Like all projects, creating a campervan from scratch needs to be thought about carefully. We'd made a rough plan of action. By passing expensive and difficult aspects such as adding insulation, fitting a proper floor for instance, it seemed simple.
1) Sort the walls.
2) Sort the frame.
3) Put some drawers in (possibly meaning this is actually step 2 1/2).
4) Do everything else.
Simple. With a bit of effort, we could have it done in a few days. Once again, our judgements were somewhat off, well very off. What probably could have been knocked together in 3 days took double. Here is what a weeks worth of beginner's manual labour looks like.
Excited to have what felt like we had all we would need to get going, we got up early, layered on the sun cream and got cracking. We had decided to re-cover the wall panels and make a start on piecing together the units. I was going to iron our new sheets and Kjel was going to take off the panels. Neither of us got to a particularly great start. I couldn't locate an iron and Kjel couldn't get the wall plugs out of the boards. Super. I caught the neighbours just as they were leaving and sweetly begged to borrow theirs and, with the use of probably the wrong tool for the job, the plugs eventually came out. I finally felt like my G.C.S.E textiles skills were coming into their own. With a little PVA, some pegs and determination, the boards were coming together a treat! With the panels out, Kjel turned his attention to deciphering the instructions for the Ikea units; what he described as like a complicated lego set. With them complete and looking great, we returned to the van to reinstall his walls. At times, it felt like we were screwing into the van blindly but with them all fitted in and with some minor cosmetic adjustments, his interior was looking fab!
One of my more costly ideas was to paint the wood for the frame with a grey chalk-paint (I'd seen a friend use some to reinvigorate some old chests of drawers and it looked great!). I must admit, I was either hoping for a larger pot or it to cost a little less. But nonetheless we got painting. Under the cover of the outside patio, whilst we awaited a forecast predicted storm that really never came, we began what became quite a mammoth task of painting 168 edges of wood. The wood that the
previous owners had bought was a pig to paint: tiny grooves made it three times as hard and probably used the same quantity of paint. Our new wooden beams were far more friendly. With the warmer temperatures, it all dried very quickly. All in all, we were feeling pretty good about the whole thing- other than the financial sting, it had been an enjoyable experience. Under the stupid illusion of "Well it came out of the van pretty quickly, so it should be a breeze to get it back in.", we thought we'd make a start at the reassembling process. A fair few pieces of frame went in lovely but I'm afraid to say that that is where the loveliness ends. The next few paragraphs will be filled with a whole lot of disdain, annoyance and mild to moderate irritability for something that should have been a simple task.
The frame. The backbone to our campervan reinvention. The most ludicrously illogical, frustrating, pain-inducing creation known to man. It defied the laws of physics, mathematics and sense. Every day longer spent scratching our heads, and botching the botch of a botch, became more and more tiring. The previous evening, we thought we'd made a good start. We'd fitted the lower outer frame of the rear of the van. So we thought we'd continue by starting the lower outer frame of the front of the van. Piece by piece, it began to feel like we were getting somewhere and it felt good. But slowly, it began to daunt on us that the slats on the floor didn't align from front to back (the pitfall of not installing a levelled floor) so adjustments had to be made to the efforts from the night before. As the evenings become so dark so quickly, our working days ended much sooner than we'd have liked and despite the usefulness of our head torches, it only became an invitation for all manor of creepy crawlies to come and join us so we packed up for the night.
Returning the next morning, feeling more optimistic, we set out to fit our hideously expensive drawer rails to our larger unit. This was surprisingly easy. But that was where it ended. What happened next could only have looked from afar like some kind of Chuckle brothers sketch, Kjel on his knees holding the unit in one arm, the rails in line with the other, whilst I frantically drilled and screwed the rails in place before the drill died. Needing to screw a few in without the help of a guiding hole, it was in. It rolled back and forwards, mostly forwards as once again the wood was at all sorts of angles, but it was in! My crazy idea, intended to make our lives easier had actually worked!
