First things first: As Rosie would attest, I've commented to her before on the un-reality that social media presents to those that use it. Everyone's aware of how they're shown how amazing life is by things that others post to it, whether it's that big gym pump you got today, that amazing artistic photo you took or that gorgeous finished new piece of furniture that's now the focal point of your room. They're also hopefully aware that a shitload of sweating and red-facing happened before that post-shower pump selfie was taken, that 77 other totally shit photos were taken before they lucked in on that one that ended up getting posted, and that a ton of swearing was done whilst assembling said furniture and the whole room tidied and cleaned before the picture was taken. Whatever the topic, it's always that 'amazing' thing that makes it to social media. Y'know what you hardly ever see on there? People's mistakes, poor choices, bad luck, the sweat, the tears, the red faces, and the tatty old stain-ridden furniture that was thrown out before the new piece was bought. So to that end, I want to use my first say on this van build blog to have a bit of a reality check. The reason for this is how van life is practically always portrayed on social media. Endless photos of utterly gorgeous finished vans with van tided ahead of time, the lighting set just right, the steaming mug of coffee on the side, the compulsory epic landscape seen out the open back doors and if you're really on your social media game, a happy-looking dog. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure van life can be like that; I wouldn't know, I haven't had a chance to take a finished van out yet and have a go for myself at shooting that kind of photo.
You can rest assured that when I do however, it's bound to be just as epic as everyone else's and then I can probably consider myself part of the 'van lifestyler club' after all the effort of building the thing. And that's kinda what I want to talk about here mainly: Whilst I've still got a long way to go on my 'van life' journey (getting the van out the workshop yard would be a start!), so far it's been far from that image that's been presented on social media. To be clear, I regret nothing about the decision to take the plunge on this and am in fact glad that I did, and if we're really lucky then hopefully once we're living in a little home on You wheels it'll be every bit as amazing as everyone elses' photos make it look. Truth is though that so far it's been mostly stress, expense, and hard work (in that order), and I'd like to take a few moments just to get the point across that van life isn't always 'amazing', 'epic', 'idyllic', etc. I've come to find already that sometimes it's extremely trying and stressful, but you hardly ever hear about that, so I'm going to take a moment to talk 'Van Life Reality' according to my experience so far, and hopefully in doing so it might help prepare anyone that reads it for what van life might really be like.
Straight off the bat, we're extremely lucky to have someone helping us who has all the knowledge, practical skills, tools and premises that we need to do this in the first place. Honestly, without Ralph's help, I'm really not sure I could have done this at all. I guess, thinking about it, I'd have done as much as I could, made a lot of mistakes whilst learning along the way, paid someone to do the bits I absolutely haven't been able to get my head around and take at least five times longer working on it. One thing I do know for certain: I definitely couldn't have got it done in the timeframe that we're hoping to have it done. For a start, he advised us at point of sale as to whether or not the vehicle itself was worth considering purchasing according to his vehicular knowledge, which is probably the first step that first-time van builders may very well stumble at. Luckily, Ralph helped us dodge a very appealing-looking bullet in the first van that we looked at, and gave us the confidence to buy Norma for conversion into our new home. 'How to Buy the Right Vehicle' could easily be an entire blog in its own right, so I won't go into much depth on that here.
The second thing is that, for the duration of the build, we have a permanent workspace where we can leave the van without greatly disturbing anyone. So if you're thinking of building a van to live in, consider "Where am I actually going to do the work?" Y'gotta think about that because in all likelihood you're going to be at least a few MONTHS working on it, and for the most part of that time it isn't going to be a space that you can comfortably live in. Also, do you have all the tools you need to do the work with? And somewhere to power them from? Think hard about that, because I've come to find that the amount of tools I've required has by far exceeded my expectations. We're lucky in that my father-in-law already has everything we needed so far, but all those tools have been acquired as the result of several decades of professional and leisure use. If you don't happen to have a lot of hand/power tools already, you'll almost certainly find that you're spending a LOT more money than you anticipated on buying or renting tools that you need. Also, sundries... My god, the sundries... Tapes, sealants, adhesives, brushes, the list goes on... All those tiny little things that seem inconsequential at first, but just you try to get the job done without them: impossible. And they all soon add up to a hefty cost.
Cost. You'll probably see a lot of half-started/finished vans for sale wherever you're looking for them when you're looking to buy. I'm sure there are several reasons for this, but my suspicions are that it probably usually comes down to one of two main reasons: "This is costing far more than I'd anticipated it would and I've run out of money for it - better cut my losses and sell the van to try recoup some of that $$$", and "This is so much more work than I thought it was going to be, and it's all coming along so slowly that I'll be here forever trying to finish it". We came into this with limited funds and were very lucky to have had significant financial help from an outside source, so be aware: if you want to buy and build your own van, it's going to cost you a ton of money straight from the get-go: vehicle purchase, vehicle tax, insurance, mechanical work, preparation treatments, building materials, sundries, furnishings. We're talking THOUSANDS here, so make sure you've got funds managed one way or another, and be prepared to go over budget too. To put it simply, if we hadn't had the financial help that we had, the project would have probably been more or less dead in the water from the start. Be warned.
