We are very excited to be sharing this post with you, this is the first glimpse you guys will get into how we imagine our converted van to look like! We have loved working with Matt & Naomi over at Wandering Wheels, they’ve given us the freedom to design and be involved in every detail, whilst using their experience and knowledge to guide and influence our decisions for a truly collaborative and improved result!
This has been where I’ve loved being more involved, it’s given me the chance to crack out my A level design learnings from over 20 years ago (how is it that long) and flex my creative muscle in designing and drawing the plans for our camper and I’ve loved it!
Plan view of the layout
We’ve been researching van layout extensively by watching many a youtube video and looking over the Quirky Camper website for inspiration. We knew that we wanted to have plenty of seating in the van, so we can eat and socialise, giving it a feeling of space to relax and lollop. We also wanted to have plenty of seating to give us the opportunity to work from the van in the future. We needed plenty of room that was out of the way for storage of muddy boots and cycling equipment, so we came up with the idea of the C-shape seating area that was slightly raised to maximise the garage space and giving us a relatively long table to operate on, it also helped as we wanted to avoid having over head storage in the seating area and removing the chance for banging heads! In working with Matt and a few sketches back and forth, we also realised we could make use of the raised floor area to store the table legs when the bed is in place, making use of every nook and cranny.
Kitchen area
The layout design changed a few times throughout our conversations and we’re so happy with the final design and we’re now very excited to see it coming to life with the updates we get from Wandering Wheels each day :)
Once we had the layout locked in, we then started to think about the aesthetic of the van. We stumbled across an idea when we went out in the van one day, Pete wore an orange jumper and we thought it looked great against the blue paintwork, and as we developed the idea further, we found further inspiration from nature and based our colour scheme on the striking colours of a Kingfisher bird and we are now totally smitten with the idea and having to resist buying Kingfisher EVERYTHING!
The view from the “garage”
We’re still holding off on buying anything for the interior until we actually set foot inside the van, but that didn’t stop me taking 20 photos of various teal and orange cushions in John Lewis yesterday! 🤣
We'd love to hear your ideas too and what you'd like to see us kit the van out with! What would you most like to have in the van when you rent it out? Comment here or on our social media!