why are people so fascinated with small house design well I think one reason is
because the owners have to find clever ways to expand their space so in this
week's episode of tiny tours I'm going to show you inside of one tiny home on
wheels that I've been calling the Swiss Army knife of ants why because the
owners Dan and Rachel have found many different ways to expand their space
including custom moving furniture and folding parts that really turn their van
into a multi-purpose home
I'm Dan and I'm Rachel and this is our van. So we have been living in the van
almost 14 months so we originally moved into the van because we wanted to spend
more time helping out people doing some volunteer work doing mission work he
just said hey I'm going out of town on all these volunteer projects I'm really
feeling like I'm doing things that are worthwhile and I feel bad that we're
spending so much time apart why don't you come with me and I can take the
Sprinter van and I can put a sink in it and I can put a bed in it and he had all
these ideas I thought it sounded crazy I knew nothing about a van life movement
neither did he in the beginning she was not fully on board he actually took me
to a tiny house show and I saw other people I saw other buses that was when
it really started to click for me and so that's the point that I said yes so our
van is a 2003 Dodge Sprinter van it is a 20 foot bumper to bumper that gives us
77 square feet of living space from the driver seats back so we do have a lot of
moving pieces in the van we've got the rolling closet extending table the bed
frame the toilet is on a rollers to counter spaces that pop up we have two
monitors that drop down one reason that we do have all the moving parts is so
that we have more open space because when we push everything in and we move
it around different parts of our van have walking space all of that basically
makes the van just feel so much more open and it really allows us to maximize
our space which is made it easier to live in for me personally because
otherwise I felt a little claustrophobic in here without all the moving features
come on inside check it out so this is our kitchen this was actually really
overwhelming to me first when we we moved in the van trying to cook full
meals here I would just get halfway through it and then just go sit down but
I've now gotten used to the small space some things that really help is Daniel
added in some counter space so this actually clicks up this also actually
flips up and so it works as a either a table if you're sitting here or it works
as another counter space our reason for moving in the van was so that we weren't
working all the time just to pay bills but that we could actually enjoy life so
the quote is live a life you don't need a vacation from it's really the heart of
the tiny house community I think so the sink is really deep which is a little
bit unique I think in a van we do have an electric water pump it
also works as a sprayer and can come all the way out to here so if we needed to
spray down something we could we actually started our journey in the van
with a hand pump and I don't recommend that it was really hard to pump and wash
your face or do anything useful so we've loved the upgrade this is also where our
bathroom is because this so it's just on a drawer slide we didn't want it to take
up a whole space in the van because this is 77 square feet so the toilets not
something we want always presents so it is a nature's head composting toilet so
do you mostly use the toilet in the van or and you're also using public that's a
good question we do try to use public again it's
readily available but we don't go out of our way like give it to the middle of
the night or it's really cold outside we just use this one so one thing that was
really important to us in design is we didn't want a lot of bungees we didn't
want things to be falling constantly we really didn't want to have to lock down
our home every time I wanted to move it since this is also our only vehicle and
driver so one thing that my husband did was he made these magnetic knife holders
and boon holders and that's actually all of our utensils right here this is
everything we have and we've gone on some really bumpy roads and it never
falls off the cast-iron even a magnet behind it so it locks into
place and it actually doesn't move either while we go down the road even
the tea kettle has a little magnet right there so that it doesn't move so
everything really looks just like this we mostly use spoons as you can see in
fact our plates aren't even readily available because we almost always just
use these little bowls that we can pull out easily we like to keep our meals
into one dish we have 21 gallons of water so it really helps to do dishes
conserve of water if everything just fits in this bowl with a spoon and
that's it I made these little tags I'm very proud of that because I'm not a
real DIY er my husband did most Sofia construction in here but I made these
these tags that was mine one thing we found early on about living in 77 square
feet is it can get disorganized really fast and that could be really
overwhelming when you're living in a tiny space so we did this in a basket
system and it's actually built on a lip right here so you have to pull up to
pull the baskets out and what that means is they never fall when we're driving
they've never fallen in the 14 months we've lived here and we don't have to
bungee them in so they just look clean and nice and love this oven I really
can't say enough good things about this it's a camp chef's outdoor oven and it
cooks an entire pizza that was really important because I love pizza it runs
on propane both the burners and the oven usually there's a 1 pound propane that's
hooked to the bottom but we have hooked it up to a bigger propane tank just so
that we don't have to keep buying the 1 pounds the 1 pounds were usually cooking
about 10 meals for us so it was affordable but still a little bit
annoying when we're living into your full time so this down here is our
fridge and we actually got this used off of I think Craigslist is just like an
old 12-volt fridge for 50 dollars but it does the trick for us we got a little
freezer space up here but mostly it's just refrigerator so that's been a
little bit of a life adjustment going from always having frozen pizzas and ice
cream in the freezer to not really having a freezer this is a coffee pour
over this is our mug section where we keep our little pour over and then
in the morning and we do this at least one time a day we put a little bug down
here we put our filters in there well our water and then we can just pour
a little pour over right here so these three switches right here this top one
is just this backlight and we really like this one because we first come in
and the the van is dark our other light switches are all the way on the other
side of the van this right here the red one is actually to turn off the propane
and we are pretty good about turning off that switch as soon as we finish using
the propane and that's just a little extra safety feature and this bottom one
is probably the most important but it controls the electric water pump so when
we turn it off the pump is not going and that is important because if we start to
get to the bottom of our water level and we don't turn it off the pump will just
