Skip to main content

Determining the Overall Best Layout for your Needs

Lesson 4 from: The Van Life Workshop

Quin Schrock

Determining the Overall Best Layout for your Needs

Lesson 4 from: The Van Life Workshop

Quin Schrock

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

4. Determining the Overall Best Layout for your Needs

Next Lesson: Bed Type

Lesson Info

Determining the Overall Best Layout for your Needs

(ethereal music) All right, so you're building your van, time to determine what layout is best for you. I think for me the biggest challenge is to assign a dedicated space for each activity, each living activity. So for me, it's like, I don't necessarily want to share the kitchen space with the bathroom space. I don't want to have to pull out the toilet in the middle of the kitchen. I would rather have the toilet have its own space so that potentially both can be done at the same time or whatnot. So over the years of designing vans, I've started to really look at giving each aspect of the van it's dedicated space as opposed to sharing that space. I think a lot of people really like the idea of having a space that converts from one thing to another, for instance, having a dinette set up in the back of your van that converts into your bed. But the reality of it is that that conversion process takes a lot of time. And if you're doing it every day, lots of times people end up just leavin...

g it in bed mode as opposed to converting it every day back into the the dinette setup to potentially work. This build, for example, actually has exactly that. This is the bench mode, so the workstation mode, and these also can be rearranged. I have a piece of wood stored up above the cab that fits right in there and it makes it into bed mode. So when I'm on the road with this van, honestly I just keep it in bed mode. But when I'm trying to take a photo to make it look really cool and exciting and sell van life then I'll probably convert it to this. Converting spaces really does sell the lifestyle. So if you're looking to have a showcase van, to showcase your cool lifestyle, your creativity, maybe even the versatility of your small living space, then that's totally valid. I mean, that's why I did it here. It's really cool to have a transformer-type living space where you can have it in this mode or that mode. But in all reality the actual living of the space, it's not super functional. It's not very exciting to have to convert from bed mode to bench mode every day. So I currently have two vans and realistically this van was built as a show piece. It was built to sell the van life lifestyle, to take really cool photos and whatnot. And the Sprinter is for me to live in. I really like living in the Sprinter 'cause I don't have to convert anything. Everything is always ready to go. I can jump into bed whenever I want. I have my workstation space. I have my bathroom space and kitchen space, and no conversion necessary. So to be honest, I created this van to look good, to be a showpiece to potentially sell the van life lifestyle. A lot of this van is converting. I convert the bed, I convert the benches, I pull out this back deck. While it is functional, I made it as functional and easy as possible to convert, it's also not very fun to convert on a daily basis. On the flip side, my Sprinter van doesn't need any converting at all so I have the bed set up whenever I want it. I have my workstation. I have my kitchen. I have my bathroom. They all have their allocated spaces and that is pretty satisfying to live in.

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES