We have created a BRAND NEW Van Tour Walk through after having Benji for 2 years and traveling over 3 summers. Please make sure to see all the changes we made! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-F78ZETV1JYQ.html
i really like the van, but i love to way how box trucks look a lot better since they are wider and acsually square , so they look a lot bigger than they are
Such a great design and build! Drawing a lot of inspo from y’all for my own van plans. Quick thought - you can put a matting material on the underside of the bed frame so you don’t have an extra step at night to protect that gorgeous wood counters in the living area
the wood is so beautiful , and the bathroom is very nice designed, first time i saw people use that corner to build bathroom , wish you all the best in travel
Thanks! Yeah we saw one other person use it in the UK and got the inspiration for that bit from there. It definitely gives us that added space on the front when getting in the vehicle.
This is EXACTLY what I want to make, the only differences I have is the back would be a desk instead of cabinets, and my shower would be the entire sliding door entryway, with a teak wood mat as the floor with an aluminum shower pan! I love the live edge countertops!!!
Awesome! Sounds like it would be a good rig. We are just about to release an update van tour video highlighting some of the new things we have added since we first built the van.
Thé bed sliding down saves a lot place >>> one of the best invention. No need to prepare the bed when you’re tired it’s already ready great thanks for this ingenious idea. The only problem when there is a problem of electricity. Maybe electric and if it’s possible a mechanic escape solution if can’t use electric. Just in my opinion but of course diner s place can be used in general. Thanks to share
Yeah we havent had the problem yet in a year and a half. If our battery died we could always turn on the car and let the alternator run it. If the winch itself burns out than we have two options. 1. There's a release lever on all winches. 2. I have it attached via hooks that can detach, so could lift up one side at a time and slide off hook.
@@Drinkteatravel but why you don’t do a little job on the way like me when I was travelling to pay the réparations of battery etc its better to prevent than have bigger problems after what you think?
So lucky to be living now with the internet for work. Travelling while young is so possible then it was 40 or 50 years ago. I retired and bought the van and 4 wheel drive. Wham bam Covid put a stop to travel.... Brest of luck guys. Love your design great position for the bed.
Excellent design, have you considered a pop-up flat-screen tv behind the dresser, it would work with the bed up or down and once it popped up, a swivel could be placed at the end of the bed or wherever.
Seriously one of the best thought out van build I've seen so far... And it's incredibly stylish as well... I really love it.... Enjoy your travels...💗💗💗
Hey! I’m new to your channel:) Your van is amazing! My dream is to travel in a van one day and I’ve watched many van life videos and never found a layout that was similar to what I wanted to do until now. I love your van so much!! I can’t wait to follow you guys on your travels!
This is almost EXACTLY how I imagined a possible van build! It's really interesting to see it done and not just in my head, it is very nice. Kudos to you!
That bed is great! I've seen similar ideas once or twice from HiJack, I think it is, but they leave big metal racks glaring out from the walls. Your system makes your van's interior look very long and keeps it homey rather than industrial-looking.
Love the bed design and I also love the outside bedliner idea really cool artwork. You really have some smart upgrades. I can’t believe that I only did that in 3 1/2 months. Loved live edge wood too.
You guys did a great job. The one thing I have noticed is that anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s anywhere in North Am. were influenced by "valley girl" speech inflection. By this I mean your voice goes up in pitch and emphasis at the end of the sentence. This is particularly noticeable with Max as he has such a deep baritone voice when speaking and the end inflections are more pronounced as a result. My own daughter used to do this and as her father and I did not, and we lived in the midwest during her childhood, I finally decided that kid's television had to have had this characteristic! Anyone agree or have another explanation? I loved the van, just got side tracked by your speech patterns!
That’s weird lol none of us grew up in North America in the 80’s and 90’s. I grew up in Costa Rica from when I was 2.5 to 12ish. Oksana grew up in Ukraine until she was 15. Neither of us knew English that well until we came to Canada as teenagers so maybe it has to do with ESL and learning it at an older age? I certainly didn’t watch English tv until I was a teenager and same with Oksana. Interesting indeed though.
