I’m calling this the final day of the van build!! I spent about two hours hanging curtains, and plugging the hole in the electrical cabinet. From here on, I’m mostly just loading stuff into the van for my trip to Utah at the end of the week.
I did test out the upper bunk this morning, and it was very solid. I think that I’ll just use the lower bunk and the galley to get up into the upper bunk for now. We’ll see how it goes on this trip. I hate to add a step ladder to my gear, if I don’t need it. If I decide that I do, I may just try to pick up something during the trip. I also moved the upper bunk back about half an inch to reduce the interference that I was seeing with the curtains up front. I may sleep in the upper bunk one night to give it a full test.
As far as curtains, I installed curtains behind the passenger and driver’s seat. These will keep the HVAC in the cabin during driving, and also serve as privacy when parked at night. The tie-backs that I am using are different on the two sides. Behind the driver’s seat, I added a stainless steel snap to a couple of short velcro strap, then added a two screw-in snaps to the wall. Works great! On the passenger side, I didn’t have anything to screw a snap into, so I used the existing M6 rivnuts in the B pillar to secure two velcro straps. These also work great. Here’s a picture of the driver’s side setup.
I put a curtain just behind the bunk beds, to give someone privacy if they are using the toilet. This curtain will also help to keep the HVAC in the sleeping area at night. For this curtain, I installed three eyebolts into the top aluminum extrusion for the storage area, and used the existing eyebolts on the driver’s side to weave a cord back and forth. The first length of cord serves as the curtain rod for this curtain. The rest of the cord will be used to hang clothes to dry, if needed. Again, I used the velcro strap with the snap to create the two tie-backs for the curtain. Here are a couple pictures.
The final curtain is for the window behind the driver’s seat. For this one, I took the second piece of the curtain for the hallway (since I only needed one piece there) and added four snaps to it. I then added snaps to the wall. So, to cover the wall, you can just snap up this curtain. It’s pretty basic, but that is where I’ll start. If it doesn’t work well, I can try another approach. FYI, for the other windows, I have purchased magnetic window covers that stick to the window frames. So, I can cover all the windows, if I choose to.
It was a pretty light day, and I’m excited to call this van build completed. My time over the next few days will be to figure out how I want to store my gear in the van for the trip. I’m most worried about how to keep it from rolling around during transit. I’m sure there will be an amount of trial and error there.
I’ll post one final post here in a few weeks to recap the entire project with hours and money spent on the build. Stay tuned!