Lessons

Lesson Info

Quin’s Box Van Tour

(soft music) (door closing) What's up, guys, welcome to The Box. Come check it out. (soft music) So right now, The Box is situated in bench mode or desk mode or dining table mode. So yeah, this is the space for more socializing, more just workstation. I can throw my computer up here if I wanna be able to walk through as in like, make it into a hallway. I just push this over here. And then you have that full walkthrough space when I'm driving, I usually utilize this and kind of just push it into that cushion to keep it out or just to keep it from falling. And generally speaking, I pull these cushions out and I sandwich that one back there in that way. So that keeps from generally falling out. But yeah, so this is actually a four inch mattress that I cut up into four pieces and made them into the cushions that they are now. I've had to redo this bench system a few times because I wanted to make it a little bit more aesthetically pleasing and lightweight just to keep things super light ...

and functional. So to get into this space, you can lift this up and have this big opening you can see right now. This is actually all my bedding. So when I convert this space from benches to bed, I pull out all that and I throw it on top to make it into bed mode. And I have this other door over here so that when it's in bed mode, which I'll convert it to show you guys, I can actually still access underneath here a little bit easier instead of needing to pull up the whole door. So that was part of the remodel. I wanted that access to the storage under here. You can see, I'll just point out on the back doors here, these are flip vents. You push those open and you get a little bit of an airflow over the bed, especially when it's in bed mode. When you want some airflow, you turn on the fan up there and you create that big nice kind of strategic airflow, right over the bed. With these vents, you can push 'em out to the left or you can push 'em around to the other side. So when I'm in bed, that's either pointing it to my face or to my body or to my feet or to my body depending on what I'm feeling that night. I go different directions there. All right, so one of my favorite features of the van is this back deck. So I guess also I need to go into the fact that this is actually part of a bed lift system, the HappiJac system that I've gone over in the workshop. I've repurposed that HappiJac from normally being up on the ceiling, out of the way up on the ceiling, I've actually brought it all the way down and the space that it normally lives is on the ground instead of the ceiling. It can still go up to the ceiling, but generally, I keep it here and use it as just a floor. But when I wanna pull out this back deck, I'll hit this button here and see how it raises up. It doesn't sound too good right now 'cause it's not actually currently working. I've had a lot of issues with the HappiJac set up trying to utilize it in this way. This isn't the way that it's meant to be used. So it's kind of the price of innovating and trying new things. But I think I'm actually gonna have to switch out one side of the HappiJac because one of the chains broke loose and I can't fix it. So you're gonna have to completely redo it. To pull out the back deck, I have to raise up that floor just a little bit and then it slides out just like that. They're 500 pound drawer slides, and it has a locking mechanism right here so it locks open. And then to support it even more, like I can technically probably just sit on the end but it's a little bouncy and a little sketchy, I would say. So I didn't want anyone breaking it or falling off of it. So I added on these heavy duty metal legs that flip down and then you can extend it out basically to adapt to the ground that you have back here. So if there's a rock back there, generally, I can adapt to that rock. Or if it dips down, these actually extend out to double this size. So I was hoping that I would make these adjustable legs to be able to fit just about any environment that I find myself in. I'll flip this one out now. (metal legs flipping) And you can see that adds a lot of square footage to the build. Bring this down, and it sits just about level with that back deck. So you can walk out here and get some sunshine, enjoy your environment. And I also built out these benches so that they can be fully modular and moved out to the back deck. So I'll show you Put this here. This whole thing can slide out onto the back deck. So theoretically, you could be working out on the back deck, you can set up the bed on the back deck, you could keep one in, you could take one out. It's kind of just like at any point you can get creative with the layout, how you situate things. You could flip this so that it's completely on this side of the deck. So yeah, I haven't honestly played around with it that much. I'm kind of leaving it open to when this thing is finally done, there'll still be some creativity involved in just how I organize it on a day-to-day basis. Got a nice chill bench to hang out on out here Ideally, to catch a sunset in somewhere really nice. I'm hoping to really put this thing to use. And obviously, it'll be really nice to take photos with too. You can pull this thing more close to make it feel more like it's actually an enclosed portion of