hey this is mike with backroads vanner and today i'm gonna give you tour of the van i'm gonna show you how i took this 2003cargo van designed for working and turned it into a campervan so stickaround and check out this video today i'm going to give you a tourinside the van. this was a 2003 cargo van when i bought it. i did buy this vanbrand new, used it in my business for i don't know seven years maybe six yearsor something like that and approximately five or six years ago i decided tocustomize it and one of the first things i had to do was tear out all the metalcabinets that were inside, the divider that was in here, and turn it into acamping van so today i'm going to show
you how i turned it into a camping vanand give you some ideas for converting your van. we normally travel with thecooler up here in between and then we put the dog beds on top because thelittle dog likes to ride up here. for camping i normally put it here oroutside underneath the table depending if we're in bear country or not but iput it here that way it's easy accessible from outside and we don't have to climb in. there's copper pipe - it's just a plumbing pipe that i designed and bent and madethat for forming the curtains so that we can close the curtains. it's high enoughup here that we don't get any light coming through and it's insulatedcurtain so it blocks all the light
coming through and also keeps it coolerand warmer back here in the back a lot of people ask me why but this boardin here and i'll probably take it out at some point but originally i put in herebecause i used to keep my tool bag back behind the seat and it just kept it outof the way and it was just convenient and you didn't see it when yougot in but eventually i'd like to take this chair and be able to turn it aroundand so i'll probably end up taking this out. all these cabinets that are behindme and the drawers all around me... i built this, first of all, out of cardboard.i wasn't sure what size i needed and how much room it was gonna take up so idesigned the whole thing first out of
cardboard and then i built it out of 9ply plywood. its half-inch 9 ply so it's really strong it's really good plywoodand then i just painted it given a nice clean look okay, so i'm going to show you what i've got inside these closets.... first of all, this closet was designed as, well, a closet... i put a rod in here and i made it for hanging clothes you can see here i've got myraincoat and stuff like that and what i keep in here right now i've got my solarpanel in here and i like things in trays so that i can spot lights and differentthings like that plastic ware for traveling on the road andthen i got a whole box of stuff here bungee cords and things of that naturewater jug back here. this is one of the
jugs that i fill up with water and justan old whisk bottle cleaned out and i set it outside on the table and i usethis for washing hands and and wiping off the table and stuff like that. and then i've got the old trusty port-o-potty in case ofemergencies for number two and all this stuff just slides in right there and it's easily accessible and then appear to have apropane stove i have a hammock more propane videos dvd player first aid kitspray hand sanitizer and things of that nature but it's very easy to get thisout and put it on the picnic table put it out on your workstation with youslide it back in hand wipes and more dvds custom-built all these cabinets and wheni started building this man i wasn't
sure i've built several other fans butlet's be real i just the first man i ever had i just threw mattress in theback and built a few shelves along here the second one i raise the bid and madestorage up underneath and built a little bit fancier campanis i've done a littlevariation of those since this man here i decided i was gonna make it a littlemore intentional for camping and for what i was going to use it for i have agreat friend of mine joyce and she calls me the practical manner so everything inhere is practical it's it's very use i did make a padded ceiling and and andcustomized all of this of course i insulated up underneath it did somethings
space here was designed specifically fora microwave i measured it out exactly to fit a microwave and if i take this outyou can see where i have a plug for the microwave unfortunately i don't use amicrowave very much and it was just dead weight carrying something around inthere can't shannon and i it's much more can be having a cold 0 up here becausewe can plug in here charge your devices are cameras andstuff like that and we use a lot of times for our dry food storage so whenwe're packing the van if we don't have this up here i have a sliding tray fitsall the dry foods but right now that's out if you're down here again more shelfspace this is my easy to carry out and
put it on the picnic table of gaudytablecloth utensils can open as wide open as tongs spices just a bunch of stuff that makes itreally easy instead of climbing back in the van back out of the back in the dayi can just take this right out and say it on the table and it's easilyaccessible and then down here i just have this was the canopy system that iset up earlier and if you miss that be sure to check out the canopy system itexplains the whole canopy system and what i use and that's where i storeparts of the canopy system right there down here is the electrical applianceseverything from a coffee pot to a grill
and anything that we used it we can haveelectric sometimes when we camp we have electricity and when we do we like toutilize the he's of using these appliances and sometimes when we don'twhich is what we're doing today we can't use the electric appliances cause we'reoff the grid so we'll be using this to charge up our phones using that for our lights and otherthings when i originally built this fan this video was designed at the time iwas camping at lot of state parks national parks and places like that thathad power electricity so i put in a lot of plugs plug down here folks back theirplans here and more plugs in the back
and i'll show you where i have a plug inthe back of the fan that when i have electricity i just plug it in and allthese plugs become live and it makes it great for charging your cell phones andhaving stuff right back here and being able to use that but when we makecamping lately we've been gone off the grid we've been going to nationalforests and places like that have no electricity whatsoever and it's reallynice because there's nobody around you and you have all kinds of open space butyou don't have that electricity and that's when the solar panel and this yeti 400 comes in because then we can charge up our devices and use it for that letme show you the back of the van here my
