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're taking a tour of
Tori's van dwelling which she has turned into a comfy home on Wheels the inside prioritizes
utility and comfort while allowing Tori to live a nomadic Lifestyle the kind of minimal setup has
been the perfect balance of what I need and what also feels good and open and spacious oh and of
course it's really cute before we dive into the tour if you like videos like this one where we
showcase stories of people living alternatively in unique homes make sure that you subscribe and hit
that notification Bell so that you know every single time we publish a new episode [Music]
make this house
hey guys I'm Tori and this is my van Ginger I call her Jenny for short come on in
so before I started my van conversion journey I was actually traveling internationally after
about nine to ten months abroad I decided it was finally time to come home all of
my friends were kind of starting that nine to five get your apartment regular life and
I just didn't feel ready for that yet so I decided to do a van build
for me having a van just kind of allowed the most flexibility and Mobility I didn't need a
huge space I think any bigger vehicle would have been too big for my lifestyle it was really a solo
build the first day that I started I didn't know a drill could go in reverse every step of the van
build was three to four hours of watching YouTube videos with dedication you really can do anything
four materials I wanted to stay as natural and light as possible so everything in here
is natural wood I also wanted to aim for as sustainable as possible so a lot of the
wood is also recycled I used Pine for the walls and Cedar for the ceiling and it just felt just
really cozy while still being bright as I built it it kind of came together and it's totally
different from what I imagined in the first place so that's kind of been the fun of the process too
the whole build took around a year several of those months I was traveling internationally
several of those months I was working full-time it didn't have my full attention so I was really
lucky that I started my van build before the pandemic really started so when I bought my
van it was thirteen thousand dollars and wood was still regularly priced I really
kept my budget as low as possible because I was also fresh out of college didn't have a
lot of money to work with and then I put about seven thousand dollars into
the build itself so all in all it was around twenty thousand dollars for the whole setup
thank you so Jenny is a 2006 t1ns Sprinter van I get around 22 miles per gallon which is great
Ginny was a FedEx fan before I bought her so when I bought it I had a lot
of security and knowing that it had been really well maintained
so starting in the front of the van one of the first things that I wanted to do was add a third
seat belted seat because I was anticipating traveling with other people a little bit more
than what I have actually done so I added this jump seat to the front it folds into just like
a chair holder but opens up into a third seat so the times that I have had a third passenger it's
been really great I feel a lot safer putting them in this than floating around in the back
moving above we have my closet so I keep most of my clothes up here and I kind of found the best
way to utilize this space was to get these slanted baskets so they're all kind of at a diagonal and
I just keep these are all my shorts I have all my tops having your clothes accessible is really
important so right in front of it is my curtain I typically keep this open during the day for light
but at night I close this and it just gives me a lot of privacy and it also um it's not
the most insulated but it also gives me a little bit of insulation which is really nice oh so this
is my kitchen section I have a lot more storage and space up here than I originally anticipated
when doing the plans so this is my sink over here having an aesthetic kitchen was really important
to me because I do love cooking so having the bronze faucet was important it's not the most
functional I wish I had gotten one that has a removable heads that I could spray but we love
how it looks and the same goes for the sink I have a small porcelain sink which I found on Facebook
Marketplace for thirty dollars so that was great but I wish it was bigger for doing dishes
underneath the sink I'll show you my water setup everything in the van is pretty minimal I wanted
to kind of just do the basics and go from there and so far I found that this system
really works for me so underneath I have my fresh water tank and my gray water tank
so all of the water from the sink is pulled from my seven gallon fresh water tank which
I do have two additional ones in the trunk so at any given time I usually have a decent
amount of water on board so that I don't run out once it goes out the faucet and down the
drain it funnels into my gray water tank I like to use all biodegradable soap so that I can kind
of just dump this wherever I'm at I do have an electric water pump so the switch is up there
so whenever I want to use a sink I switch that on and the sink is good to go [Music]
moving along in the kitchen I have two kind of cabinets that just open like this where I keep
a lot of my snacks and kind of lighter items bags of chips and pasta and rice right now
