Today's video tour takes us to Portland, Oregon,
where we're going to take a look at one man's converted sprinter van.
What makes this fan dwelling so special is the clever design that allows the
owner to tuck away the kitchen, bathroom,
dining room and bedroom when not in use.
So let's jump right in and take a tour.
My life before van life was actually pretty depressing. I was bored.
I didn't know what I was doing in life.
And this opened up opportunities for me to do the things that I wanted to do and
work for myself and also traveled.
I got to see different cultures just from one city to another,
like Portland and Seattle have different cultures in themselves.
And they're only three and a half hours apart from each other.
So going through those times and seeing different people taught me a lot just
about life and who we are as humans.
I actually have a degree in architectural engineering.
I also grew up in a carpenter's house.
It actually helped me out a lot designing my first van.
I held back a lot because I was scared,
but the degree actually helped me think outside the box.
The design was mostly from me, but the putting it together was mostly my dad.
So a lot of credit goes to him though. We butted heads a lot.
We came up with a really good product.
The differences between the two vans from ghost one to ghost
one was a Ram ProMaster. So it was about 12 feet of living space.
The second van is a Mercedes sprinter. So a little over 10 feet of living space.
People always ask me, why did you go with a sprinter?
Have you ever driven a Mercedes? That is my answer.
It is complete luxury. It feels like you're driving an airplane.
All the components on the inside are just gorgeous. That triggered in my brain.
I'm going all out. And that's what I did.
This sprinter in particular out the door brand new is 45 to 50,000.
And then I have about 50,000 and components.
They're rolling machines, but they, they can come with a price tag.
Hey guys, this is ghost, come on in.
Ghost is a 2019 Mercedes sprinter van
2,500. It's the 144 wheelbase. So it's about 10 feet inside,
uh, six feet wide. So about 60 square feet give or take,
but I did a different style layout than what everybody typically will see in a,
in a van I went with this massive six foot countertop,
which is kind of weird and a 10 foot van.
And the reason for that was because I also didn't want any built-ins.
So like a builtin cooked off or a builtin, you know, oven or whatever it may be.
I knew that I could just cook by using portable instead of built-ins.
I tried to give myself enough space where I didn't have to throw anything on top
of a builtin.
I can put everything in drawers and I can just take it out and cook or whatever
that may be.
Insta pots and inductions are the way to go in my personal opinion.
I put the fridge actually right here in front,
because sometimes when you're out camping or whatever,
I want it to reach into the fridge and grab something.
So I actually have the fridge right here. This is an ice therm
It's the clean 85 models. I wanted that stainless steel look.
And I also wanted to have a freezer, which is in here. I can't fit in much,
but I shouldn't be putting too much ice cream in my body. Anyways,
every drawer that I have is lined out with like a carpet,
two reasons why I did it. Number one, aesthetics, and number two,
not noise reduction. It actually really helps. I have two sets of lights.
I have a indirect lighting on the ceiling, which is by led strip lights.
And it's all on a dimmer switch right here. And then I have nighttime lights,
which are the under cabinet and it's a warm lighting. So it's a different feel,
a different vibe. If you switch them on and off
all the controls you're done with this one touch pad,
I can actually control the heating and the cooling inside of my van all through
my phone, or I can run it through here as well.
This is where it starts to get weird.
This back wall is actually a bed is my Murphy bed.
So this entire wall will actually fold down on top of the benches.
And then I have a lip here that catches it as well. It's not as big as a queen,
but it's also not as small as a full,
so it's like 74 inches long.
And it's like almost 48 inches wide. I don't have to worry about,
uh, the couch turning into a bed.
And the couch that I've been sitting on all day is now my mattress.
This is a separate mattress.
It is a separate living space and only 60 square feet.
So it worked out kind of nicely.
A lot of people believe that this bench turns into a bed because that is a very
common thing. I can't sleep on this comfortably, which is actually on purpose.
I did not want to be taking naps on my L bench cause I knew I would,
four people can actually sit in here extremely comfortable.
And with the host parties is what it comes down to
the table is my second table that I made. I, uh, I broke my
it's a long story, but we won't get into that. I wanted a very pretty table.
I wanted it to be fancy. So I took a piece of black Walnut. I butterflied it.
So I cut it and I put it into two and I routed out a river with making
islands. And then I poured a poxy and I truly love black Walnut.
As you can see, I have a lot of Walnut tones in here.
So I felt that it aesthetically fit the van and that it fit the space when the
bed comes down. Obviously I have to put this somewhere.
So I just kind of tuck it away to the side because when the bed goes back up,
which is the beautiful thing about the Murphy bed that I can put it back on.
One of the mounts that's here,
it's either on this Mount or it's by the Mount over by the swivel seat,
which is just really convenient.
This entire bench is also here mostly because I have a 22
gallon fresh water tank. That's actually over the wheel. Well,
when designing a van,
you have these two massive things on both sides of the van that our wheel Wells
that come up. So you have to kind of work around that. Well,
there's a company that makes these over wheel water tanks,
which are just perfect. So that's actually here.