little coffee table here turns into anightstand at night gotta plug right here so this is greatspace having right next to the bed anytime i find myself using this all thetime putting in water up here whatever music anything like that phones cellphones whatever at night iutilize the space a lot this is where we store most of our stuff and this iswhere our rug and other things are tables and stuff like that are stored istore my tools in the back but this comes out realy easy and forms ofcapital this just flat out like this and it forms the couch so i'm gonna goaround to the back and show you from
back there this light bright out likethis i made it comes straight out or you cango back down here on the bottom of the table and then you can like this and youcan set in here and enjoy this i do not use that as a table it was originallydesigned to use it as a table but i just found it took up space on the bottom ofthe table it would take up space and the space that it took up was valuable spacefor me because i found that that would not fit andwould not work it takes up a lot of valuable space so i chose to use theplastic table for my table back here let me show you how that looks outside andif i decide that i don't want to eat out
there or at this table here and it's theperfect height perfect playing cards shannan likes to sit here and put herlaptop on it and use it as a workstation eating it's great so i just found a loteasier than using the the wooden style table and like i said i can just slidethe wooden one down on the bottom rung on it and it's completely out of the waythe other thing that i have right here is a drop-down video screen and you pushthis button here and this popped down and you've got two speakers on the sideand it's it's pretty nice you the dvd players up front and you have a screenupfront or you have a screen back here so if you wanna lay back here i findmyself sometimes what i've been driving
for a long time or something to justcome back here and lay down and watch a movie shannan loves watchingdocumentaries and stuff like that on grizzly bears of all things about this flooring system is easy toclean up we travel with our dogs and we tend to get a lot of dog ears down hereon the floor and it's really easy to sweep it out or shake the rugs off andeven been known to get the leaf blower in here and just blow everything rightout and it works great let me show you what we've got underneath here when ibuilt this i designed it to be easily accessible storage and this turns intothe bad here to hold this write-up point
out what i've got a deep cycle batteryit's a 12 volt marine battery and i'm thinking of changing this out soon butfor right now it works great they have lithium batteries that last alot longer and take a lot more deep cycle charges than this one but rightnow these are very cost effective to get one of these and use this these areleveling wash we have it for camping someplace in the van isn't level i usethese for leveling the bed and we do have electricity i said this out on thetable and uses for all of our electronic devices i have jacks but something elsethat i head down underneath here is the inlet where my power comes in and let meshow you on the outside of the man just
take a closer look at this right here this is the plug - the inlet plug - that if i have shore power, i can plug it in right there so the electricity comes in right here and i have a breaker box down here a small breaker box that handles the breakers for the electrical outlets that i havethroughout i do have an electrical outlet down underneath here i haveanother one down underneath here and then i have several signing out that'swhat's in this site or by the way i do have a 1500 watt inverter that i usedback here i originally installed in here because i thought it was hidden and itwould be close to the battery and it would work good back here but it's alittle inconvenient when you're plugging
stuff and you have to get out and comearound to the back so i'm eventually gonna mount this back behind the driver's seat and have that located back there another thing i forgot to mention about thebattery is is whenever i drive the van it charges this battery so if you'redriving it everyday and camping at night it works great because the mets fan isrun off of it the lights the stereo the tv screeneverything like that is run off this battery so if you run it down it doesn'taffect the battery out front so that the van will start the next day and it willrecharge his battery so we have this battery that we use for inside the vanand then we have our yeti 400 for other uses
outside the van are charging smallappliances and things of that nature let me show you what we have under thissite have already gotten a lot of it outsetting up for the camp but this is the lawn chairs and take the coffee tableend table that i have got my tripod in here i keep my or my life jacket andi've also got extra propane the jack beach umbrella back in here and here allthe time because its continued its out of the way and it's the most of the timewe travel we have this down as a bad and basically the board that was right herethese cushions come down on the bed we put sheets on the bed and we leave itlike that when we're traveling because
then we got easy access to our storagespace underneath here from the back or from the front and we can put ourclothes and our bags and pillows and blankets and things of that nature of ontop of the bed when i'm driving and i get tired and i just want to come backhere and stretch out i can just call back here in the bed already made up andi can just take a five ten minute break and then continue on down the road righthere it's a small compartment but it holds some really good stuff this is ascreen that i developed for the back and it completely covers the back window andit makes it very difficult to see in but it's really easy to see out but the mainthing that this does is it keeps the
