hey guys jenna here welcome back to my channel where i feature alternative lifestyles and
creative space tours in today's video we're going to meet a really cool couple who have
downsized into a renovated van they're going to talk about how they worked up the courage to do
such a dramatic life change and what it's been like to embrace the nomadic movement
so here we are inside as you can see it's a nice open layout
so let's jump right in and take a tour
hi i'm brittany and i'm adam and this is levi and welcome to our van clifford
so before we moved into our tiny home i actually worked in sales we had an apartment downtown we
both had vehicles living a normal life yeah i worked in the pediatric er and then i worked at
an iv bar going to the breweries on the weekends doing the grind yeah for sure weekend warriors
living in a van became a dream on our honeymoon back in 2017 we were in hawaii on the big
island and we noticed there was three or four uh different vehicles that were just kind of parked
hanging out walking the beach laughing eating delicious food it kind of sparked this idea it was
like we could do that and then we started to tell our family and friends and then we bought it and
they're like oh we weren't kidding we were like no we weren't kidding but it took three years yeah it
took about three years now on the flip side i'm like oh we could have done it sooner we were just
fear was hurting us back a little bit yeah hit him with the gym carry a quote so many of us shape our
lives out of fear disguised as practicality fear is going to control every decision you make it's
either fear or love whatever one's holding the 51 percent will win if you flip that just just a
little bit it doesn't take a lot if that fear gets in that 51 range we shut all of our dreams down we
tell ourselves stories why we can't do something so if you can create a story that's positive
and why it will work then you're gonna shift everything in your life
so here we are outside our van clifford she is a 2015 ram pro master 159 wheelbase
it's a 3.6 liter gas engine and we get about 16 to 18 miles per gallon depending on the terrain
so the 159 wheelbase is about 19 and a half feet long so we fit into most regular parking spots
and we fit really well into urban places the other thing we love about the ram promaster is it's the
widest of your like traditional van so it makes building the interior a little bit easier since
it's really boxy and finally we have the high roof and that just means that we get to stand
up all the way in our home adam's just under six feet and even with insulation on both the
flooring and the ceiling he can stand tall and has about an inch or two to spare because we did
go pretty heavy with insulation something that we find really important when living in a tiny space
is extending that space to your outdoor so we call this our side patio we have our moon
shade up here providing us shade on the interior keeping the inside of the van cool we got our
two eno chairs set up our little camping table that holds our beers perfectly or our snacks
and what we don't see right now is usually we pull out our yeti have the drinks really close by we
have a 200 amp hour agm battery and it's pushing two years old and we got to a point where we had
to go plug into a campground like once a week just to charge our battery and so jackery reached out
about utilizing their system and the moment it arrived and it got opened we haven't utilized
our inverter since um it's changed everything we make shakes with it we've powered bands with it
it's just a great resource to have and if you've been on the road you kind of know most the time
there's some kind of electrical issue that's your backup is so so important and this thing charges
quick the fact that we are able to face the panels directly towards the sun to charge it up or on a
long drive day plug it into our cigarette lighter to charge it up is amazing i mean we literally
don't use our inverter anymore we utilize it for all of our outdoor things we make crock pot meals
with it we shave and it's worth it i think so and i think maybe for someone who's not ready to
tackle that diy electrical build having a jackery even like if you're a weekend or a part-timer is a
huge opportunity for a power system you could live full-time off of it yeah it's like a new favorite
so now we're in the back of the van which is our back patio and as you can see we've utilized the
space as best as we can with the doors open we have anything here from microphones to hoses
it's really just a utility pocket for storage we keep all of our phone chargers
anything that needs electrical cords that's all going to be found in these pockets here
and then over here we've got a nice little grill station which we also use as a workbench
this is where we're going to have our water tank we have 21 gallons on board
as well as our agm battery and all of our electrical lines are under here as well
it was definitely crucial for us to have enough water we feel like it's enough
generally lasting four to seven days depending on how much we're cooking and what we're doing but
we also use it for drinking water as well now as far as the height of the bed it gives you enough
storage that you can stack things underneath here obviously you can see the coolers plenty short but
there's backpacks weights dumbbells and all of our camping gear is in here welcome to clifford's roof
first we have a max air fan gotta have every van has one you gotta make sure to do it and then our
newest addition is our dometic henke skylight even though it was a bit of a pain to put in
100 percent recommend putting a skylight bernie loves to look up at the stars at night or
wake up early and pop her head out not to mention it makes the back of the van a little
bit more airy and gives it natural lighting so it's just a great addition to the van so let's
address the color of clifford she's bright red fire engine red and it wasn't really planned
that way it just happened to be but we're really happy that she is because kind of stands out
and that's definitely where the name came to be big red kinda goofy clifford fit just like a glove
all right so let's head inside clifford and show you around
so here we are inside as you can see it's a nice open layout we have a big long countertop which
really helps elongate the look of the van as well as the upper cabinets they run all the
way from the driver's seat to the rear doors and that just makes it really look nice and lengthy
even though it is a very tiny space we have a nice long butcher box countertop that we really love
