It has been a busy and tough month. The arrival of winter and excess amounts of cold and rain and snow has not only made working on the van more challenging, but also more pressing as the cold weather is also coinciding with an alarming rise in local COVID numbers so I’ve really been feeling the weight of the van’s necessity as a workspace pressing down on my shoulders. We are now able to use the van as a usable workspace, but my anxiety and stress around finishing the entire van in the next few weeks just keeps building. The construction part was the easiest - not easy by any means - but far more within my wheelhouse of skills. What is left is the plumbing and electrical system, of which I’ve spent hundreds of hours researching and planning. I have said from the get go that I don’t know anything about this yet it is still all on me to make sure it all works. So needless to say I’m exhausted and frustrated and panicked that I won’t be able to make this aspect of the business work that has unexpectedly fallen solely to me. BUT from the outside - yeah I guess it’s coming along.
In the last update, I had completed framed out most of the build. It was at this point that I really had to give a LOT of thought about the order of operations to what was left to do. I had to figure out what sections needed to be fully finished before another piece was attached, as well as the added challenge of needing to have the space as a usuable workspace before finishing everything - which ultimately makes more work for me, needing to dismantle some things again in order to access behind some panels. Because I needed to finish components in a weird order, I went ahead and figured out a basic plan for what would be the finished look in the van.
We decided it was important for us to have a fridge on the van in order to store the cheese and peanut butter we use as treats for many of our dog clients. I ordered a 12v fridge designed for use in campervans and built a drawer to fit it (and yes, this required some forthought to make sure I left enough space to accommodate this). In the future perhaps I will add drawer slides to this to make it a proper drawer instead of just a crate we slide out, but this will work fine for now.
I started to complete what I could before needing to close up all the paneling (which I needed access to in order to decipher all the wiring). First thing to tackle with color was the doors for the cabinet under the grooming table and the water tank cabinet. These needed to be painted before being assembled.
Once I ran the wire needed for the backup camera I installed, and identified which wires I needed to reroute and reuse for the lights I will install, I was finally able to put back up all the interior panels: first the ceiling, then the upper walls, then the custom cut lower wall panels, then finally the refinished window frame panels that trap everything else in. Once the panels were up, I was able to attach and finish the grooming table, and could finally tackle the bulkhead cabinet (which like everything, couldn’t be finished until the wall panels were back up, and proved to be exceedingly difficult to build in the put together then take apart again style in which everything else was built).
Let me just say: I hate this cabinet with a passion. It is hands down the worst thing I’ve ever built and everytime I look at it I see all my frustrations with it. Every inch of it screams “I DON’T CARE”. The space is a weird shape. Beyond there not being a single right angle (or straight edge), it is also asymmetrical in every direction. So I just sort of gave up and built it as I went, installing rivnuts on the closest frame support I could find to attach it to and then just shrugged as I walked away from it, too overwhelmed with the rest of the project to care too much about this ugly cabinet. It’s fine. It will hold things. But I hate it.
I got some help installing the bench seat that we had removed from the back of the van. This provides a passenger seat in the van as well as a nice additional work space for us (yes, we often groom pets in my lap).
With the seat installed I was able to tackle installing the floor and did a few other things to make a usuable work space for us.
I can’t even express how much I wish this were all done, but it’s not - I have the most difficult and nervewracking parts left. My last 6 months have been taken over completely by this project that I had no intention of having solely on my plate and did not exactly volunteer for. Everything else in my life has been forced to the backburner until I get through building this van. This is not something that I’ve known how to do or have some magical innate skill or knowledge of. I have put in the effort, the time, and the struggle of taking on this challenge single handedly. Fingers crossed the next steps go smoother than I’m expecting as I work through the holiday, and we will have our promised bathing services to the appointments that are already filling up the books.
We have, of course, already hosted some pretty excellent and very adorable clients of ours in our cozy van space.