it's a little sparse but underneath is where I keep the heavier stuff I didn't want to put
a ton of weight up here because I honestly didn't trust the sturdiness of my cabinets
since everything is self-filled but most of my heavy stuff is down here in this cabinet
I have this pull out box where I keep my all of my canned goods as well as my propane for
the stove which I will show you next below it I have my pots and pans and just above it I have my
utensil drawer where is I keep kind of all of my dishes basic stuff that I need like a can opener
and scissors and all my utensils my stove is in here so whenever I want to cook I can just pull
it out and set it up I kind of debated for a long time whether I wanted to have a fixed stove or I
wanted a portable one ultimately I think having a lot of counter space was more important to me
than having the ease and comfortability of a fixed stove so for now it works [Music]
so my fridge is one of my favorite finds from the whole van I originally had a different fridge
and within a couple days I noticed it was totally draining my batteries so I finally found this one
that was the perfect balance between affordability and functionality so opening it up there's a lot
of space inside I have a lot of room for taller items in the door all of my veggies go at the
bottom I can fit tupperwares and I have a freezer which is huge but having the freezer fridge combo
without draining my batteries has been incredible moving up is my temporary DIY spice rack which
has already had its issues I'm thinking I might screw the lids into the top it might
be a little bit stronger these just kind of come loose and fall so not the best system long term
so because I do cook with propane I always run the fan while I'm cooking and it is incredible
it has an intake and an outtake so whenever I'm cooking I usually just crack this window right
here and then I put the fan on the outtake and it really just creates a nice flow so I never really
get too many smells or chemicals in here while I'm cooking and in addition to that around it is
my recessed lighting which was another thing that I was really intimidated by at the beginning of
the build because you have to run a lot of wiring before everything goes into place to have recessed
lighting but it was absolutely worth it and it was a lot easier than I expected [Music] foreign
this space for me the biggest thing was keeping it as open as possible I intentionally started
minimal and I figured that I could always add to that as I went or as I continue to
travel and realize that I might have different needs the kind of minimal setup has been just
enough for my needs and it also makes it a lot easier to move around because it really
is the perfect balance of what I need and what also feels good and open and spacious [Music]
so I thought a lot about how I wanted to do this entrance space for a while I wanted to have kind
of a shelf here but ultimately I realized it would be best to have somewhere where I could
put my shoes really easily without tracking a bunch of Bud or water or whatever it is into
the van so this actually opens right here it just is on a press magnet and I keep all of my shoes
right here so coming in and out of the van it's really easy going into the bench seat there's a
lot of storage in here so I kind of divided it into the shoes in the front over here and then
this right side is all of my bathroom stuff so I have a pretty basic setup when it comes to
the bathroom eventually I want to get a compost toilet but those are really expensive so for now
I just kind of have a really minimal system I do usually use public restrooms or campgrounds or if
I'm in the wilderness I go outside so I've never really had too much of an issue with the setup
that I have moving up I originally built this as my little Library shelf but I quickly realized
that having books appear was not the best setup it was really loud when driving and I think just
a little bit too much weight for this show so I've kind of converted it into all of my towels
and toiletries so I keep my dry towels here and I have little magnetic hooks to hang them when
they're wet and then in this box is just my kind of everyday toiletries my toothbrush my toothpaste
my face wash and all that kind of stuff I have a lot of storage between these two benches alone I
have more storage over here which I kind of have divided into half electrical junk and half of my
art supplies so I do love making jewelry I love watercolor I just started Pottery so I kind of
keep all of my craft stuff up here and then on the other side I have some kind of excess wiring
and my jackery which kind of moves around the van which is great to have as a backup battery
I've been a lot of incredible places in Jenny we've been through a lot together I think my
favorite experience was driving up through California and into Oregon and just kind of
exploring the coast on your own time without having an itinerary with such a new way of
traveling and living for me when I first bought the van the idea was to be able to kind of have
a very flexible lifestyle to be able to travel internationally when I want to have a home when
I want to not have to pay rent when I don't want to so it served all of those purposes
one of the huge benefits of having a mobile home is that when you do fall in love with
the place while you're traveling you can stay as long as you want and you can explore it and
