One of my favorite things about Nomad life is
meeting other nomads and touring their vans.
I love being able to share these vans with you
to give you inspiration for what YOU might want
in your van. For me, every van has at least some
interesting idea that I haven't seen before.
And I love how each van reflects the priorities
of those who live in it. In this video, we get
to tour a gorgeous self-built Sprinter that
looks like an upscale apartment on wheels.
Tenaj and Tino built this van together with no
experience after covid put a crimp in their
international travel adventures. Their van
features a front convertible sofa/guest bed
area, a galley kitchen with a two burner stove,
an indoor shower, a composting toilet, and
a beautiful fixed platform bed.
[Upbeat music playing]
My name is Tenaj and my channel is actually
Tenaj and Tino. We have a channel on YouTube
where we discuss building a van, living in
a van, everything van related. And you can also
find us on Instagram Tenaj and Tino, Facebook
Tenaj and Tino, every social media platform
you can think of we’re there as Tenaj and Tino.
This actually is Alexandra Lopez. And Faustino
and I came up with that name because it's kind
of where we first started. The first street
I stayed on, the first Street he stayed on, and they
were actually right around the corner from each other.
So we named her Alex. So Alex is a 170 wheelbase
Sprinter, the years is a 2014. And it took us a year
to build her. We picked her up in Arizona. And
we drove her back to New Orleans and we worked
on her from August until August. I actually
thought it would take three months, but that's
not what happened. It took a year, but I couldn't
be more more excited. I'm super proud of the
of the outcome. Yeah. Welcome to our home. So
as you walk into the front door, we call it the
front door, as you walk into the front door
the first thing that you're going to see is our
sofa and usually, it's in the couch mode, because
it's just so much easier to have in couch
mode, but this actually is a dining area where
there's two chairs. There's a table, a Lagun
table, that swivels all the way around and we
would prefer to have it like this because it's
just more comfortable. Just yeah, it's just more comfortable.
So as you leave this side, I'm going to take you
over here right quick because I'm so close to our countertop.
So this is my baby. This is my eight foot butcher-block countertop.
Now, of course, it's not the whole entire eight
feet is not right here. Although it is super long.
So what we did was we were able to chop it up a little bit.
So we have the counter space and then I also have
an extended counter space which comes in handy
when Faustino is doing all the cooking because he does.
So definitely comes in handy. We have a two burner
Ramblewood stove. We use the one-pound canisters
of propane and it seems to last us about… almost
two weeks and that's what him cooking, breakfast,
lunch, and dinner on most days. This faucet.
I got from Amazon. It's it's really nice because
when I thought about it, I was thinking about
ways that we can utilize it not only in the van
but maybe outside of the van. So, on our recent
trip to Baja, I realize that this definitely
came in handy because what I can do is I can just
turn it around and I can spray our feet out. That
way most of the sand stays on the beach, and just
a little bit of it comes into the van. So let's see…
I decided also to go with this dark sink and it's
super deep. So, right here, we have a lot of storage.
At this point. We're actually trying to find
things that we can put in our cabinets because
we just have so many. But let me show you what
we have in here now. So in our very first cabinet,
we have everything dog-related. So here in
the second cabinet, we have everything coffee.
We have the coffee beans, the coffee pot, the
French Press. I mean, everything coffee. So,
if you guys see us on the road and you need some
coffee, you know where to come. So in our last
cabinet here at the top, this is actually like
a snack cabinet. Like I told you guys before
we were looking for things to put in our cabinets
and this particular cabinet, we have all of our snacks.
So here I can take you to the bottom. In the bottom
we also have storage. Now this, it actually lifts
up and in this bin, we have things like shoes,
and outdoor gear, like backpacks things that
we take on hikes. And in our second bin, it pulls
out and it flips up and we have things like extra
comforters, sheets blankets, and things like that.
So the good thing about this is not only is it
a dining area that has two seats and a table,
but it also turns into a second bed. So we have
to swivel chairs in the front, the swivel chair
on the driver's side kind of turns around and
it makes this space even longer super comfortable.
What I did when I was making this was, I bought
a twin memory foam mattress and I cut it up into
sections, first time doing Upholstery and
everything, but it came out pretty cool and
I must say, it's super comfortable. So the only
help that we had with the build was the cabinets.
We knew from the beginning that we were not carpentry people.
So uh, we have a friend who has a woodworking garage
and and we stayed with him for about a month and a half.
So he helped us with the cabinets but we were
they're actually helping him, you know, painting
and sanding and things like that. But everything
else in the van we did. No experience, just lots
and lots of YouTube videos. So we did the plumbing ourselves.
We did the electrical ourselves. We did the
build, we came out with the layout. Just everything
was us. The upper kitchen cabinets, we only have
one cabinet basically designated for kitchen things.
So, in this cabinet, we keep things like tea…
What else do we keep? Seasonings, things like
that. So my second cabinet, I have things that
make the van smell good. I have my air purifier.
I have candles. I have oils - essential oils,
things like that. So, this is not a kitchen cabinet,
but we do have some kitchen things up here because
there's some brown sugar, and yeah. That's
that's basically it. But it was originally
meant for my oils. It just turned into something
else. As I move on to more cabinetry… So in my lower
kitchen cabinet area, what we have is the first drawer.
The first drawer is probably like everybody else’s
first drawer. There is forks and spoons, knives,
things like that, all type of cutlery. And what
I did was I actually went on Amazon and I bought
these little dividers, just so it wouldn't be
a mess in there every time I open. And then our drawers
are so deep that the only way that we can actually
use all of this space is to have uh, yeah, the stackers.
