Deciding What to Put in My Van #2 – Food Storage and Painting Supplies

    Hello! This is the second installment of the “Deciding What to Put in My Van” post series. So far, I have four parts planned out, but I am sure there will be more in the future as buying and building out my van gets closer. In this post, I will mainly be talking about where and how I am going to store my food and how and where I am going to store my painting supplies. Right now, paint is my favorite medium to do art in, but it may change in the future before I build out my van, so I want the painting supply storage area to be versatile to several different mediums.

    Food Storage

     There will not be a lot of space in my van for much of anything, let alone a large refridgerator. I plan on having a very small, probably around 1′ by 1′ by 2′ fridge in my van near the front. I hope to even have it under one of the small cabinets I have. If it opens at the top, then I plan on having the top of the cabinet flip open to access the fridge.

     I also plan on having a small spice rack for when I actually want to cook something, and a small pantry to keep non-perishable goods. I think that the best place for the spice rack would either be on the wall above the kitchen cabinets or on the side of a cabinet somewhere. I have not thought too far into my build and I do not have those kinds of details yet.

     In my opinion, I think that my pantry would fit best either in the very small cabinets at the very top of my van or in a small cabinet on the floor next to the fridge. However, I also plan on having a few cooking untensils such as a pan, a pot, a couple plates, a bowl, a cup, etc. So, I also have to think about weight when placing things either on the top or bottom of my van.

     Most likely, the best placement for these things is to keep the cooking utensils at the bottom of the van, since they are probably going to be heavier than any of the non-perishables I have, and they can go at the top. However, I wish that weight did not matter that much, because I would like to keep all of the food at the bottom, and all of the cooking utensils at the top. That would be most ideal.

     These cabinets would be the closest to the front of the van rather than near my bed because I would like to more evenly distribute the weight, since I am going to have a lot of stuff in the middle and back of the van like water and camping supplies. I would also like this at the front of my van because I do not plan on doing much sitting down while cooking inside.

     Painting Supplies Storage

     While living in my van, I would really love it if I could still make art while on the road. I know that these things usually take up a lot of space, so that I would have to cut down on storage for other things to make room for my art supplies.

     A while ago, I decided that I would only have one kind of art medium in my van at any one time, such as only acrylic painting supplies, only oil painting supplies, only sculpting supplies, etc. Since I only want to have one kind of medium in my van at any one time, I would want to switch these out every two or four weeks depending on what I am doing and how motivated I still am to use that medium.

     Even though I am only going to keep one kind of art supplies in my van at any time, I still want to make the storage area versatile for several different kinds of art supplies. I want to have a small cabinet for these things, or even half of a regular cabinet. I want to have several different ways that I can arrange things inside for shorter things versus taller things.

     This may include things such as adjustable shelves and little pockets on the sides of the cabinet to hold smaller things and to hang things off of. I really love having versatile spaces to store things in, and I am really looking forward to designing all of these super nice custom things to put into my van.

     I would also really love it if I could put a little spice rack type thing on the wall or on the side of a cabinet to keep a small set of acrylic paint and a small set of watercolor paints at all times just in case I want to use them for my morning sketching. These are the two mediums that I enjoy using the most, so I would like to have a small amount of both stored on hand at all times, along with whatever medium I am working with at the time.

     Since they do not take up a lot of space, I would also like to keep a small bag with some nice pens, pencils, and things like that. Since I would have a few little hooks in the cabinet where I keep all of my art supplies, I would be able to hang my bag right in that cabinet when I am not using it.

     This cabinet would most likely be closer to my bed than the front of the van, since I would be working at my desk, which is going to be in front of my bed. I am so excited to start designing all of these things for the inside of my van in the very near future. I hope that I do not put it off for so long that I buy my van and have no plans about how to build it out.

     Conclusion

    I am so super excited to start to design, buy, and build out my van! This has been a dream of mine for years, and I get closer and closer to it every day, mostly thanks to all of you guys! I cannot thank all of you enough for reading and sharing and liking and commenting on my blog posts all the time! Thank you all for supporting my journey!