we do not have an installed cooktop we just have a one burner cooktop that we can pull out it's
under the sink the reason we opted not to install a fixed cooktop is we really do enjoy having this
nice big long counter space we only cook you know maybe 45 minutes a day and so not having it out
when we're not cooking gives it a nice clean look we have a dometic 65 liter front opening fridge
however being full time and enjoying as much fresh vegetables and fruits as we do the only
thing we would do different is just make it bigger one thing that seems to catch everyone's eye is
these spice containers they're really cute and we actually had to add new magnets to the back
so that they really stick so they don't fall off when we drive however we will say with time and
humidity sometimes they get a little hard to open but they look good and they're multifunctional
so that they're out of the way and we can have lots of spice options we have a nice big round
sink this actually works well as a washer basin as well it mimics what a washer basin would look like
so we can wash this in there it can load up a crock pot if we're getting ready to drive
or really a full days of dishes if we get behind and up here right above the sink is our kitchen
cabinet as we call it underneath on this left side this is for our morning coffee basket and then
behind that basket we have our smoothie stuff so we make a smoothie once a day on the lower one is
where all of the dog stuff lives on the other side of the sink here is more utility based we have our
trash can that hangs of the door absolutely love this thing and our gray water
we have a seven gallon gray water tank one thing that we would probably do in a different build or
upgrade would be either a larger gray water tank or an option to drain it outside when
we're camped up it takes a lot of effort to get everything out to get the gray water out to then
go dispose of it so having an option to just do it out of the floor would be awesome one of
the first things we did when we bought our van was install this swivel seat it is a very small
space and being able to utilize the cab as part of your living space opening it up a little bit
was really important to us and right underneath it is where we actually installed our diesel heater
one of the other favorite parts of our van is this lagoon mount table it allows lots of flexibility
we can point it outside for a little bar table close it in and utilize it as a workspace or on
the couch or spread it all the way out sit across from each other enjoy dinner or a board game
below the table is our shoe box and so it just hinges up and stores all of our shoes and in
addition in here is our diesel tank for our diesel heater our van is a gas van so when we decided on
the diesel heater option we knew we would need an auxiliary tank and having it right outside
the slider makes it really easy to fill let's talk about why you're really watching this video where
do we do our business we have a toilet here it's a cassette style toilet just gotta move the pillow
open up the top and there she is it's got five gallons to hold black water waste and there's two
and a half gallons of fresh water so that you can flush it all down the other thing we've noticed is
you don't need a shower every day i don't know where that like came up but i think that if you
can make it a couple days and you start to get used to it your body starts to get used to it you
don't produce as many oils you don't produce as much stank we do have a outdoor shower that we can
utilize but we do try and find a campground a gym or a truck stop in order to get a nice hot shower
it doesn't always work out though and you get used to cold outdoor showers pretty quickly so we have
a queen size bed that's just a little bit short i believe it's 75 inches in length which is the
standard like rv queen but it was just a foam mattress take a little electric uh bread knife
and you can cut it up and actually gives a really straight line so for me i don't have any problems
stretching all the way out but adam is just under six foot and requires the utilization of our crl
window above the bed to stick his feet in except for now he's fighting with levi for that space
i think we would wish for a bigger bed i mean doesn't everyone wish for a little bit bigger bed
but with tiny living and keeping space for the other things that we need to fit in here
this is about as big as we would feel comfortable going so we don't really hang out in the bed
and i think that's mostly because we do have cabinets on both sides so while we can sit in
the middle there's nowhere really to rest our back and get comfortable but we felt
the storage underneath was so important with a fixed bed style and then the skylight this thing
is giving me all the joy recently so another cool thing is it has a full blackout shade
as well as a screen so that you can protect yourself from the bugs when the skylight is
open or you can open air vent it stand out poke your head out take a look breathe the fresh air
so we took off to live full-time on the road in february of 2020 so shortly thereafter came a
time where we really weren't seeing anybody and we were having a really tough week we were in
montana just outside of glacier national park and uh this lifestyle can be wearing sometimes you're
constantly looking for water wondering where you're gonna sleep is it safe we kind of had
a moment where we were almost gonna throw in the towel we almost did throw in the towel we almost
decided you know what turn the wheel south we're going we're selling the van the whole thing and
we ended up going to this camp right outside of glacier and it was exactly what we needed that
moment and it was the first time we really got to like sense what this van community is all about it
really pushed us into the next eight or 12 months it was a moment of beautiful community coming
together around a campfire sharing stories was something that you can't really put a dollar price
on and there's tons of great cooks on the road i've learned we got to heighten that as we lived
in the van because we cut all those rent costs and the two vehicle costs and all of that and so now
we get to buy the organic produce that we always like wanted to buy but we were worried about rent
i think if you're on the fence you don't have to sell all your belongings and move
into a van but we jumped in and we've overcome hurdles and it's been really hard but it's been
more than worth it it will be a lifetime experience that
we'll share with everybody that we meet and the kids one day kid maybe one day
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