That Van Redo I Keep Mentioning

I've had this van since 2019, and it's been rearranged quite a lot—it's always a work in progress. I used to have the bed across the wheel wells with a lot of storage in the back, but not much space in the living area. This accommodated my folding kayak. Last year, a friend and I completely redid my cargo trailer, and the boat lives there now.

​I was totally fed up with my cot-width bed, so it was time to start a major redo. Rearranging required me to have a place to sleep while doing the work, a place to put my things out of the weather, and a friend with muscles, tools, and a willingness to help. The old bed and loft needed to come out and a new bed built. In February, the stars aligned and all of that came together. The new bed is standard twin width and sits across the far back. There's storage below it, as well as in a storage step forward of the bed.

​The next project was a closet. I thought I would have to build one from scratch, but I found a bamboo clothes rack on Amazon that fit perfectly with only minor adjustments.

​So that part of the van had been redone and decluttered to a level I can live with—but forward of that, chaos still reigned.

 I had redesigned it in my head enough to know what I wanted, but again, the same van-life issues applied: where do you put things while rearranging and building?

Before I moved a lot of stuff into the new storage unit, I took a week to do the front of the van. On Monday, everything came out from the front area except the freezer and battery bank. Cleaning happened. I put the desk in place and screwed crates together to make shelves next to it. The fit was perfect. I had ordered a six-drawer bamboo bureau that matched my closet, and I assembled it. I put my things away in the drawers and on the shelves. It was one of those days where timing, measurements, and everything just lined up perfectly, and voilà! The driver's side was DONE!

i have since removed the spider web of bungees in favor of more aesthetically pleasing methods of keeping stuff in place while traveling.