flies and mosquitoes out and and itallows the airflow to come in just a second this right here is a snap cover that iuse for above the fantastic fan back here and it just snaps into place so youjust snapped up here like this got a little bit of an insulation andthat makes it pitch dark back here in the back if you're camping out let's sayyou're at a walmart you're doing a little stealth camping if they've got abig spotlight or something by putting this up here it blocks it nowdoes cut out your air flow you can't use your fan if you're doing that butsometimes it's better to have the
darkness than it is to have that then ihave two other screens here and these go on the front doors and i'll show you howthat works in just a second fantastic fan is great it opens up andallows you to have some air in here the canopy system that i designed a pier istall enough that you can still open this and if it's pouring down rain you canstill utilize your fan also ahead the kayak on top and it'simportant to me to still be able to use this even when i'm holding something upthere now this fan is great because it blows in or it pulls out but the onlytime that this thing really works is if you have ventilation so you have tocrack the windows in the front or open
the windows back here open the doors sothat it has room to move the air so i'm gonna show you what i do to utilize thatway but i did make this screen material that i bought and it's a real heavy dutyscreen material makes it very difficult to see in the van but it's very easy tosee out this here don't know if you can come aroundhere and see i just attach these little snaps and i see when i made this i putsnaps on here so that they just attach right over the snap so it just snapsright on let's go around to the other side and see what it looks like becauseas you can tell it's a little harder to see through it this way but thebeautiful thing about this is your
camping and you have your vent open andit's either pulling air in or blowing air out this is your ventilation and ican't tell you how many times we've been able to camp and back right up to astream or river or even a woods and leave these doors open and just lay inbed and be able to hear that water running all night long makes me have to go to the bathroom just thinking about - just kidding! - as you can see from the inside you can see out no problem but no bugs nomosquitoes can come in and i can barely stay inside if i close the curtains inthe front it would be next to impossible for me to see anything inside there
now if you don't feel comfortablesleeping with the back doors open for having the back doors open forventilation i totally understand let me show you what i've designed for thefront once again for the fantastic fan to be moving air in and out it reallyhelps to have a little ventilation and i found that if you just crack the windoweven just a little bit it makes all the difference in the world however this much of a crack wouldreally let the mosquitoes and flies come in so i built another one and once againthat's when you have a little velcro up here and when you shut this
but that ventilation makes all thedifference in the world six years ago backup camera on mine and if you can seehere i just attached it to the top of the rear rear lands and this goes uphere but there's a new product out and the backup camera is built right into itand it's really a great product it's a wide angle lens so it gives you a goodperspective of what's back here the thing i don't like about it is it aimsdown it's designed for backing up your band so you don't hit somebody or forhooking up a trailer thing i liked about mine was as you can see the angle it'smore straight out and i could look get a
wider view when i was driving down theroad see who was behind me and see what was around me and this one is moresafety for backing up but it's still a great product and it's something newthat i added to the van so i just want to share that with you i forgot tomention my drawers know these drawers let me show you inside the drillersthese doors are full extension drawers and come all the way out and they've gota latch underneath here that keeps them shut while we're driving and turningeverything and it hurts it's great because you can put clothes we've gotsheets in here of course i've got my back roads manner t-shirts that i keepin here but these are full extension
drawers and i've actually hiddenunderneath this drawer my power amps and things of that nature that are hidden soyou open you can't see their down underneath and i've utilized that spacedown underneath there for the power and the other thing i forgot to mention hisof hidden my led lights up underneath here there's some - i got a visitor - anyhowlot of things that i would like to change on this van need to put myscreens up by mosquitos the door panels are 1 i'd like to utilize the spaceinside the door panels a lot of space inside there so i plan on changing thosemoving my my inverter back here behind the driver seat soon be easilyaccessible and several other things are
going to be doing some solar panels andchanging out a few things like that technology wise on the van and i willmake videos and keep you posted on those changes as those changes come but iwanna say something about customizing your van whenever you customize your van you do become very bonded with that vehicle and i become bonded with hisvehicle however there are things that i would like to change but no matter whereyou're at or what your budget is starting out at even if you only have$100 i encourage you to take that money and throw a mattress in the back of avan and go hit the road as your budgetpermit sting you can upgrade things and
you know it's sort of never endingbecause there's always something you can do or something you can add to your vansome people have a bigger budget than others but i encourage you and yourbudget small or medium or large whatever gets you a cargo van give in andcustomize it yourself making and designing for the things that you'regoing to be doing with it and i guarantee you a lot of use out of that just have fun with it everybody's gottheir own personality that they want to put in their van and if you stay tunedto backroads vanner dot com we're gonna be bringing you a lot of people andtheir vans, their custom van builds and
will go into more details of how theydid it how we did what we do and help you out all along the way so stay tuned to backroads vanner dot com and we'll seeon down the road