@@Drinkteatravel If you hadn't had such a nice deep voice I wouldn't have noticed it I suspect. Having watched a bunch of videos with adults in your age group, in many different subject matters, from engineering, to race cars,to van conversion and dogs, the thing that made them similar was the phrasing, the higher voice at the end of the sentence and inflection more typically seen when posing a question, with an emphasis on the end of the sentence. I shouldn't call it "valley girl" because that is a negative connotation, but it was their extreme manner of speaking that characterizes it when taken to the extreme. I didn't mean it negative in any way. Speech, language, word usage they all evolve in time. I doubt any of us could understand a person speaking in old English. I heard it once 40 years ago and couldn't understand a word!
Love that shower. I hear a few accents. I cook a lot and love vegetables and would need a separate bigger freezer. Basil needs a lot of water and light. Maybe a sun bulb for plants. The insulation mats are a great idea to keep out cold, thank you to your Mom. Those would be something I would buy for my RV. There is always his and her stuff lol. Wow that bed is awesome. I love the liner y’all used for the exterior of the van. Do they sell that in America. I have wanted to spray the front of our camper with it. Ever smash your finger in the sliding door, I hope not.
If they want an entire “latex” bed they should get a Purple mattress. It is hypo elastic polymer and it is the most cooling and comfortable mattress I have ever had! Highly recommend in something like this.
@@Drinkteatravel true. A Queen is about $1000 US. But highly recommend if y’all ever want to upgrade in the future. By far my fav van I have seen! Congrats and have a blast!!
I have a suggestion, why don’t you glue the little mat thing underneath the bed? That way you don’t need to put the Mat thing every time you move the bed down
Beautiful but so unattainable for mos😪 Most people are not upfront about how much things cost in total so it’s hard to tell without that. Regardless, living vicariously through these two and their beautiful van. Absolutely one of the BEST builds I’ve ever seen.
Two questions: why did you go with a dark ceiling and why did you choose the counter height you did? It looks like you have to bend over the counters to do meal prep. Is that an issue? Is your coffee.hot water product a Nespresso? I've not seen one that has hot water available, too. Too cool.
We went with dark ceiling because we feel like it contrasts the white on the cabinets and walls better. And it worked out great because black walnut is obviously dark and a beautiful wood. We based the counter height on the standard kitchen heigh of 30-33inches, we measured at the house. Ours is closer to 33". We also wanted to make sure that when the bed came down we could still sit up on the bed and it would give us heaps of space. Also, if we would have made it higher it would have started to interfere with the t window opening slots.
Great van build! Really inspiring for others. I did notice that Roxanne is very tall, and the counters are relatively short for her. Does that become an issue? Would you build counters so low if you had to do it again or was that done for resale value (assuming the buyer isn’t as tall)?
We are both average canadian height i guess. Oksana is definitely taller for a female at 5'9ish. But we just chose the standard height of kitchens. We used Oksanas parents counters for reference. We were thinking of making it a bit higher but the issue would have been reduced overhead space on the bed while down. In hindsight we likely could have gone 1-3 inches higher.
I don't think I need to look any further. Great website too! So much great info. Thank you for sharing and also, Oksana, where did you get those cute orange boots?
Not yet, we plan on making a quick video on how we made it shortly. Within the next few weeks. Be sure to subscribe and click the bell icon to receive notifications.
I’ve been trying to figure out my future conversion layout... yours is pretty darn perfect in my opinion! I am beyond impressed! My only addition for my future van would be a pop top (to create an additional sleeping area so the dinette can still be utilized if my bf/or I need to work while the other sleeps). Do you sell your floor plan? I’d definitely be interested in purchasing if so! 🤩
Glad it was helpful! Thats definitely a good idea! The pop top would definitely be pricey though. We will likely put a swivel seat for the passenger side and add a laguna table there since once of us wakes up early and the other likes to sleep lol. We dont have one for sale, but could work something out I am sure. Shoot us an email at contact@drinkteatravel.com
We will be doing a post about it shortly. Originally we were going to do a video, but we lost a cards worth of data so cant do that anymore. So a post it will be.
Depends on your definition of touch up I guess, from my understanding with raptor liner you would still need to clean, sand down the original lining and feather the edges a bit. Whereas with bully liner it simply goes overtop and adheres to itself.
