hi I'm Joni and I'm with the galavan this is the galavan it is a 2015
freightliner sprinter I got it in July of 2015 and had it built out in 2016 got
it in May of 2017 I purchased the van to
build it out and live in it full time to travel the country I want to see all of
the national parks which is a little cliche but they're just such amazing
jewels of protected land in this country and I'm also just traveling around
trying to talk to people about their health goals okay so starting at the
entry I have a welcoming elephant to assist you into the van and I have my
fridge right at the door so that you can access it from outside or inside as you
come into the van there's a full lounge which you know for this size of the
vehicle is pretty spectacular I've got both of the cab seats that
swivel and then I have a bench seat that can seat two and then back here I have a
board that fits in between the two counters just above the bottom drawer
and it's a step up to the bed and it's a comfortable seat so I can can I can have
five or six people in here fairly comfortably in the kitchen we have a
regular residential bar sink I also have a faucet from Costco
I think it's a hansgrohe so it's a nice faucet one of the nice things about
it is that I can pull this out and fill my water filter which is right next to
it so I can fill it directly without having to move the water filter one of
the things with RVs is that you have a freshwater tank and the water you know
you fill it where you can and you use potable water only but you don't want to
drink out of that tank so I have a Berkey water filter to filter my water it's a
gravity-fed water filter that gives me nice good tasting safe water all the
time everyone always wants to know how I cook in here one of the ways that I cook
is with an induction burner it just pulls out from the storage above the
fridge and plugs in above super easy one of the things that makes it good for
solar is that it cooks very very quickly down here I have my appliance storage and
jars so I was using the induction burner mostly for cooking then I got the three
quart instant pot and it cooks so well and so quickly that I rarely I think the
only thing I used the induction burner for is eggs now the other thing that's
in this drawer is the Vitamix blender and I joke that I have the world's most
expensive Vitamix because it has a really high draw on the electricity on
the batteries and so I had to upgrade my system I have to have a 2800 watt
inverter to be able to run this particular appliance
my closet is under the bed it's one of the benefits of a platform bed so I have
my clothes hanging here I've got extra pantry items underneath and shoes and
things over my battery box my bed is a regular household queen-size mattress
it's an organic latex mattress so it's about two hundred and thirty pounds one
of the heaviest things in the van I chose upper cabinets that were open for
a couple of reasons one of the reasons is I like the look of it another reason
is that if someone else is driving then you can actually use the edges as a
handhold so you can steady yourself while the vehicles moving the other thing is
that you can see where everything is and nothing moves out of these I have not
had anything fall out and I've gone over some pretty good pretty good
wobbles um so this so I've got my closet under the bed and this would be
my dresser you can see the wood here is Apple ply that is a really high end
plywood that's a green product that's made right in Eugene Oregon it doesn't
get much more local I think the Apple ply shop is not even a half a mile from
the shop that built the van out I have a number of energy-saving and green
features in the van one of the one of the pieces is for my own comfort so this
is an insulated window cover I have one for this this window one for the door
window and one for each of the back windows they have rare earth magnets
so they just pop up they're made of a raw silk a warm window layer and a felt
layer green building was really important for me I didn't want my van to
be toxic to me you know it is a vehicle so there's some of that anyway but I
wanted all of the things that I added to be as healthy for me and the environment
as possible one of those things is the floor it's a marmoleum and I was able
to just get a remnant from a carpet store it is a linseed oil product and
jute also on my floor I have a wool handmade wool rug that uses scraps
from the Pendelton company the counter is made out of paper stone which is a
recycled paper product that is produced in Washington state the very green
product and it's super heavy-duty so even though it's only a half inch
countertop it's very very sturdy it has a great ability to span
large distances so that I could stealth camped in cities I made a cab curtain
this is just a bedspread from a hippie market in Eugene and then a blackout
curtain on the other side that I just sewed it too and so the decorative sides
on the inside toward me and then the boring side just looks like a commercial
vehicle so when this is closed and I don't have my shades on in the front it
just looks like an empty work vehicle
the million dollar question what about a toilet everybody always wants to know so
I have a hidden toilet under my bench
Slip this off if you've heard of a squatty potty this top serves as a
squatty potty in front of the toilet this is not the most environmentally friendly
way to do this but it's what's working for me right now inside my toilet I have
toilet paper and mini poo powder this is a powder that neutralizes the
waste it's part of the clean waste system which is kind of a backpack
toilet what I've done is taken a normal toilet seat that fits exactly over an
oval wash bucket and then I just line it with two bags put a scoop of the poo
powder in it use it tie up the inside bag the poo powder neutralizes the waste
so that it's legal to throw away in a municipal waste system more environmentally
friendly is my pee system so you know this is pretty intimate details but
people need to know these things right especially if you're a woman thinking
about doing van life I started with just a glass canning jar and that was
just a little too embarrassing to toss in toilets as I was walking up to to
public toilets so I upgraded at Goodwill to a green plastic sport bottle and I
use a P-style and a pee rag Pee into the bottle and then empty it out in any
toilet the nice thing about this one is people are always carrying water
bottles around anyway I never drink out of plastic so I'm not going to be
confusing this with my water let me introduce you to my
garage you know every house sounds to have a garage right so a couple of
things that I love about the garage on this side is truly garage and storage
you know garages usually have storage back here I store my juicer my bike and then
I have several other things back there way back there is my inverter I've also
got tools and then on this side is my utility room I've got a 40 gallon water tank
I've got a shower mixer valve I've got a drawer for cords and hoses and the shower
people are a little confused about the shower so what happens with the shower
is this screws on the top there's a suction cup that goes to the window and
I use three shower curtains one here one here and one here in this funky little
space here is just an opening so that I can get to a breaker box and my water
heater and my water pump are both back here I have a four gallon water heater
that's electric these boxes were an add on at the very very end I took the van
on a trial run and every time I rolled over at night I always woke up just
enough to wonder about where my pillow was or to make sure that my pillow
wasn't falling down into the garage so I brought my van back to my Builder and
asked him could you do you think you could build some boxes on the doors and
so he did what's great about these is not only do they keep my pillow on my
bed but they also allow me to have things like tissues and and things so
extra little storage back there I hope you enjoyed this tour of my van I'm sure
you probably have other questions so just let me know in the comments below
I'm really happy with how the van turned out all those months and maybe years of
planning really paid off I there's a couple of things that I would tweak for
my next build which I do plan to do I love building vans or designing vans
but for the most part it's super comfortable it feels very safe and I
just love living in the Galavan