Camper Van build-out part 2.
After a fairly successful first outing and having gained a little more experience of life on the road it was back to Nashville and my parking lot ‘workshop’ to continue the van build-out. The weather wasn’t too kind and although I had an idea what I wanted to include in the van I didn’t yet have a clear design in mind of how the end layout would look.
I definitely needed to hook up the electrics for starters and after making sure I’d run enough cables I first connected the extractor fan and gave it a test using the remote. Success! I was up and running and started to connect the ceiling lights to the dimmer switches.
The extractor fan works both ways, by sucking in fresh air from the outside or it can also extract air from the inside. A crucial addition especially in the warmer climates where a nice fresh air flow is essential to comfort.
I’ll clean up the connections later, honest! The small blue connector shown above right is the power for the water pump, which I installed under the sink unit. One set of four ceiling lights for the front section and another separate set of four ceiling lights for the rear section. Both sets of lights are connected via rotary dimmer switches. The fan, lights and water pump are all connected to the DC side of my electrics setup and run on 12V DC.
The sink unit with its faucet connected only for cold water which is supplied from a 7 gallon container of fresh water via the Flojet water pump (shown above right). The water is pumped from the fresh water container through the faucet and drains via the sink into a similar 7 gallon grey water container. All which fit neatly under the sink unit with its butcher block countertop.
Next up was installing a refrigerator, which again had to run off the 12v DC side and so it was back to the marine parts website to order one. It arrived within three days (very impressive) and I did a quick connection test, all good so I knocked up a housing under the countertop and installed the fridge.
When it came to installing some wall cabinets in the van, I started to build them out, didn’t like what I’d done and at this point I admitted to myself that although I could easily build ‘functional’ structures, when it came to something that needed a little more of (shall we say) a quality look, I would find some that were prebuilt.
A quick trip to home depot and voila!, matching cabinets to my sink unit. Okay so the doors opened outwards instead of upwards but maybe I will fix that later. I now have two sets of wall cabinets on both sides at the back over the dinette benches, ready to house something extremely important, whatever that may be.
You can see the upper cabinets in the photo above. I parked at a beach in Maine, threw open the doors and that’s what its all about. With phase 2 of my van build out completed it was time for another road trip to test out the new additions. I’ve always wanted to go to Maine and tried once before but a broken leg intervened. Now was my chance to make amends and check out if the location matched all the hype.