Having fitted the middle section of frame the day before, we thought this would be a good opportunity to put the upper slats into place. Ha. We had asked the gentleman in Bunnings cut these pieces to 1m 10cm precisely. We double and triple checked. Spot on. Now, while the wood measured equally, there was now a catastrophic overhang of 2-3cm for the top pieces of wood. Are you kidding me? Once we'd both picked our confused jaws from the floor, we decided we'd just hack off some of the overhang with our Kmart 'Performer' hacksaw. Well, like the drill, it too did not live to the name. I thought I'd play it safe and have a practice run. I'm glad I did. 1.5cm in and the 'steel' blade had snapped. Fantastic. In short, to reduce the boringness of what happened next, we returned the saw, bought a shiny new 'Stanley' one and all was right in the world again. We lopped off the ends and the wood fit. Hooray.
Continuing the frame construction had encouraged our inner-most potty mouths to break free. "What the BLEEP! Why won't this BLEEPING thing fit? For BLEEPS sake, it isn't lining up again! It doesn't make any BLEEPING sense!" To be honest, BLEEP could represent any of the profanities that exist in our illustrious vocabulary- take your pick. It was enraging and baffling; painful and exhausting. This continued for the entire 6 days of building. 6. While there were individual events in each day that I could perhaps elaborate on, I shall instead merge it together as come the point in which I find myself reflecting and writing, it all feels one and the same, a hideous blur. Each time we looked at the next piece, something else didn't fit. Gaps as big as my finger were beginning to emerge woefully, but we fixed them in place nonetheless. As more wood became permanently placed, the room to move shrank. I found myself once again in precarious positions. Tightly squeezed between posts, mostly upside down, blood draining from the limbs that needed it, pins and needles setting in like a plague. The tools we had were clearly tired and not having learnt from the previous two failings, we persevered with the "Performer" drill. Well let's say, I managed to snap the same drill piece twice (my "Oh cr*p!" face clearly documented for all)... and then followed this up by snapping the next one. Our kit was seeming as useful as a lead balloon. Fearing our entire operation would come to a hault at an alarming lack of brackets to hold our contraption together, we raided the scraps of wood, which fortunately gifted us the amount we needed.
By Saturday evening, both drawers were in and much of the frame was securely bonded together. Come Sunday, our enthusiasm had somewhat wained. In all honesty, we'd had enough of the emotional rollercoaster that the frame wanted to drag us on so we spend half the day in bed like old farts. It was magnificent. But feeling somewhat guilty, we went to see what could be done in the few remaining hours of sunlight. This was a grand idea it turned out.
There is so much to be said for the kindness of neighbours. In all honesty, we were pretty closed off in our cosy flat in Essex and we sort of liked it that way. We had made a few friends in the nearly two years of living there but most exchanges in the carpark resembled grunts and "Alright?" with absolutely no other small talk (bar the estate communal gathering when we feared that there was a major building issue or when we needed to bitch about our shoddy maintenance company). But here, we were made aware of the general friendliness of the Aussy folk and it paid off for all. It transpired that our next door neighbour was an electrician. What a spot of good luck. Having come for a chin wag and given us a brief on many things we could do to make our van better, he suggested fitting an external power source that meant we could hook up to electricity at campsites when we finally got going. It seemed like a great idea but neither Kjel or I knew anything about how to go about that but within 30 seconds of asking if he'd be able to do that for us, Dan had pulled everything out of his van, sized it up and gave us a bloody good estimate for the cost. The deal was done! We agreed to get cracking the following morning, and because the Aussies (well QLD) were preparing to have a public holiday that celebrates having a day off- like seriously? It's the epitome of the laid back lifestyle, having already had what felt like a dozen public holidays since we arrived- we rushed to the shops to buy everything that would help us get through another day of closures.
The weekend had felt like any other week day- as we were doing pretty much the same as any other day. But Labour day felt quiet, like the Sunday we felt we hadn't had. Within 2 hours of starting, the installation of the electric hook up was done. All we needed was a light and we were good to go. It was a masterpiece of tubing and wires; the feeling of power and the knowledge that I would be able to use my new travel hairdryer whilst we travelled was hugely elating. Another major step towards our cushty camper living. And then we got going. We had 2 slats left. 6 fittings later and we were down two 1 slat. It was exciting stuff. We had faced many irrationally challenging obstacles, used tools that were not fit for shop shelves and overcame mathematically impossible measurements and it was done. The last screw was in and the frame, the spine of our van, was complete. I can only assume that the feeling is much the same as childbirth. Mostly painful, causing definite irritation at the thing causing it and at the person helping you through it but overall, that moment of bliss, when the blood, sweat and tears from the trauma wash away at the sight of your beautiful creation.
A brand new frame, ready for a brand new mattress.
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