In today's video, we're going to tour Mariah's 2019
Ford Transit Van Conversion.
What is going on youtube, today I've got a special treat for you we get to tour
mariah her boyfriend cole who unfortunately is
not here with us today and her pets finn and kali's
2019 ford transit van conversion so without further ado i'm going to turn
you over to mariah hi my name is mariah i'm 19 years old i'm from monterey bay
california and i live in a 2019 ford transit with my boyfriend coleman
and our two dogs cali and finn i bought this van in may of
2019 i was single at the time so i went with a brand new van off the
lot i went with the 130 inch wheelbase which
is only a 10 foot interior and i went with the medium roof
version so it's 5 foot 9 inside sorry coleman
so the first thing that we tackled when we bought the van was electrical i chose
a 200 watt solar system with a 1 500 watt inverter
so we have both ac and dc in the van all the appliances in the van
are dc powered including the fridge the lights the water pump
and then we have dc power to charge our phones cameras laptops
all the other little things that are in our lives i have 100 amp
lithium battery a couple of things on the outside we did add a window that
slides open for ventilation we also have the
fantastic fan which i do regret i don't like that it sounds like a
window is open when i'm driving and i don't
appreciate the sonar like alarm that goes off at 3am when you run out of
power yeah i wish i'd gone with the max air
and now for the inside of the van up in the front we added a swivel seat
because we wanted extra work space it really did extend
the livable area in the van so yeah we haven't had any regrets about it that
might be my favorite part of the van especially
living in such a small van with two humans and two dogs we also
did like a lot of other van lifers add an upper shelf we love it
it just worked out really really well for us and in our kitchen we have a
butcher block countertop and subway tiling i really like the tiling that we
did because it just opens up the space and it brightens up
the kitchen area we also have under the cabinet
lighting it is just a really nice light to have on during the night time
it's nice and subtle i really like my deep sink because it allows me to wash
my hair in the van it's probably my one of my
top three favorite features we also have a magnetic knife rack which
is surprisingly useful for things other
than knives it's just really nice to have somewhere
to pop something for our fridge we went with a 12 volt
isotherm i think it's a 50 liter fridge i could be wrong
it's one of the bigger fridges i didn't know that when i bought it but
now that we have it i'm actually really really grateful to have an extra large
fridge it barely holds enough food for the two of us
as for the water we went with 18 gallons split up into three
separate six gallon water jugs we store one of the jugs under the sink and we
store two of them in the back in the garage we chose to make everything
removable just to make life a little bit easier
and so far i do not regret my decision at all right here beside me we have
our two-person seat it is the perfect size for
coal and eyes hips plus a couple of inches for a little bit of comfort
we eat here we work here coleman stays up until 2 a.m
gaming sometimes here and then we also have this pull out table underneath the
bed that slides out to make the table that goes the entire length of
the bench seat underneath the bench seat here you can
see that we have a little cubby um when you're building out a van every
little inch of storage space counts so it's super super useful we use
it for our first aid kit and our hammock we also have this little table that we
use to fold out and cook and sometimes work
standing up it's actually definitely necessary yeah
again when i bought this van i was single so
when i did get into a relationship and the person that i was in the
relationship with chose to help me build out the van
we chose to make the upper cabinets run the entire length of the van just to
maximize storage and even still it's borderline
not enough but it has been pretty good as for the bed we chose to have a fixed
bed it's between a twin and a full it's pretty small for
the two of us but lengthwise it is exactly six foot and to make it six foot
it actually complicated the build immensely because we had to add window
bump outs and another plus of having the fixed bed
is of course the under the bed storage which is
huge we chose to split up our garage into three separate compartments
one you can access from this front and we actually made it
a kind of a dog crate the other two ones used for water storage and the other one
is used for our electrical system if you're enjoying
my van tour or you're enjoying fin give it a big thumbs up and subscribe to
kevin's channel for more content like this if you want
to see more about me you can check out my instagram it's
mariah i also have a youtube channel which is under mariah alice
and both of those are linked in the description down below how much of your
relationship with cole was spent building your van most of our
relationship has been spent building this van and then living in it
in very very close cord quarters when we first started
dating i already had the van and cole was begging me to help he was such
a gentleman he really really wanted to get in get in
get his hands dirty he worked construction he has woodworking
experience he really wanted to help and i was super
reluctant to take his help because i did not
think that he understood how big of a commitment it was
but when i finally decided to yes take his help it got complicated
i would say that building this van in the beginning of our relationship
was a huge test that could have easily made or broke our relationship into
a bajillion pieces i think that it made us stronger going through it but i
do not want to say that it wasn't a challenge because it definitely was
especially since i bought the van and financially
i paid for the van build um it was just really hard on us as a couple to work
through all of these little intricate issues
that new couples rarely have to work through when it
actually came to building it he built it and i was kind of like a
little apprentice helping hand i did do the wiring my dad did install
the solar panels and the fantastic fan but coleman did the rest
he also installed the window in the door what advice would you have for someone
considering this lifestyle so yeah i just think that patience is
big and just learning how to adapt to this very very
strange alternative way of doing life is just
big but i will say now that we've gone
through this i cannot wait for the day that he builds
our tiny house how have you been able to fund your van
life adventure to be frank it just took years and years
and years of saving i wanted to do van life back in 2016 when i was 16 17 years
old obviously didn't have the money then and
it took me what three and a half years to actually buy the van
and another year of working and saving to actually be able to get on the road
as of now my plan is to work seasonally during the summer and
coleman is doing the same right now he's actually
not with me he's back in california fighting the california wildfires
that are happening up and down the coast he manages a company
that provides emergency services for federal and government agencies if you
could change one thing about your van what would you change
um if i was to change one thing i would of course
change the van i would not have bought it used and i would have gone with the
ford transit high roof 148 inch wheelbase just for
the additional 18 inches would have been huge the extra
foot of height is just necessary when you have a
boyfriend that is six feet tall i think long term we're definitely going to have
to switch over to that at some point i
would not get a medium roof again what's been your favorite place that you
visited in your van my favorite place so far has been to
harbors minnesota it was on lake superior it was beautiful
awesome weather um i think especially during the summer
it's really important just to find cooler weather
so that you stay sane um and for me i found that in minnesota so that was
definitely my favorite place what advice do you have for people who
want to do van life with dogs if you want to do van life with dogs
prepare to have the van be ruled by the dogs
it's never going to be clean a lot of your storage space is going to go
towards their things i think temperature wise
it's really really important to have really good ventilation
it's also really important to pick your spots based on the dog's needs a lot of
the time i'm putting these two dogs needs above
my own so if a spot isn't comfortable temperature wise or if it
isn't somewhere where i would feel comfortable letting them outside i can't
stay there all right so that was awesome thank you
mariah thank you cole who couldn't be here
for letting us peek into their tiny little home if you enjoyed this video
make sure you hit that thumbs up button but even if you didn't like it you
didn't like mariah but you liked finn you can still give it a thumbs up
thanks for watching i pointed at finn when i said callie
that's okay moving on oh god never mind can't remember
silversuit's fine scope emma i touched the mic
it's okay that's not a period but that's okay
um yeah you can say is that what it's called a whisk
talk on the screen porch so in love now you're the one i'm losing sleep for
and i hope the wrong one slip right through your magic fingers
and i hope we find some way to fall in love like we were
yeah you're the only reason i was california dreaming in the first place