Van Build

I have retired early from the corporate world, and I’m moving onto the next chapter of my life, aka Sable 3.0. This chapter involves hitting the reset button by simplifying my life down to a little van to live in, heading west with my cat, and living the rest of my life the best way for my mental and physical health.

This chapter started after a series of medical, life, and work challenges, after a 25 year corporate IT run, put me well beyond my breaking point. Ultimately, I care a lot about myself and deserve happiness in life, but with my personal challenges I truly can no longer function in the corporate world to make the money to support myself financially and concurrently be able to support my mental and physical health. I realized that I only had to work at the level I do to support a house, car, bills, and lots of stuff that makes up a lifestyle that does not make me happy, all with the overhead of being autistic, where it takes a lot of energy just to function at a basic level, much less be successful in corporate life, as well as being obviously transgender, to which the world is not really friendly toward those like myself right now. I decided to just own what you is supposed to be a worst case scenario – living in your car – and make it awesome for me.

I had already started e-biking, and getting into the world despite the issues, and I realized that I belong out in the world, just, on my own terms. I realized that I don’t have to wait another 15+ years (if I make it that long) to “officially” retire. I can simplify my life down to a nice van to live in, sell the house and unneeded things to build a little savings, and go wherever I and my cat, Sir Didymus, will do our best at the time for the rest of our days. Whether it’s by myself in nature, biking the coast, or hanging out with weirdos like myself in the pacific northwest, I’ll be able to do it on my terms, and with minimal money. If I do need to get a job, I can find something simple that I truly would enjoy doing, possibly making things to sell on Etsy or the like.

As my two year plan got expedited in trying and failing to improve the work situation, I’m going to take some extended time off to re-center (also required while my broken wrist heals), then begin simplifying my life until I can get to a point where the house can be sold. I’m likely going to end up in the pacific northwest, at least during the winter. I may hang around Boulder, Colorado during the summer. I’ll certainly rent a storage unit in Colorado to keep my tools and the things I want to keep in case I do switch back to an apartment in the future. No matter what, I need to be closer to people like me, that are more accepting of who I am, and ultimately want to be closer to Canada if worse comes to worse for LGBTQIA+ people in this country.

I do think it would also be awesome to just work at an eclectic little shop in a really small town. I do also have other skills, like vinyl sticker making, candle making, 3D printing, wordpress based web sites, all aspects of van building, setting up off-grid electrical systems, home automation, and engineering and problem solving in general. Doing mechanical stuff and stuff with my hands, at my own pace, and limited to only my imagination, has always made me happy.

I lost almost all my family when I transitioned, I have no children, and only have a couple people in my life at all so I’m really on my own for this next chapter. I did think it would be nice to share with others that may be in the same boat to help people realize there is always a way to make your life better so I wanted to make this page available to follow my journey as I start building out my van and traveling in the interim before I switch to full time van life.

Over the course of a month I spent all my free time building out the van since I knew I would be out of commission for a bit after my hand surgery on 10/26/23. I took pictures, but didn’t think I would do well filming video given the way I think and work on things. Most of it was done on credit so hoping I can pay off when the house gets sold. Still need a few things, top of the list being LifePo4 batteries as the AGM battery was a bit challenging on my test run, and will need the trailer hitch and hitch storage thing when I ultimately embark on van life. I have tweaked and refined a bit since to the best of my ability with only my left hand. Once I get my cast off and can get back to normal function, I will do the rest of the tweaking I want to do based on my test trips.

I have a parts listing, and inspiration sources here:

https://sablemoon.com/vanlife/van-parts-list-and-build-specifics/

Amazon Wish List for Van:

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/294RP6MKENRTM

I chose a 2021 Ford Transit Connect partly as I was panicking and wanted something available quickly, and I wanted to start this adventure with a smaller van so I could use it for normal daily travel needs a bit better. Some of it was based on being able to park in the garage at work, where I no longer work. Regardless, I love my van, and can definitely live inside it. I may upgrade in the future to a full-size high-top van if resources allow at the time.

Before:

My first steps were the floor base, and a pull-out bed.

I then moved onto the roof and the upper sides, using ship lap panels. Because of the size and shape of the back of the van, I insulated with a combination of radiant foam core insulation, automotive cotton insulation, and expanding foam.

Everything is sized to me and the appliances I chose to use. I can lay completely outstretched on the bed, and can sit up without hitting the ceiling. I don’t even need to expand the bed to be comfortable enough to sleep, but will have to expand it for room for my cat 🙂 I can sit in the forward part and stretch out my legs as I kept the one door open (so I can go directly from the drivers seat and into the back on the same side). The kitchen counter height is perfect for me sitting on the bed, and storage inside it is based on what’s left after putting in the fridge and 2.5 gallon fresh/grey water jugs.

I went back and forth on walling off the entire front, but decided just to do half and a strip at the top so if needed, I can access the front, as well as get heating and cooling from the van itself if needed. It gave me a way to mount the TV quite well.

200 watts of solar power, although I intend to add two more smaller, 50-watt panels based on my test run usage.

Sink and general kitchen area almost done. Have a pop-up work area in front of the sink instead of a cabinet door. Also modified the bed to have a tiny bit more storage up front.

The cabinet above the sink intentionally opens downward as I can have a hard time grabbing things depending on how my nerves are working that day. It lets me use the door as a shelf to pull things out to so I can get a better hold on them.

Self-contained toilet that is a perfect size. I used stick on carpet on most of the remaining white metal interior surfaces after the wood work, as well as on some of the wood where I would be sitting.

Simplified and went with a 1000 watt inverter since I’m opting for a gas stove, and letting the DCC30S charger controller handle solar and dc-dc charging. The DCC30S however turned out to be a challenge, so going back to separate solar and DC-DC chargers when I can afford it.

This is basically the setup I went with, although I have 2x100watt hard solar panels and only one 100ah AGM (Lead) battery and a 20ah backup LifePo4 battery (switchable between them (not in parallel) until I can afford 200ah worth of LifePo4 batteries. The benefit is the solar will automatically charge both the camper battery and the starter battery as needed, and if the van is running, it will charge the camper battery / power the camper electrical if there is not enough sun. I also have a shore power charger installed if needed.

Found a futon mattress that fits the bed perfectly in sofa mode as well as pulled out for bed mode.

Changed to a battery operated sink pump as the RV one I started with had way too much flow and wanted to minimize what uses the camper battery system. Have an IceCo refrigerator/freezer unit that slides out.

Decorated a bit and got the diesel heater installed which was the last critical need before I could actually use my van. The diesel heater is really efficient, and I can only run it for a few minutes at a time. Not pictured but the box in front of the bed stores my gas stove, and the top flips up to provide a surface for it to sit on. I might swap the trash can for a bigger fresh water jug.

Have tv with firetv stick and blu-ray player as well as an echo dot.

Guard doge.

Basically done with the bulk of what I want at this point but will inevitably tweak as I use it. By the time I am living in it full time, it should be pretty well perfect for me.

An additional 1-2 100AH batteries will be the next step, as well as adding a trailer hitch so I can add more storage.

I do want to go back to a proper plumbing setup as I now know of pressure activated pumps that will allow me to use a normal faucet, and add on a connector to attach a shower head to.