CONVERTING OUR VAN

7 months ago we bought a van from a carpet cleaning business. This is how we converted it into our full-time home.

By Foreign Natives

February 22^nd, 2015

We payed $3700 for a 2003 Dodge Ram Van with 70000 miles on it…and a nice high top!

The interior was all painted in dark colors and the floor covered with carpet, so our first job was to paint the ceiling to make it a little more inhabitable. 7 spray cans of white paint.

We decided to cover floor and walls in plywood.

Ok let‘s be clear. We had no idea of what we were doing! It was our first time converting a van so the entire process has been learning by doing.

We (used to) live in an apartment without garage, so the sidewalk has been our workshop for the entire process. Although we were a bit noisy sometimes (and we‘re sure some neighbors hated us for this) it‘s actually been really cool having curious people all the time stopping by and asking about the van, checking out our progress.

Write your story here. (Optional)

We needed a bed, but we knew we also wanted to be able to travel with friends and family so we decided to try to find a seat that could be converted into a bed.

Finding the sit was a bit like treasure haunting. Going junkyard by junkyard, car by car until we finally found this awesome foldable seat from an old Chevy van in a huge junkyard in Oakland. It was $50 cheap. :)

Cleaning it and painting it was way easier than installing it. We had to cut the wood, drill the floor, put the seatbelts and fix the seat. This set the basics for our van, and draw the main lines on which we built the rest of it.