So that's what's in there. My second drawer
consists of things like plates and towels and uh…
Yeah, just things like that. We don't have too many.
We don't have too many plates, may have two plates,
two forks, two cups, something like that. But
also, let's see, in my third drawer we have pots.
So, that's the kitchen cabinets. Now here under the sink.
I have more storage. So under the sink I have
things like cleaning supplies. So this everything
is basically at my fingertips. And uh, yeah, it's lots of
storage down there and also more spices. We're
from New Orleans so yeah, we like it kind of
spicy! [laughter] Moving right along. If you come back here…
you'll see our 3.3 cubic foot refrigerator. Absolutely
love it. We stack it. There's a small freezer
at the top. I can get a pint of ice cream in there.
And uh yeah, we just love it. We've actually been
off-grid and we stacked the refrigerator
for about six days and we did pretty good. We
actually have food left over. Here we actually
have more storage. [laughter] So what we did was we took
the easy way out and we got some slides from Home Depot.
So what happens is, I can just put things on here
and it actually slides out. And I can use that
space also for things that don't fit in the cabinets,
like my ketchup, or my condiments, or things
like Reynolds Wrap, you know, things that are
way too long to fit in the upper cabinets. And
yeah, so that's it for my kitchen cabinets.
They’re a lot, I know. We got a lot of questions and
most of our questions about the van is, why didn't
you just pay someone to build it? And my response
is just, “Why, why would I?” I mean, we are capable, fully
capable of doing all of this ourselves and we did.
And the thing about it is that I know that I wasn't
going to shortcuts with my van. I know that I
was going to buy all the best materials. I knew
that I was going to do it right until it was finished
and that's exactly what we did. So, we can't have
that guarantee if we have someone else do the van.
So yes, it did take a year, but I couldn't be more
happier with the outcome, even though it took a year.
I couldn't be more happier with the outcome
because I did it myself. But I was such a, you
know, I love the best of this and this, and
so none of my friends could ever see me in a van,
but I mean, I made it, I made it Tenajesque.
so it's super comfortable and I love it.
[Upbeat music playing]
Welcome to our bedroom, not too far from our
kitchen, but it's here and it's super comfortable.
So what we did with the bed was, we bought a memory
foam, 10 inch mattress, and we did some cutting
but it turned out pretty good. We didn't cut…
It was a queen size mattress, and we didn't have
to cut too much, too kind of fit her in. Now we decided
to go with the high bed because we wanted more
storage, right? [laughter] Although we don't need a whole
lot more storage, it’s just nice to know that
if you want it or if you need it, it’s available.
So underneath the bed, we have… we have room
for lots of storage. Now, since we're talking
about storage, let's talk about that upper storage.
So our upper cabinets here, over the bed. We
have two for Faustino, and then we have two for myself.
Now, one of Faustino’s cabinets has clothes,
then the other cabinet is like a catch-all for
Faustino. Now here on my side, both of my cabinets
are used for clothes. What I decided to do was
I decided to get some packing cubes. I'm able
to put way more clothing items inside of the
cubes, which I probably shouldn't. But yeah, more room
more space to put more clothes. That's what
we have in my cabinets. Now, if uh, if you come over
here, you will see that we have a full closet.
We can hang things in our closet, but we don't
have anything to hang up. So what we did was we
added four shelves, shelves, in our closet,
on our first shelf, we have basically a lot of
things that we need in here to monitor, to make
the van run. So we have our water gauge in here
that lets us know how full or empty our water tank is.
We also have our Victron energy monitor in here
that lets us know what our battery life is on.
We have our Weboost that's in here as well. We
added some USB plugs, just so we can have something
close to the bed. Then we have a hooks where we
have our essential caravan things like walkie-talkies and headlamps.
Second shelf is just toiletries, obviously.
The third shelf, we have things like towels,
and extra lotions, things like that. And on
our last and final shelf, we have books and extra
napkins and paper towels, things like that.
Now, on our door, we did add two hooks for our
bags and these are the bags that we take into
the gym or that we take hiking. So, here's our bathroom.
We have a standard size RV shower pan. We actually
went ahead and went with the Nature's Head Composting Toilet.
So we decided also to go with the Nebia shower head.
And we absolutely love the Nebia shower head.
So as for water. Now you guys are probably
wondering how much water do we have? We actually
have a 33 gallon freshwater tank. We have a 15
gallon gray water tank and we… on this side and
we also have a 3-gallon gray water tank underneath
the sink on this side. So what happens is when
the three-gallon gets full. We just press a
button underneath the sink and it dumps the
water from the three gallon into the 15 gallon.
On the other side of the van. How you doin’?
I'm Faustino, Tenaj’s husband and I'm
going to show you the back. We have six hundred
amp hours of battleborn batteries. We have
a hot water heater and then we have RV water filter
from the RV Water Filter store. We have a 3000 watt inverter.
And there's our water gallon and that's basically it.
Everything's easy to get to everything slides out.
And this is basically everything that we carry.
All our little winter clothes, and extra things
that we need. And that's it. Gorgeous, right?
I love what Tenaj said about building
it themselves, even without experience. You
can figure it out and you'll know exactly how
everything was built and use the materials
that you want. If you liked this video, please
share it. And if you'd like to see more van and
rig tours, vanlife tips, and other information
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thoughtful comments. And if you'd like to join
in deeper conversation, join my Facebook group, Gal Adventurers.
This is Joni with TheGalavan. Enjoy your
journey!
[Upbeat music playing]