is probably enough
so this space is really cool so this is a full closet but it's really nice I've got two rows of
clothes I probably don't need all of it but it's nice having the option when you're surrounded by
the elements and the weather is crazy every day [Music] I watch TV you know I get into
shows watch new movies and I use my laptop a lot but I also wanted a more a bigger option
for like a movie night so I do have a projector and a projector screen so this just comes down
and then I have my projector up here which is portable so I can just take it and hooks onto here
so when I got the ambulance I this was a seat obviously it did not look as pretty as this it
was an ambulance but I think this is where a lot of the like paramedics sat and worked
on their patient which is so wild to think of in this environment now I have all this
room to chill [Music] so we built on top of the couch that was here the couch it's on top of the
wheel well so it was kind of an awkward area that would be perfect for a love seat so I just got a
cushion cut it in half and then got some cushion covers it's perfect I don't need anything more
these are just basic pre-made Home Depot cabinets that I painted and
it's great for clothes I've got storage Galore in here so I have this huge
cabinet where which I you know dirty clothes and clutter and then I have Tom's litter box that
I can just pull out clean and then close it up there's a little door here and it works perfectly
the refrigerator is on its last leg it was great to start it was
like 150 bucks I know I didn't want a chest freezer because I didn't want to
spend a thousand dollars so this was a perfect option I have so much room
and then of course strap everything down folks everything needs to be tied down
this has fallen from here to the floor before and it still works I probably just maybe upgrade a
little bit to get a better quality fridge but definitely this size has been great cabinet
and then I still have two drawers and it's it's plenty
this is my pantry so I got one of these like craft storage things that are usually on Wheels cut the
wheels off and put drawer slides and it comes off a lot of this custom Cabinetry is all thanks to
my father [Music] this is not a humidifier people often think when they walk in they're like what's
going on here it's Tom's Fountain I love them a lot and I try to give him the best life he often
won't use it still if the faucet's running he's like yes or he'll sit here and meow at me until
I turn on the faucet which is great for water consumption Tom loves running water anytime I felt
my tanks I take him outside and he'll just go at it he gets really wet so I'm hoping that one day
I can take him into like a river or something and turn him into a water cat he'd be even more unique
this is my kitchen I wanted it to be the space that people see when they walk in so it needed
to be artistic visually appealing and functional for me so I kept with the metal theme I've got the
metal sink and then I wanted a touch of metal as the backsplash people love this it's this
peel and stick but then also I couldn't afford a really expensive counter so I got this it's like
a big piece of tile that we cut my dad put a lot of cushion underneath so it won't crack and we've
bumped we bumped a lot and it hasn't cracked so it's pretty and unique I have a lot of themes
going on in here one of them is hexagons and these honeycomb shaped dailies any blank service
you need storage whether it's shelves cabinets drawers you'll see a lot of shelving in here
is this the most functional storage I have no but it looks great I did these myself I painted
them with the inside of black outside white which I also wouldn't recommend no white and everything
gets so dirty when I get up close I'm like oh God these arrows were leftover art pieces from my old
apartment I just kept some stuff to add to it and it makes a cool little barrier right now we
are at I would say the front of the Box behind me is the shower that has a door to the camp [Music]
after I gutted it this was all open I didn't have like a um a separate space for the bathroom so one
of the first things we did when I got to my dad's was build this wall for privacy for the bathroom
so against the wall it was just blank so I was like this is a waste of space so I just made
this shallow cupboard just got a bunch of stuff in it a bunch of crap and then a lot of vanity stuff
up here another point of contention in Van life is shower or no shower and I was always of the
opinion where like you know what I don't want to have to go to a Planet Fitness considering how big
my rig is and how much of a pain it is to drive it all the time so I didn't want to like be parked
on BLM landline and be like oh I need a shower I need to leave so I wanted a bathroom which I have
I have my black accent wall and then my gray water safe or waterproof whatever you want to call it
vinyl tile it was so easy I did this myself my dad did all the plumbing did I need this nope but hey
this is the Glam Bell the floor pan my dad sourced I think it's an RV pan we didn't have to cut it
I've got a freshwater tank that has 30 gallons and most of that is just my sink and then my shower so
I can take about two showers a week I would say it's like five gallons per shower if I if I'm
quick and and smart about it and that'll last me a good week I've got to fill up once a week [Music]
I started off with a DIY composting toilet I think it was Johnny compost which is an awesome
starter kit but it's a bucket so once I had a bit more income coming in I knew I wanted to
invest in a good toilet and is a thousand dollars a little expensive maybe it's where you poop so
you kind of want that to be to be nice [Music] by mindset probably shifted the most doing this which
is what I was seeking I was seeking a challenge Within Myself That Wasn't work related seeking a
happier mindset a drama-free mindset and just a peaceful sense of Freedom if you think it'll
make you happy do it be open and be ready for the challenge take a deep breath and go for it [Music]
thanks for watching this week's video I hope you guys enjoyed it please make
sure to like share and subscribe and I will see you soon with another unique home tour
foreign
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