Inspired conversion , can I ask how much weight did you add on at the weighbridge because you have used a lot of solid timber , can you quote in kilos please and what is your spare payload work out as aprox for personal clutter.
Hi , I found this video by accident! This is amazing. I also have a camper van like yours being conversion in China. Thanks for the video, it gave me a lot of inspiration！
There's a safely release that you can click to allow it to unroll itself down, but you wouldn't get it back up easily. You could always install a secondary manual winch to use as a backup. Loss of power has never been an issue as we can always start the car and let the alternator charge the batteries for a few minutes to operate the bed. Now if the winch breaks yes we would need to unhook the bed and just buy a new winch (which you can buy at any auto parts store or Walmart for like $100)
I’m going to have to watch your video again to see how you hooked up all those cables. I really like that system and it seems like a less expensive way to do it and paying 11 or maybe even 1500 to happy Jack for the same type of thing
For sure. We are planning on creating a video wabout how we did it shortly. This Sunday nights video will be a sped up version of our whole build so it will also include some more on the winch. Make sure you subscribe and receive notifications ;)
We will be putting out a video next Saturday about this. We were hoping to publish it this weekend but got caught up with some other stuff. So be sure to subscribe and get notified next weekend! Truck liner was a bit tricky but not impossible.
Yeah we forgot to include that in the tour accidentally lol We have a 25gallon greywater tank mounted underneath the van. We drain it with a hose or by just opening the tap when that's allowed.
Hey there, great conversion. I just try to understand height of all conversion. So do you mind to share what is the height of van before and after the conversion? Also the height on the sitting area after you pull up the bed? Thanks in advance.
Before the conversion the height of the inside is 193cm (6'3) and now its 187cm (6'1). The sitting area height is around 36 inches plus a bit extra from the compression of the mattress. This height can change dramatically based upon how high your counters are, and how thick the bed is.
Hey Guys! Truly amazing build, I have the same exact van so I understand the incredible amount of time and effort you’ve put it, So many inspiring ideas... One question: Do you know the color code for the bedliner paint you used? We have raptor liner and are going to have an auto body shop tint the paint. Planning a similar matte dark green color. If you know the code and don’t mind sharing we’d really appreciate it! Thanks so much - Aloha and pura vida 🤙
Glad you loved the video! Unfortunately i dont think that bully liner gives you the color code used. Although they are pretty responsive so you could always shoot them an email and ask? Heres their colour charts www.bullyliner.com/color-charts/
Dear people, you're inspiring me to take on a voyage on my own and I'm doing it. Thanks. Can u share the sounds you're using in your videos, especially lake Titicaca?
Why don't you just glue some strips of cork flooring to the bottom of the bed and skip manually applying the pads each night? Some cork flooring can be very beautiful.
That was the plan, and we even have some in the van waiting to be put up. But we wanted to stain it a similar colour to the ceiling so its not obvious. We will get around to it though lol
absolutely awesome build. Only thing I would change is the big shower. Kind of necessary for the ladies though haha us guys are okay with stinking a bit. Also may want some more space for outdoor gear like bikes, climbing etc. Overall awesome. What do the two of you do for a living that sustains this lifestyle?
Yeah the shower ended up being a good call because of all the closures with covid. Plus a little to cold to shower outside these days lol. We do a few things. The first is our website drinkteatravel.com which is the source of all of our travels for the last 5 years. We also have an eco lodge in Costa Rica that we renovated.
Heres our post on the basics of our build. Everything from prep work and finding the right van, to the actual build. - drinkteatravel.com/diy-camper-van-build-2008-dodge-sprinter-170-conversion/
You have 24v solar panels. Do you have your 4 batteries arranged as a 24v system? Are you using a buck converter for 12v loads? I'd be interested in learning how you did you solar/battery/electrical systems.
So most panels are a lot higher voltage then what they are called (12v vs 24v) etc. The renogy 100w panels are 17.9-21.6v meanwhile the "24v" commercial panels we have are between 37-45v. But not we still use a standard 12v power system in the van, we simply run the 75+volts from panels into a victron mppt 100/50 controller and that converts it in 12v power that feeds our battery banks. Does that make sense?