Also, time: As I mentioned above, if you want to build your own van conversion be prepared to put in a LOT of hours and a lot of work. Whilst in some respects we've made good progress on the van in a relatively short space of time as a result of my having booked a couple of weeks off work to work on it intensively, the progress of the work has been nonetheless slower than I'd hoped it would be. Looking at the timeline of our social media will clue you in to some degree on how long it's taken to get to various stages of construction, and you'll see that it hasn't been quick. Simply put, we bought Norma at the very start of 2022 and come mid-February we've pretty much reached the end of the 'installing insulation' phase and literally started construction on interior furnishings on the date of this blog post. That's an entire month and a half just spent on preparing the van for construction and installing insulation (and a couple of windows). Doesn't sound like a lot when read like that, but when you build your own van you'll see exactly why that process has taken this long. So again, be warned: don't think you'll have a finished van ready to sleep in after a couple of weeks. It WILL be months. I suppose paying a professional to work on your van for you might be an option if you have the finance available for that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be done all that much quicker, after all, it's still just someone standing in the back of a van building stuff rather than doing it yourself, and there's only so fast one pair of hands can work and hours one body can put in. And briefly, one other thing: as a first time van-builder, I can confidently say that working out the logistics of what tasks need to happen in what order is by far the most difficult task of all so far. Think things through really carefully, lest you end up doing one task before another and end up wasting time and money working hard to fix the mistake that you made because you did things in the wrong order. Can be very difficult to do when it's your first time doing this.
Speaking of work, this will depend probably on the condition of van you buy, but chances are unless you're buying a brand new van from a show room you're going to have to deal with a certain amount of dirt, dead spiders, dust, grime and rust, and not a single thing about that is clean. Imagine yourself in your scrappiest clothes scraping rust and old paint off of every inch of your van, and then having to sweep the whole thing out after an entire day doing that. And then imagine having to get down on your back on a concrete floor to anti-rust paint any areas around the bottom edge of the door that need it. Or finding said paint dry into your hair when you get in the shower at the end of the day to wash all that muck off... Is van life still sounding 'amazing'? Maybe 'Epic'? No? Not 'Idyllic'?
Van life may very well be all those things, but chances are early on, if you're dealing with a pre-owned van, you might end up putting in long hours getting filthy and cold whilst you work in the dark, and this is potentially pretty standard for early van life I would guess, although I'm not sure how many people you might find who would tell you that. Probably also depends on where you live to some degree too. If you're building a van in summer time in Florida or Australia or some other hot place you probably won't run into problems with working in the cold or the dark... Maybe mosquitos and sunburn will be more your thing that you won't tell anyone about when you're effervescing as to how brilliant life on wheels is ;)
And stress. Probably goes without saying that all of the above have so far caused incredible amounts of stress at various times. Everything from which vehicle to go look at, managing finances, managing time, selecting products for purchase, etc... Everything. Everything all at once. Dealing with that can be super stressful. We're perhaps in a slightly unusual position because we elected to undertake this project with a fairly short working time available to us so dealing with everything pertinent to a van build all at once was always going to be unavoidable, but I would imagine that regardless of timeframe there will be various things about your van build that will cause you stress, whether it's financial concerns or simply that you're not in the right mood to work in the van that day, or whatever... Just be aware that building your own van conversion is NOT a stress-free process. I would recommend, if possible, undertake a van build at your leisure if possible, rather than to a deadline. At least that way, if there's no time frame in which you need to put money by in, or time in which you need to get the project finished in, you can build at your leisure without the added pressures that building to a deadline demands.
That being said, I'd still recommend that anyone who's inclined to do this does so: despite the challenges faced to date and those yet to come I think that doing this has been an excellent decision and I'm looking forward to doing the work that remains to be done on the van and then getting into it and making a start on living the new lifestyle. I don't doubt in the least that it won't all be 'epic' and 'amazing' all the time, but I'd like to hope there will be some measure of that to balance out the negatives that come with the lifestyle too. I think I'll probably check in on the blog once in a while to discuss more 'van life reality' because I think it's important to have a realistic expectation of what living this way entails: yes, I think the #vanlife insta thing is important for building inspiration and aspiration, but to me it's not *reality* in its totality: it's the same as everything else on social media - just the best bits. Don't know about you, but my life doesn't consist of back-to-back 'best bits', so let's keep it real and talk van life as it really happens, that's got to be for the best for all involved.
And no, that doesn't mean I'm going to be negative all the time and do nothing but whinge and bitch about van life; I will discuss all the bits I enjoy too.
I was going to wrap up there, but I think I'll end on a promise: I'll write another blog entry soon, and I promise that I'll write all about what I've enjoyed about my dive into van life so far ^_^
The Beard
No comments:
Post a Comment