The Layout

Giant game of Tetris

Now the floor was down, it was time to seriously plan the layout of the van. I knew roughly how I wanted it to fit, and what I wanted to fit in...

So for this I made a scaled down version (1:20) of the van using a sheet of the insulation I had left over and then measured up the larger items such as the bed, kitchen, toilet and shower and cut them out.

I then just placed them on the 'van' to see how they would fit best.. this worked to a certain degree but it's hard to visualise something when doing it this way.

One thing did become clear, the L shaped sofa/bed could only realistically fit in the one place.. as you go in the sliding door. So marked that out in tape, and then put the cushions down to try it.

So the next option was to go out to the van, mark that out in masking tape and then use cardboard to cut a template out with the shower/toilet and kitchen.

What was causing me problems was the wheel arches for the shower tray, so decided against the back door would be best option for the toilet/shower.. this would also allow me to empty the toilet by opening the back door (one less hole to cut in the metalwork)

This also leaves room at the back for a partition to access the gas bottle etc from the back door.

Eventually ended up getting the appliances and putting them into the van, this helped a lot and eventually decided on how it was going to look..

The wheel arches also caused problems for the position for the fridge as it needed vents so couldnt go next to the centre pillar for the windows or too high due to the windows.

As you can see from the above photo, the bed when fully out would be very tight against the fridge by the time a frame was built for the kitchen.

That was the next problem....

Link to Photo Album