Deciding What to Put in My Van #1 – (Water Storage, Cabinets)

    Hello! This is the first thing I am posting that you guys voted on! There were two votes for this option (ideas I have for inside my van) and one vote for another option (tips I learned while using resin). To everyone who did and did not vote, thank you so much, and there will be another poll at the bottom of this post for what I am posting next Wednesday. (It would be very helpful if everyone voted so I could gain a better understanding of what my audience wants.) 

    This is only a small portion of all of the ideas I have for inside of my van, so there may be another post of this type coming in the future. 

    When deciding what my van needs, and what to put in it, I went through many different options that seemed to work for the time being. Some of these options included not having any plumbing and just a small water jug for my own personal needs, cabinets along both sides of the van, or having a television/not having a television. The decisions varied in difficulty, and here I will be talking about some of the more difficult decisions. 

Water Storage

    In the beginning of my campervan journey, before I had even decided what van I wanted to buy, I had thought the best option for no plumbing would to have no plumbing at all. I thought that having a maybe five gallon water tank in my van would be enough to keep me going for long enough, and that I would be comfortable with that amount of water for extended periods of time. I have since then changed my mind. Since I work at a car wash, where we have many five gallon containers for different cleaning products, I have realized how small that really is for all the functions I would like to use it for, such as washing things, drinking, and even showering occasionally.

     At work, we go through almost an entire five gallon container every day. Now, I know that I will not be using as much water as work uses cleaning products, but it really made me think about the practicality of the small container I thought I had decided on. I had to ask myself if I was comfortable with maybe running out of water if I wanted to go off the grid for a long period of time with no reliable water source to drink from. Eventually, I realized that I was not comfortable with this concept. I enjoy being clean, and I enjoy feeling comfortable with myself and my environment. If I ran out of water, both of these things would vanish.

     Another problem my mind had encountered in this time was the question of plumbing problems happening in my van, and ruining things. I would much rather have to deal with an electrical problem than a plumbing problem, especially if it was very hot or very cold. However, I considered this for a while, and decided that it wouldn’t be that bad, and that if I could handle living out of such a small space and learning everything about my van, that plumbing probably would not be the biggest challenge that I would face during the building process, or even when I was on the road. Even though I would face a lot of challenges on my journey, I believe it will all be worth it both during and in the end.

     After a conversation with my father, who I consult about many van-related things, we decided that I should both have a hand-held shower head in my van, a pump-operated sink, and maybe a spigot for drinking water. The tank for non-potable water would be placed on the emptier, right hand side of the van, and the smaller, potable water jug would be placed somewhere on the heavier, left-hand side of the van. The potable water jug may even be small enough to place into my small fridge that I will have in a cabinet on the left-hand side of the van. We brainstormed that we could also attach a water pump to that to a spigot in the wall, and we also realized that we could also place the water spigot at the bottom of the water jug, letting gravity do the work.

     These decisions all depend on the type of fridge I want to put in my van, and how big the cabinets on the left-hand side of the van are. I think that this two-jug system will work a lot better than just having one, small water jug in my van to do all of the work. 

Cabinets

    When I was thinking about cabinets and storage in my van, only one row of cabinets on the left-hand side of the van seemed ideal for having the most floor space, keeping the area feeling the most open and spacious. However, this does not seem very ideal for balancing the weight between the two sides of the van, which is a huge concern at all times when living in a van, especially on the road. What my current decision is on cabinets and storage, is to keep a majority of the storage along the left hand side of the van, and a thin line of cabinets along the right hand side.

     The thin line of cabinets would be for shoes when people come in, a place to hang a bag, and also the bigger water tank for showering and the sink that I mentioned previously. This line of cabinets would hopefully only be six inches or less in depth, which would definitely work with the open, spacious feeling that I want my van to instill in people when they visit or stay over. I really want to have the most open feeling van possible, since it freaks me out when I feel trapped in a place.

     There is a fine line in my mind between too small and cozy small. The van itself is already so much smaller than even a hotel room that it already has the cozy small vibes, I just have to keep the vibe in check when I am building it out, and making the space seem less open, but more open at the same time.

     Thank you all so much for reading my blog post and supporting my journey! Here is the link for the poll I promised: https://strawpoll.com/w7vyh1u97

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