Our Top 5

Heading into the build we ran the gamut on layouts. Jeremy put the transit into his modeling software, watched videos and read blogs. We would sit around the dinner table and talk about them as a family. The kids gave input, I gave input. Having done the majority of the research Jeremy usually gave us reasons why our ideas wouldn’t work. “There’s a wheel well there” or “then you would have a foot of headroom when you sleep dear and I know you would hate that” or “no we can’t have a donut machine there’s not enough room and it pulls too much power.” Ever the logical one that man.

Eventually we found there were 5 things that were our foundation. Our must haves. And honestly some of these came from our sessions watching You Tube videos after we put the kids to bed. We know how to party, don’t we? (some good ones here, here, here, and here.) I asked Kid 1 what her top 5 things were, she said “You, Daddy, me, Kid 2, and Klaus” Ugh. Right in the feels. She’s right, we are the most important. But we’re also cranky when things are designed poorly. So lets discuss our top 5 design needs. Some of these are going to get a little specific, but if we’re putting in the time and investment to do this I think we are allowed to be picky.

Images above: Bathroom via Freedom Vans / Kitchen via VanCraft / Dining via Benchmark Vehicles

1. Sleeping for 4 that does not get removed or disassembled.

Here’s one of those picky moments, don’t act surprised I literally just warned you 3 sentences ago. This one may sound like we are asking for the moon, a bag of never ending french fries, and ice cream that doesn’t make you fat all at the same time. But it’s important. When you are out on a road trip or vacation how good does it feel to plop into your bed at the end of a busy day? Whether in a hotel, tent, or rental house you typically have at least a small corner of space that is designated as your own. It’s your home-base inside of your temporary home. Now imagine that all you want to do is plop on that spot but at the moment it’s a dining room table because your kids decided they need to assemble a Lego immediately upon entering said home. WHERE DO YOU PLOP? You don’t. You don’t plop anywhere. You sit and get mad because you can’t rest in your bed and you let it fester then you chuck your kids Lego out the window when they aren’t looking because it was the source of your frustration.

Kidding, guys. I would never do that Lego’s are too expensive.

We all think it’s super important for us to have our special places inside the RV. It helps our kids feel comforted when they know they can have their spots with their pillows and stuffed animals. We all need to have a space that’s ours whether it’s at home or on the road.

2. A bathroom.

We see a lot of people converting vans and skipping the bathroom all together. I get it, these things take up valuable space. And when cramming 4 humans and a dog the size of a human into an RV you need all the space you can get.

But! Have these people ever handed their son a water bottle to pee into while driving because you literally just stopped 10 minutes ago and I’ll be dammed if we’re stopping again, only to realize too late the water bottle was not large enough?

Have they ever stopped on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere with only a field as an option for their daughter to pee in while she screams that she can’t hold it but she doesn’t want to pee in the field because there might be snakes. A real pee crisis. Pee your pants or possibly get bit in the butt by a gardener snake that may or may not be there but is probably not?  

I don’t care that our kids are bigger now, having a bathroom in the RV is a convenience and one we are willing to give up some room for. Also, have you ever had to shower at a race track? Some have really nice facilities. Others look like they haven’t been cleaned in 25 years. We’re done deciding if we would rather shower in filth or just live in our own. I’ll be just as happy to shower in my cramped clean RV shower. Not to mention no more “is the bottle too small” games.

3. A kitchen with counter top space, running water and a vertical fridge.

(Oh no they got specific again.) The kitchen in our RV will be small but mighty. When it comes to water we do not want to have to pump the water with our feet every time we need it. While some may argue we need more exercise this is not my preferred method, I did plenty of those stupid stair stepper machines in college thank you very much. We also didn’t want to rely on grabbing a jug of water every time we needed to wash hands, dishes, sticky fingers, etc. We want water when we want it with no fuss. You can call us spoiled. We are.

The counter space space just sounds divine. At races in the past I unload everything from the trailer fridge, carry it out to the folding tables that were also just used to reassemble engines and attempt to prepare our meal. I make it work, but I would love a spot that is dedicated to cooking with water nearby. It’s not going to be a huge counter but I’ll take what I can get.

If you read our first post about “The Why” you know we were resistant to putting a fridge in our race trailer because we thought the cooler life was the life for us. Well, I am here to tell you that the cooler life is not the life for us. Things get lost, food gets soggy in the melted ice, you have to remove the entire week’s worth of food to reach the gallon of milk that somebody insists we bring on every journey because he can’t live without milk in his life. No. More. Coolers. I don’t care if you can plug the cooler in and not use ice. You know what you need access to a lot when you are on the road? Food. You know what does not provide quick access to food? Coolers. This one’s non-negotiable and I blame the racing trailer for it.

4. A dining table

We almost said we didn’t need one. “We’ll sit outside” we said, “if we get a canopy it will be fine.” But do you know what happens when it rains? The ground gets wet. Do you know what happens when the ground gets wet? Your shoes get wet and soak your feet then people complain that they think they have trench foot and can’t walk for a week. It’s not comfortable, trust us. If weather is cold and raining we want to escape to our van. We love playing games and doing art, both of which are made more enjoyable by having a table. And this one goes back to creating comfort and consistency on the road. At home we make sure to eat together as much as possible, and that’s something we intend to value on road trips as well.

So the table is back in! Truthfully it was only out at one point because it would have saved us from installing the swivel front seats. And the seat swivels are $1,000. So are the toilet, the fridge, and nearly everything else in this build. New post idea – a list of everything that is $1,000 if you plan to build a van.

5. Safety seats and seat belts for the kids.

Now is a good time to note these are in no particular order, so please don’t send child services to our house because you think I value a fridge and my own bed space over my children’s safety. If you want to call because I made my son pee into a bottle and my daughter pee in a field on the side of the road, I might understand but I assure you I can’t be the first and only one to do those things.

If you read “The Why” you know this was a big reason why we landed on converting a Ford Transit as our camper of choice.  Jeremy and I are not comfortable having our kids ride in the back of an RV that has no structural protection or seat belts to keep them safe. I know millions of families do it every year but it’s just not for us. I don’t want to risk it. So the design we have landed on incorporates their seats facing forward with seat belts into the dining table design. We’ll need to take a few extra steps to get them secure, like welding them into the frame, but it will be worth it to us to have that piece of mind.

There are other things that made the list but not as high – windows, ventilation, the fabric I’m obsessed with having on the ceiling. Essentials obviously. But as we move forward those are the 5 things that have been guiding us. I think it’s really important when you approach a project like this to have that guiding foundation and revisit it often. Whether building an RV, remodeling your house, or planning a vacation. Having a foundation to go back to can help make sure you get what you were hoping in the end. We have gone back to ours a few times when a new idea takes us off track. Like the swivel seats mentioned above or a bed design we had for the kids that would rest on the seats but meant we had no dining space and their beds would need to be taken down each time we were ready to drive again (which would have violated two of our top 5). At this stage we feel confident our design meets our top needs even though some of the ways we met them created another challenge. We have had to remember compromise is inevitable, especially when trying to fit everything we want in a cargo van.