It’s Week 2 Already
It’s hard to believe that we bought our van a whole week ago. It honestly feels like AGES. I took last week off from my money coaching business and podcast to focus on getting things ready and organized for the build. I’m a spreadsheet nerd, so I love planning in advance. But buying the van so early really snuck up on me so I felt like I was a bit out of sorts all week. However, I feel like we still made good progress on the van, with Austin completing a ton of maintenance (thank goodness he’s a mechanic) and me setting up a build timeline in Excel, a task list in Asana, creating our credit card strategy, and listing some stuff for sale. Check out the Week 1 Summary here.
Weekly Planning Meeting
We had a morning meeting over the phone, as Austin had a flight to North Carolina today (he’s also a pilot). We set up our plan for the rest of the week, which will involve 3 build days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Austin is aiming to build at least 4 days a week (he also worked on the van yesterday), and I am aiming to build for 3 days a week (and work on my business the rest). We might even take a day off on Saturday this week to spend with our family at the beach and test out the inflatable kayak we scored for cheap at the Habitat Restore.
Our planning for the week generally revolves around what tasks we can do with what we already have, and how to prepare for next week’s tasks. Sometimes that involves ordering something so it can be shipped in a couple of weeks. Right now I’m looking into sponsorships as well to see if we’d be able to get discounts on any items for the van.
More Maintenance
Spare Tire
Austin took down the spare tire to check it out and make sure it was good to go. Like our back tires, it’s in pretty bad shape and will need to be replaced. As I mentioned earlier, the back tires were re-treaded and they are showing some cracking, so it’s time to replace them. What we plan to do is take a back tire and use it as a spare when we replace the back tires.
Taillight
I feel like I’ve talked about the taillights so much, mostly because I can now spell the word and know that it is indeed one word. One of the taillights was mounted improperly so Austin fixed it.
Bulkhead Stopper
The bulkhead door stoppers were severely bent out of shape, making it difficult to latch the door closed or open it. Austin banged the stoppers back where they should be. He also moved the rear stopper (which the door rests against when it is open) back a little so the door doesn’t overhang the doorway, and we have a little more space to walk through. This revealed that the metal rail overhangs the doorway a bit, and I’ll probably hurt myself on it, so Austin’s going to chop it off in the future.
Leak!
We were sitting in the cab of the van talking as it was raining at the end of the day and discovered that Alan has a very small leak in the windshield. Austin is going to seal the gap tomorrow to keep that from happening again.
Stop. Hammer time
Demolition finally happened today! I finally got a chance, and good light, to finish my “before” photo shoot on the van. When I was done, we got to swing sledgehammers and remove all of that shelving that came with the van.
Demolition has always seemed fun to me, but I’ve never really had a chance to do it. Let me tell you, it is a really fun job. How often do you get to just destroy stuff? It was great stress relief, and the first time I’ve swung a sledgehammer in a long time!
It can also get really frustrating. The guy who built the shelving in the back of the van really overdid the build there. First of all, he must have had a nail gun, because everything was held together with way too many 3 inch nails. Nails are so much harder to remove than screws. There were also screws, too many of those as well, mostly to hold the structure to the walls and floor. I pulled more nails than I ever have in my life today. We filled an entire standard size (12 oz) Gatorade bottle with nails and screws today.
Salvaged wood
We wanted to salvage as much of the wood that was used for the shelving as possible because it was in good condition and it will save us money in the future. We ended up saving about 12 2x4s that averaged about 6 feet. That’s probably about $36 in 2x4s! We also saved the screws because we can re-use some of those as long as they’re not stripped out.
Not only is re-using salvaged materials good for your wallet, but it’s also good for the environment too! But we do like to balance ease and sense with frugality. So we used a circular saw and reciprocating saw to chop off the ends of the 2x4s because otherwise I would have spent HOURS pulling 12 nails from each end of about 20 pieces of wood. That’s not a good hourly rate, and wouldn’t be worth it.
We broke down the particle board that made up the shelves because it smelled kinda funky and got damaged in the removal. I’m not sure we would have had a use for it anyway, we prefer plywood to particle board. It will be put out for bulk pickup.
Once we removed the shelving, the already big van feels even bigger. Remember, this is a 170″ wheelbase, so there’s about 14′ of length behind the bulkhead/seats. But the shelves were probably 1.5 feet of the 6-foot width, so the space felt smaller than it really was.
Now that we have demolished the shelving, we can start taping out our floor plan. The plan for tomorrow is to finalize our 3D model and price sheet with all the items we are going to buy.
I’m going to be really sore tomorrow, My wrist and ankle already hurt haha. I guess I need to build up my hammer-swinging muscles (no idea why the ankle hurts though!)
Cheap finds & selling crap
I needed a tall tripod for videoing the van build, so I found one for $5 on Letgo and picked it up. It’s a 60-inch tripod that’s probably 40 or 50 years old, and good quality stainless steel construction. I just have to clean it off and it’ll be great! I tested it out during the demolition today and it worked perfectly.
Austin dropped by a garage sale and picked up a big stainless steel sink for $5! What a score. We peeled off the sale sign and underneath found out that originally they were selling it for $15.
Garage sale tip: go late in the day or on the last day if it is a multi-day sale. People will drop their prices because they just want things gone, or you might even get things for free if they cleaned up and put things out on the curb.
Honestly, looking at bulk items placed at the curb is another great place to find building materials. We spotted some cabinets last week but are not ready yet to buy the cabinets as we have nowhere to store them. The next time we passed by, they were gone, so someone else picked them up to make use of them!
I also sold an old thermos on LetGo for $7, which covered the cost of the tripod. I found out that LetGo combined with OfferUp today (which I was cross-posting some stuff on), so I’m not sure if that means I need to re-list everything I had listed on LetGo… I’ll be looking into it tomorrow.
IG Reels
So I heard about Reels (Instagram’s version of TikTok) a couple of weeks ago, but since I’ve never done TikTok it seemed kind of overwhelming. Now that I have a bit of video content for the van, I decided to put together a few reels today. Embarrassingly, it took me like an hour to make 2 reels. Check them out on our IG page and let me know what you think! If there’s anything you’d be interested to see on Reels, let me know in the comments, DM, or email. I was thinking of doing one about ways to save money on your van build… stay tuned!
P.S. I can’t believe tomorrow is September!!! This year has gone by so fast, and yet we are also so ahead of schedule with our build. I am excited for the fall weather though 🙂
Summary:
8/31/2020
Build Day #6
Hours Worked: 8
- Austin – 4
- Becky – 4
- Total Project Hours: 65.5
Money Spent: $18
- Sink – $5
- Tripod – $5
- Spray Paint – $4
- Masking Tape – $1
- Message Board – $3
- Total Project Spending: $16,692
Tasks Complete: 4
- Check spare tire
- Fix bulkhead stoppers
- Remount taillight
- Remove shelving
Questions Googled: 1
- Research: Best backup camera dashcam (we’re looking to buy one)
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