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Measure twice.... or maybe 20 times.





It's time to start to figure out what we can fit in this WonderVan! We have watched a lot of YouTube videos, been reading other people's blogs on their van conversions and have seen some really cool companies that make conversion kits. There is a lot out there... thank goodness. Some good, some not us and some really helpful tutorials! That said I'm a freak about everything having a place. Many of the designs look really cool but I keep wondering where all their dry food, clothes and camping chairs are going. There are so many possibilities and yet we trying to keep our 3 main goals at the forefront: self-contained, street parking friendly and good mattress. We nailed the street parking issue so we can let that go to the side now. 

The mattress need to be tackled first so we would know how high we can set the mattress while allowing my very tall hubby a little headroom. He would be very unhappy and claustrophobic if we only had a little space to squirm into bed. Once we know the maximum height the matress can be, we will know how high it can be off the floor and then we can tackle the kitchen and storage. So how did we figure out a comfy mattress height? By putting a bed in it.

We have a bunch or IKEA futon couches left from our wedding, so we dragged one inside the van. We added blocks of wood under the legs until Dennis said it was good. That has set the maximum height of the mattress can be off of the floor. Speaking of the floor, it slopes... on purpose...downward towards the driver's seat. At some point we will likely get out the laser level to figure out the difference from the back to the front. For now we are just getting an estimate. 

 

The other thing to note about the van are these deep large storage areas under 3 different hatches. We are trying not to cover these completely because our batteries will for sure need to go in one! I took a ton of measurements, including these hatched areas. Next I'll create a digital layout to be able to plan our build! But that's for another day.



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