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When we are collaborating with you on your van build layout, we like to ask 2 important questions: What are your hobbies and What part of your current living space do you enjoy the most and would love to take with you?
The question about your hobbies is helpful towards the end of the planning process so I’ll address the second question first. When it comes to building out a space that is sustainable to your lifestyle, one of the most helpful things to think about is how to keep the most amount of consistency from your current lifestyle into your van life one. This allows for a more seamless transition and your most valued spaces to transfer into your van build. A lot of clients value a large kitchen with lots of space for cooking and are willing to sacrifice other areas of their build for that. Some people need a good hot shower and others want to prioritize a comfortable reading space or desk to work on. We typically like to focus on 3 or less areas that are important to you to incorporate into the build because more than 3 in a tiny space can take away from the quality of the build. Once we’ve established what’s important to you, we invite you to come by with your van to conduct what we call a “Blue-Tape Crime Scene” exercise where we map out with painters tape the dimensions of your build and allow you to get a sense of where everything will be.
Once we’ve mapped out your build with the blue tape, we then take into consideration how your hobbies will fit in. If you’re a climber and want a large garage space that’s easy to access, we make plans to build out a modular easy-access garage. If you like to entertain, we change up your components to see how we can add seating functionality into your kitchen or work space for friends to join in. Whatever your hobby is, we love to customize your space so that you can spend less time worrying, organizing, or cleaning and more time doing what you love. In fact, our favorite part of the build process is coming up with how to use the same piece of furniture in multiple different ways like a stepping stool that doubles as a bench or a table that turns into a bed.
I’ll leave you with 3 last nuggets of wisdom on deciding on your layout:
The first is that you need to keep in mind that depending on the vehicle, most vans can’t carry too large of a load, especially all in one spot. So distributing weight across the most amount of surface area is important for a sustainable build. Electrical systems and water tanks typically take up the most weight and should be counterbalanced in different areas of the van.
The second nugget of wisdom is something we’ve said before but are going to say again - don’t use pre-fabricated furniture from Home Depot, Lowe’s, or Ikea. We mentioned before that these pieces are made from weak particle wood that break under the constant pressure and shaking of a van but in addition to that concern, these pieces are typically shaped at perfect 90 degree angles for homes whereas van walls are never at a perfect angle and oftentimes have unpredictable curves and grooves for sloped walls or wheel wells.
The final piece of advice on deciding a layout is doing good research. We encourage you to come up with a vision board of pictures collected from Instagram or Pinterest of what your ideal build looks like. If you want a particular feature, it is possible that someone else before you has tried and documented their process. However, be wary of using a single resource as your source of truth because a lot of trendy or popular van bloggers have spent very little time researching and learning about the systems they are implementing, especially when it comes to electrical. Be sure to consult multiple sources, blogs, and forums and don't be afraid to consult professional electricians or builders.