the van, or if you want it to be extremely open and just catch the breeze, throw those things back around and you can hook 'em onto the side of the van. So yeah, hopefully this will be as nice as I'm hoping it will be. Just designing it, I was envisioning pulling this even maybe over like a little creek or something. There's a few spots in Colorado. I know you can kind of pull up into a creek and just the idea of it being like having water underneath me or getting a little more extreme with it. Maybe I take it to the Grand Canyon or something, pull it over the cliff. I might have to trust it a little bit more for that, but just leaving the possibilities open as a photographer. That's a good way to go. All right. So I cut a massive hole in the ceiling of this van and ended up making a custom skylight. I made it just big enough to potentially fit two people sitting on these benches to completely go up through the roof. So with the push of a button, the skylight opens and then the Plexiglas is attached with eight hinges. So take off those hinges and you can actually just open up the whole roof. Nice for ventilation, and it's just kind of a fun feature that I've never seen a skylight this big. There's a tree over there. Yeah. Then I just take the whole roof off like that. And when I get the skylight or when I get the bed lift working, the idea is that you could potentially just be eating dinner back to back or face to face here and hit the button and go straight up through the roof with a view of wherever you're at. So when the HappiJac is at the top location that it can reach, this table is about six inches above the roof. Pretty cool. So I'm actually creating this van in collaboration with a friend of mine, with Tim Sykes. We've been traveling the world together for about five years now. And one of my most memorable trips was to Japan with him. And Japan is his absolute favorite country. So this van is a collaboration with Tim and you can totally see the Japanese inspiration in all the style choices, in the rice paper, the shoji screen-esque lighting situation that I brought into this van. So Tim is a stock trader and he just wanted a really, really cool mobile office. For that reason, I made basically the centerpiece of the whole van this desk and these benches, I allocated a lot of space. This is a very small box truck. This is the smallest box truck I could find just so that we could drive it into cities, we could be rather anonymous when we're parking it. Nobody's gonna expect there to be this stylized office on wheels. They're probably gonna just look at it and assume it's a U-Haul or some sort of a delivery vehicle. So I put a lot of time and effort and design choices into how to incorporate the table, how to make it a really good photo because me and him take photos all around the world and all around the US. So most of the design choices, most of just the choices overall for this van are hinged on creating good photos. So I like the idea of being able to move around the furniture, to be able to create the exact image pertaining to the scene that we're trying to create. If we ever find a really nice stream or whatever to pull back close to, and I can pull this back deck into the stream, then obviously I would pull these benches out over it. And that's a totally surreal place to have a workday with a genuine stream running underneath you. All these general like dreams of mine or fantasies or visions, it's just all those went into the construction of making this back deck, making these benches modular and just keeping the possibilities open for when my photography career comes into play, when I'm finding all these epic locations to take photos of, I can also match that skill of mine with the design of this van. So it very much goes hand in hand to have the van ready to to create the image that I've always wanted to create. So this is kind of a culmination of my photography career and my van life building experience, all embodied into this one single unit. So even though the main purpose of this vehicle is to be a mobile office, we also wanted it to be able to convert to a hotel room. So for that reason, all of these cushions do rearrange into forming a bed. Yeah, so he wanted a good place to basically create presentations and potentially film his stock trading videos. For that reason, I incorporated multiple projectors. So when he's on the benches here, and potentially I'm filming kind of where you guys are, he can at the push of a button, lower this projector and have just this massive screen to show what he wants to say in his lesson of the day. Because he's constantly trading in his stocks. And he always has a lesson of the day video that he has to film. So this is gonna be his presentation mode. I have the projector stored up in this area. I actually can flip this down. I don't know if you can see it, but this whole cabinet opens up and you have the projector unit here. Shines out, broadcasts on that wall. That's the main projector. And then when we're in bed mode, hotel mode, I actually have a second projector that comes from this side and it projects just onto the natural wall there. Super nice to watch movies on. Bring that up. (projector whirring) Not really into these details here. Okay. When I convert it to bed mode, this table gets resituated to this mount. So