All About Our Van
We’re crazy, we know. The idea of living in a van started before we were even dating. Piled into a car with friends driving up to hike into Diamond Fork Hot Springs someone asked everyone the ubiquitous question ‘What is your dream car?’. Both of us thought that a decked out camper van would be cooler than any shiny Range Rover or yellow convertible.
A couple of months later we were on another drive, up to Seattle with two friends in their Ford Econoline. For the trip, we’d renovated the back a little, pulling out some of the benches and putting in a mattress and a table. As our friends drove through the night, we sat back enjoying the luxury of a real mattress that you could actually sleep on, but instead opted to stay up the whole night and talk what would be in our van, if we ever had one. But it slowly started to become a reality.
Once we both ended up in Jordan in the fall we started looking on KSL, Facebook, and Craigslist for a van we could eventually call our own. The idea seemed logical for two young, college kids with values like us, maybe not for everyone, but us. We could have four walls to call our own, rent-free, and the freedom to move and adventure together. With the help of family and friends, we pursued many vans while in Jordan, but didn’t end up with ours, a 2019 Ram Promaster, until January 23rd.
It’s been two months since we bought our van and we’ve come a long way. We spent the first weekend installing our solar and fan, and I think we measured and planned for six hours before we could get ourselves to make the first cut into the sheet metal. It is pretty nerve-wracking to destroy your car. As we’ve gone on, it has become easier and easier to make those cuts, and luckily we feel we have done a pretty good job so far! The next weekend we installed two windows ourselves and started the process of sound deadening and insulating our little metal box. We laid down a floor, and then a homey, sweet-smelling cedar ceiling, and then clean white walls. Along the way, we installed an AC and a DC electrical system, and are now onto installing the face of our van- the bed, the cabinets, a water system, and some finishing touches that will make this van into our home. It’s been two months, and we hope that in the next week or two to get our van move-in ready!