Introduce Yourself…
Well a hey and a howdy from dallas/ft worth!
Ive been full time on the road since the end of September. I’ve always had a traveler soul and this suits me.
I spend about half my time stealth camping and the other half crashing at friends houses driveways and things. I’m a consultant so the traveling is actually easier for me and I don’t have to commute, use hotels or pay for a house I’m not using.
I got an old conversion van, I’m hoping to have the time when the weather gets warmer to do an interior build. there’s definitely some creature comforts that I miss, so yeah that’s all
Greetings & Welcome!
Conversion vans can make a great start for a camper conversion. Just avoid any advice to strip it, that is terrible advice and only designed to make somebody else money. Keep or repair the original nice interior, remove/re-arrange seats/bed as desired, then move your additional camping gear in and secure it. The best conversions cost hundreds, not thousands.
Cheers!
"Opportunities are everywhere, but only action makes it happen." ~ Van_Dweller
I love the switches that say “mood lightening” and the shagadelic felt and faux wood on the walls…
What im not so keen on is the motorized futon in the back.
Yes, i love the awed expressions i get from folk when i display the scratchy metal on metal gear grinding nighttime lullabies.
But it kills storage space. The frame has so many additional support bars I can only fit a 6 inch tall boot box under the bed. And if the bar wasnt there, I could at least stack two.
Plus the bed wasnt made for consistent use, the frame inside is starting to poke through after the 4 month mark.
I want to pull all that out. Put a static bed frame in to fit side to side and 4-5 feet deep. Raised enough that all my standard totes can slide under.
That alone would give me 20ish extra square feet in the middle as well as a clean and uncluttered common area.
The only part of the walls i would remove are those that would be covered by the bed frame. Its about 8 inches of fluff on either side of the walls.
I wanted to live in it a while before gutting it. I like its charm.
Single previous owner and 68k miles when i bought him. 
Greetings!
I’m definitely from the KISS (Keep It Stupidly Simple) camp. Much less to go wrong with a manually converted sofa/bed. Similarly, I dislike complicated click-clack type mechanisms, when simpler ones are just as effective.
Murphy was a smart man, and when he said “Anything that can go wrong will, and usually at the most inopportune time.”, he probably had no idea of the profound impact he would make on others for generations to come.
Cheers!
"Opportunities are everywhere, but only action makes it happen." ~ Van_Dweller
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I had issues with the bed sucking power in the middle of the night and having a dead battery come morning. Ive since unplugged and kept it stationary.