you can have a new backyard every night while getting the Comforts of home with you [Music]
so coming back into the bed area I have a little bit more storage that I used with the excess space
that I have to the side of the bed so in here I keep all of my smaller items the bed is a
lot larger than you usually see in a van I have a full queen size bed in here I originally thought
that I was going to cut the foam down to make it smaller but I realized that I could fit the whole
Queen and still have room for everything else that I wanted so it's been really great I've
slept three girls in here I sleep with my partner who is six six in here so it's got a lot of room
which is just kind of an added Comfort when you are traveling I feel like having a comfortable bed
is so important after a long day so having that in a van just makes it feel so much more like home
above there are my plants which are my favorite part of the van I used to have a lot more plants
in here but I just found that while traveling it's really hard to keep them all happy and
healthy so just having these two now I feel like is enough they've been growing for as
long as the van has been built I bought them a couple months before the van so they're really
an integral part of the van to me they really grew within the space and I just feel like they
add so much I think without them I would might feel like I'm in a sauna or kind of Trapped more
in a wood box and just having a little bit of that life makes me feel more at peace and comfortable
so one of the biggest regrets that I have about this whole bed area is not adding more ventilation
in the build process I kind of thought this was going to be an issue but I tried to ignore it
and I wish I hadn't up in the front I have my window that opens and the fan so when I
have both of those going it creates a lot of airflow but back here things get kind of hot
and stuffy really quickly neither of my windows that I added in the back open and eventually I
think I'd like to put a skylight here so that at least on a hot night I can open that up and just
get some fresh air because it does get really hot and stuffy back here almost everything in
the van is thrifted so my bedding I got on Facebook Marketplace for twenty dollars all
of my pillows are second hand and I feel like kind of sourcing things second hand
has allowed me to design a really unique and personal space that's eclectic and it
kind of mixes all of the styles that I love into one that really feels personal to me
because safety was such a concern in this whole van build process having all parts of
the van accessible without opening any doors was really important if I was ever in a place where
I don't feel safe I want to be able to reach my electrical which is underneath the bed and just
be able to move around the van so I built this little door that connects everything together
it's also been really great because I've had friends who have 10 foot surfboards so having
this allows me to really just extend the storage space that's under the bed into the van while also
maintaining access to kind of crawl through either one when I don't want to go outside
thank you [Music] underneath the bed is where I have kind of a wild amount of storage one of
my next projects is going to be figuring out a way to better separate the space because for now
it's just so open and there's so much of it but it's really great to have all that space
for flexibility for activities that I get to do so back here I keep all of my kind of like backup and
Emergency Equipment my yoga mat I have my portable solar panels for recharging my jackery which is my
backup system for the whole van and behind that I have my two seven gallon backup water tanks so
in my box I also have my camp shower which as you can see I haven't opened it's been in here
for over a year but I kind of found that I have a Planet Fitness membership and honestly most places
I go there's a Planet Fitness accessible if not I usually have flakes or rivers or Camp showers so I
haven't actually used this yet but if I ever were to it just hangs from the back door here and I'll
pull out one of my seven gallon tanks and hook it up to that and have a nice cold shower outside
so in this whole section is all of my electrical setup which was probably the most intimidating
part of the whole build but I really love this system I feel like it's really minimal
while still having enough on top of the roof I have my solar panels which is around 200 watts
and feeds into my charge controller and from there we go to the batteries so I have about
100 amp hours and I also have a inverter which I actually never use because I ended up getting the
jackery so it's good to have for emergencies but I haven't really found myself using it
that that much and I have my fuse block where I kind of have all of the controls for everything
in the van and of course for safety and ease I have my overall power switch so I can turn the
whole system off I'll do this if I'm ever working on the electrical but I also do it
a lot if I know I'm not going to use the van for a while I just shut the system off [Music]
foreign thanks for watching this week's episode if you'd like to
see more tours of tiny homes and Van dwellings make sure that you
check out our playlist and I will see you soon with another unique home tour
[Music]