maybe I'll do that now. Spin that knob and the whole thing... It's a little heavy. Pulls up, slides in there, tighten it up. and then the table is repurposed to be right about there. So it functions as a bedside table when it's in bed mode and also very easily makes this a desk workspace. So yeah, when the big desk is converted to a bed, I still have a nice place to work on the computer right here. So this is just a storage cabinet. For me, I was kind of thinking that this would be where I keep my valuables, my camera gear and whatnot. So I put a padlock on it just to keep that secure. This is some of the kitchen essentials, some coconut oil and spices and a blender. And then all the cutlery, cups, bowls, can opener, all that stuff in there. So I will say that this is not a full home build. It doesn't have a kitchen, it doesn't have a sink, it doesn't have a number of things that a kitchen has but it does have, I would say a half kitchen. We went into it with the idea of like, what does an office have? It has a half kitchen, maybe a fridge, put a fridge right here and a freezer right here, both of these fridge, freezer and just somewhere to warm up potential leftovers that you went to a restaurant the night before and you had some leftovers, you throw it in the fridge and you can warm it up in this toaster oven here. So this is all got a big mirror up here, a place to put your toothbrush, this flips up like that. This flips out like that. This is all just different storage situation or different storage areas to accommodate whatever you're bringing. I have, I think this is a six gallon water jug right here that I can flip down and use for whatever, drinking water or when I'm cooking. It's nice to have that water storage. I have a big power strip back here to plug in if you're charging electronics or whatnot, that's the charging station. And yeah, miscellaneous storage up here. So this is the wood piece that connects the two benches to make it bed mode. And generally, this thing gets stored right up in this slot. Keep it out of the way fits right in there. My first trip in this van, I realized that I did want a sink. I missed the sink because I ended up cooking a lot more than expected. So I ended up adding kind of this makeshift sink. I added this little popup table and then I got this just online. It's a pop out bowl. So the idea is that I can flip this down and there's that makeshift sink. I can wash dishes or whatnot. Still not convinced on the setup, but it's better than having nothing. So yeah, it's kind of like an ever evolving process of finding the best situation for how I use this. Added a few little storage compartments on both sides here to use for whatever. This is the light switch to turn on these. I don't know if you can see that. It's a lot more dramatic at night. And then this is just the curtain that goes into the cab. This can also be rolled up and tucked up here to get that out of the way but I tend to leave it down. Right down here is another, I guess, just another casual bench to use, but in here is where the compost toilet is. You pull that out and use that. And then this big section is all the electrical systems. And if I ever need to service it I just pop it open and I can access the different fuses and breakers and everything in there. Down here, I made a secret little shoe stash right on that on that step as you come in so you can just kick off your shoes and it fits probably about four different pairs of shoes. Nice. Open up the door. It's getting a little hot. All right. I put some symmetrical shoji floating lantern-esque lights on both sides. Both of them also have wireless chargers on the top, for when I'm sleeping, I can just throw my phone up there. I don't have to deal with cords. These are all just the different light switches that go to the... These go to the main lights up here, and these go to the side lights. This is a push to open outlet with USBs and standard house outlets, charge your laptop and whatnot. Yeah, so there's two solar panels on the roof, two 100 watt solar panels right here and on the section between the skylight and just the back of the van, I have about a two foot by six foot deck. So as you get lifted out of the van, you can actually just step up onto the roof and hang out on the roof. This build has a lot of automatic features. I like the idea of pushing a button and something happening. So that comes with a territory of remotes. This is my remote organizer. I have four remotes, two of which go to projectors. One of which goes to the projector screen and the other one goes to the automatic blackout curtain for the skylight. So just to keep all that organized, I had to make that space. The beautiful thing about this van is it's so anonymous and stealthy on the outside that nobody's ever gonna suspect there to be such a nice, homey, living quarters inside. And I really appreciate that. It's just plain white, boring wheels, no windows, no indication that it's a house in any way. Yeah. So this is the box van, guys. Thanks for coming to check it out. I'm really excited about how the design turned out and just how we push some of the boundaries of what can be done with bed lifts adding in real unique lighting that I've never seen, and just the overall Japanese aesthetic. It's kind of like a Zen space on wheels, if you will.