continue to try to suck water continuously and it would burn itself
out the lights are all LED we put them on separate switches so you have one in
the back these two in the middle and then those two that's really convenient
so if one person wakes up you can isolate the lighting so it helps ever
who's still asleep not be affected by the light the rest of our pots and pans
are down here we don't use these on daily just kind of what we're doing
soups so we have the seating over here but we also have seating on this side as
well when you're entertaining and eating you got to have a comfortable table to
sit out so we have this one designed it's going to fall out so it allows
ample seating space the table extends a pretty good length under the bed so it's
still stabilize it just can be a little bouncy so we will add a leg on it sooner
or later but we like this design because it's nice and big when we need it it
sits here most of the time for just the two of us it still gives us plenty of
room to walk around or the other persons here we're working it allows that so
just because you go into a tiny space doesn't mean all your friends instantly
become tiny you want to be honest to entertain have people over so the table
will pull out and we can sit comfortably six to eight people here for dinner it's
communities a big aspect of why we're on the roads we want to just be able to
meet new people and provide a comfortable place to hang out so when
we're working we both have laptops but she does customer service so she
needs that second monitor readily available to get to all she has to do is
plug the HDMI port in the back and then it's ready to go so it's fully pivotable
however you need it to and then it just stores back up here
and so this one has a different lock but it can pivot all the way around we
mostly use it in the back for watching TV how do you get internet in the van so
we was using Verizon hotspot for the longest time but we just made a switch
over to Togo Togo users like ATT tires you pay about 300 bucks for the device
it's the big white bubble you see on the top of the van but then you pay three
hundred and sixty dollars for the year and you get unlimited data and we have
pushed it to the limits and they have not thought of this yet here is where
the bay would traditionally have to sit in a van to be R to be a full-sized
mattress and not have to be multiple pieces this is a solid piece of foam
here five inch film we put it on a rolling system so we can push it back
it opens up for that fifth and sixth person and then the bed is on a actuator
here so it's on a motor here that crazy or lowers the bed for comfort and also
if you raise it up all the way and allows you to shut the back doors and
still have the entertaining spot so people always are curious do you sleep
with all these clothes and no we don't we put it on a rolling system we have a
lock here and that rows it out of the way and when the bed's here you still
have ample amount of space to allow you feet to hang off the bed
we both get 18 inches of closet space so we have 36 inch closet in essence so she
gets this side and I got this side and on her side we've put a nice lock that
holds you close tight because if they're not tight they may bounce off throughout
the transition this is a piece of aluminum goes the entire length so we've
got three wheels up top and then one wheel on the bottom so to prevent it
from swinging it so it has the wheel down here that it rose on to prevent the
paint from wearing off
this is one of my favorite places in the man because it has my beloved guitar I
do play guitar a little bit self-taught but we have it hooked in here with this
strap right here it just unhooked here at the top and then it's resting on the
neck it's been riding there for about a year and I haven't seen any damage to
the guitar so I'm feeling good about it I am a reader so this was imperative to
have it ready and available so this just unhooks it's got a magnet I'm sewn
inside and then the other half of the magnet right there and not just holds
the books into place with some pretty fabric reading is super important to me
so I needed a little reading light we do have lights all throughout but this
one's just great so I can lay down in bed and read this down here is a little
bit of extra book storage so we do have a little bit more these pivot up or they
can actually come all the way off as well and we have some books tucked away
in there and DVDs up here our more storage baskets and then right here is
an AC unit it was put in when we bought the van it's extremely powerful and we
really can't run it unless we're plugged in the solar will not run this AC so it
is there as like a backup it's really hot out we try to find a place to stay
that we know we can plug in and then we around the AC but other than that we
just function with fans and we're fine
so the table functions also as a workspace outside allows us to pull out
whatever we need to set it here while we're working on it
this is where we keep the tools that these are the toys we use well in the
everyday basis because we do travel around help other people and these are
the ones we use majority of the time we do you have a few more things up in the
attic up top this little add-on right here is actually my workout station and
our towels so we do shower at Planet Fitness about every other day we go by
there so we wanted some little towels and these Norwex towels are incredible
like that will dry your whole body it's crazy
so we hang them up here after we shower just to dry this is actually a pop-up
table and this is where I do my little workout videos so I try to work out
every day off and on about five days a week at least so this gives me a little
bit of a bar because I'm be actually doing a little bart workout and then
that's my workout video so I can see what to do I found that I was really
getting frustrated because we were constantly mobile so developing like a
workout routine and different life routines was just hard when you're gonna
be in a city then you'll be in the middle of nowhere then you'll be at a
national park so because home kept moving Daniel built me this so that I
would always have my little workout station so I could keep those those
habits
so as you can see we have an attic up there and what is up there is basically
two foldable kayaks a tents a spare tire Daniels tools because he could not part
with those they're like my books his tools
and also all of our winter storage is up there so when it gets colder we'll just
change out the Wardrobe throughout this process of really slowing down we were
able to talk about what we want our life to look like being on the road exposed
to more and more opportunities to do things outside an adventure has been
really good for me but as was Rachel as well because she's a big fan of the
great indoors it has definitely pushed me outside my limit a little bit but I
would also say to anyone considering van life who is kind of an endorsee person
that's okay too there's actually a lot more indoorsy people who live in a van
than I suspected I really thought everyone was hikers and
you know very adventurous but that's not been the case home just comes with me so
that's really nice because I have the comforts right there in the parking lot
like I know it's right around the corner
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