I also recently installed the air conditioning unit.
It's a 12 volt air conditioning unit. So that's a little more storage for me.
However, I also use it as a channel to take the air from the
inside. And it actually runs back into the air conditioning unit.
And it's ducted up to this right here.
This is like my whole extension of my kitchen cleanup and also bathroom,
which we'll get into these are aftermarket windows.
They fit into the custom windows that are already there.
So you don't have to cut any holes. If they're already windows there,
the faucet I just wanted. This design is what it comes down to.
I think it's pretty and fancy.
I had a deep sink in my first van and it was a little bit smaller.
This one's only five and a half inches deep,
but it's big enough for me to have a sink and a van.
I also didn't want a very deep sink because uh,
anybody lives in a van will tell you,
we tend to throw things in our sink while we move. And I didn't want to do that.
I actually wanted to try and stay as neat and tidy as possible as I'm moving
around or whatever that may be. This is where all the good stuff is.
Normally it would be storage for anybody else,
but I actually have all of my hot water,
radiant floor heating all done by van Lifetech.
There's a Bosch hot water heater. They're typically in a hot water situation.
When you turn on your faucet,
you know how it takes a few seconds for it to warm up, not with the system,
it's instantaneously hot water.
And that's because in a van we only have so much water at 22 gallons.
We want to make sure that we're using less water throughout the time.
So that's why we did that way. All of the components are in there.
It takes up a lot of real estate,
but I would not do anything different when it comes to heat.
I've had my van in 10 degree weather in Canada
and it was 72 degrees inside. And it was me, another person and a dog.
And we were extremely comfortable.
The only problem I had with it was I forgot how cold it was outside when I
opened the door, there's tubing in the floor and it actually radiates the air.
Now it's a two stage heating system. So if that can't heat the air quick enough,
this is a blower that actually blow out a forced air. All right? So this,
this is where it's going to get complicated, but it's going to be fun. Uh,
this is entire shower bathroom setup. So you open up the top cabinet here,
this drops down and then I just take the top off and
I open it up. And then I hang a curtain on the inside and it drops down.
Shower head will pop up.
I now have a shower, the opening is on this side.
So you can actually just reach over and grab any of your shampoos or whatever
you have. That's already stored inside of this.
Using this on a day to day basis is a little difficult,
but it is here. And it's nice that it's kind of hidden,
but I wanted something here for that time that you're out at BLM land for,
you know, maybe a month or if you're just traveling across the country.
So this is here, not for emergency, but for convenience.
The toilet is a Dometic. It's a 2.5 gallon.
They do make like a five gallon toilet.
I just didn't feel that it was necessary to have the bigger toilet because it's
a cassette style. So you want to dump this.
I want it to also make a separate seating area.
So this is actually on a swivel. All it is is just a pin in there.
And then you can just turn it. It's a low profile swivel seat,
but the seat wasn't good enough for me.
I wanted to also make sure that I could sit here and maybe whip out the laptop
and get some work done. So I've put the second lagoon Mount,
which is right here. And now if I'm at the beach, I could come in,
I could sit down,
I could open up the sliding door and I can have a second seat where I can get
work done.
I kept mostly everything on the outside stock,
so I could blend in with cities and nobody would come knocking on my door.
If I wanted to sleep in the middle of a city, somewhere in regards to the roof,
I actually kept the solar panel, a low profile,
500 watt walkable solar deck. So if you can stand on it,
750 pounds,
it doesn't look like there's a solar panel up on that roof while standing down
on the ground. So the back of the van, if the bed was down right now,
if I was out camping or out at the beach, I opened up my doors.
I put the bed down and I have an infinity view.
This box was designed and built by tiny watt.
Solar what's in this box actually powers my entire van.
Then this particular solar system would run, uh, uh,
roughly 16 to 25 grand,
depending on what you want each lithium batteries, a thousand dollars a piece.
Put it that way. I have four lithium batteries,
which I rely on 100 amp hours each. So 400 amp hours of lithium batteries.
I have a 3,200 watt which was made by Outback.
You've got your Sterling, DC, DC charger, which from driving,
it actually charges the batteries. That way. If it's a cloudy day,
I can charge the batteries by running my van, which is a fantastic feature.
Everything is done just like a house would be done with breakers and then the
fuses for 12 volt fuses as well.
The reason I went with such a large system was I wanted to make sure that I
could have power everywhere and anywhere that I go and I have AC and
he said, yes, I can run my air conditioner off of my battery bank.
I am currently looking for property in the Portland area and I will actually
have a custom container home built to my needs, my wants,
and I might have a space to build vans cause I will definitely have a van in the
future.
So I'm excited to see all that kind of transpire and like everybody else,
we all have goals and aspirations and dreams, right? For me to obtain mine,
I have to let something go. So to get the shipping container home,
I need to let this go. I will take one last camping trip in it.
It'll be a very emotional time for me.
I would want some alone time in here to kind of say goodbye and have a single
tear shed down my cheek.